Monday, January 18, 2010

On Superficiality + Countdown to the Yeariversary: T-minus 10 Days!

I think it's hilarious that people, myself included, get annoyed by the sheer number of incredibly attractive people on television.

Of course they're attractive. We like looking at attractive people. Some shows just load themselves up with nines and tens and it breaks our suspension of disbelief. "Hey," we say to whoever is around to hear us and sometimes to no one, because it is particularly unnerving to see so many attractive people in one location and not be able to comment on it, "There are literally zero unattractive people in this show. None. Nada. Zilch. The average hotness of this show as numerically ranked by a deaf person is in the high percentiles.…Maaaaaaaan…."

That's what we say. Verbatim.

Or not. The problem is we always do say the same thing: "Can't they put, like, some unattractive people in this show?" or perhaps, "Man, is anybody who goes to this [school/office/coffee bar/etc] not super-hot?"

We gripe about there being too many attractive people in shows like you're probably griping about there being too many italicized words on this page.

Unfortunately, we are keenly aware and rather scornful of shows that do feature less-than-unattainable thespians. And I don't mean Ron Howard's brother or Steve Buscemi noticably unattractive, I mean Jenna Elfman hot. Like, yeah, she's hot for a real person but I would probably stand a chance with her.

When I have to way attractiveness on a quantifiable scale (though as a wordsmith I much prefer the Under-Used Adjective Scale) I stand by my methodology: "Normal people" or "normies" get the numbers 1-8, while 9 requires some kind of celebrity status because frankly no one without a publicist and personal make-up artist/photoshopper can achieve that kind of perceived beauty. 10 Is reserved for a 9 who also seems to have a really good personality.

What I'm saying is Jenna Elfman is like a 7. And I'm talking first season "Dharma & Greg" Jenna Elfman, not 10-years-later, 'Let's make Knocked Up a network series!' Jenna Elfman.

Look, the point is people bitch about there being too many attractive people in shows when they feel guilty for only watching for the attractive people. Likewise people bitch when decent shows don't have anyone attractive enough, but you stick by them try to say nice things about them anyway, like you're trying to set up a blind date for your overweight best friends. You talk as best you can about intent and personality and how funny they are, but in the end what you're really saying is they're not much to look at.

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