When I look around the world, I see a lot of people. Some of them are gorgeous — tall and lean with white teeth and strong jawlines. But for every Instagram model, there are about 10 people with acne, crooked teeth, fat stomachs and weak chins. Sit next to a stranger in class or on public transportation and chances are they have a weird mole or greasy hair. Maybe they have all the ingredients of someone who should be attractive, yet there’s still something just not quite right about their appearance. Ugly people are everywhere. So why do we so rarely see them in movies or on TV? I, for one, am tired of hot people hogging the spotlight while average looking people are relegated to the sidelines.
After a long day of work, classes and awkward social interactions, your average college student wants nothing more than to flop down on the sofa, grab a comfy blanket and flip through Netflix for something to watch. Their options include: hot people falling in love, hot people solving mysteries, hot people with weapons, ugly people being funny, hot people being funny, hot people being doctors and the list goes on. So many muscular men, scantily clad women, sparkling teeth, dazzling eyes… doesn’t it start to get boring after a while?
No. Of course it doesn’t. But it does start to feel not so great. When the stars of your favorite movies or TV shows are hotter than you, it does more than just remind you how unattractive you are in comparison. It further solidifies the narrative that good looking people are smarter, funnier, more desirable and more worthy of love.
We may know ugly people can be just as cool, smart and interesting as attractive people, however, we aren’t internalizing the message. Most of us are ugly in comparison to the actors and actresses we see on-screen. Yet the ugliest members of society are more likely to be described as stupid, untrustworthy and mean when compared to their attractive counterparts. They are also less likely to be hired, more likely to be denied loans and are, on average, fined up to four times more in court for misdemeanor charges than attractive people. For the ugliest among us, being ugly is not just an insecurity. Instead, it affects how they are treated in their day to day lives.
When ugly people do show up in movies and TV shows, they are a side character at best. At worst, they’re the villain, the office creep or the butt of the joke. They are never the love interest or the hero who the audience aspires to be. Ugly has become more than a statement about one’s physical appearance. Instead, ugliness is a trait on which we project all sorts of other negative traits. If a person is ugly, they must also be weird, dumb, mean and uncool.
A lot of us are ugly, so there should be people pushing for greater representation and social acceptance of the ugly community. But the taboo around ugliness makes it hard to advocate for ugly people as a social group. In a beauty obsessed culture, ugly is one of the worst things a person can be. They can’t discuss their experiences of being unattractive without feeling shame and embarrassment. They can’t even celebrate on-screen victories, such as when an ugly actor or actress lands a leading role in a movie, without sounding mean spirited.
For now, no mainstream coalition advocates on behalf of the unattractive, and if you’re reading this, chances are you aren’t interested in becoming the face of the movement. However, there are still steps you can take to help advocate for ugly people: Be kind to the ugly people in your life. If you start to dislike someone who you know is ugly, ask yourself: Are they really mean, rude or stupid? Or are they just unattractive? Call out your friends and family when they make fun of someone for their looks or insinuate that it is bad to be ugly. Lastly, go out of your way to consume media in which average looking and ugly people are represented as 3D human beings.
Every day, an ugly person is told they have “a face for the radio.” I, however, look forward to a future where I turn on the TV and see acne, crooked teeth and double chins.