Beauty always trumps the top Human Ideals

Rating: Null/10 (6 October 2007)

PRETTYWOMANas poor thesis for humanity As long as we are talking about women, beauty, etc., I thought I would bring up my singular position as actually having HATED the movie "Pretty Woman" as opposed to everyone else I talk to. The movie "Pretty Woman" appears to do injustice to the realistic expectations of our youth in the sense that this movie preyed upon the sensual powers of attraction that physical beauty has over the intellect and other non-physical attributes which, on the other hand, truly are the foundations for the ideal man and woman relationships. When it was said, "It must be difficult leaving something so beautiful" (this being a $250,000 necklace as a concrete representation of a beautiful woman) such placement of beauty on a pedestal lends to the difficulty of maintaining one's grasp of the conventional ideal that a well-educated person, amongst other ideals, is to be placed on the pinnacle of desirability. After all, beauty of the human being does not take outstanding craftsmanship as needed to create such a necklace....nor does a naturally beautiful person require any major toil and effort on the part of many to obtain the raw materials for these craftsmen. Rather, quite simply, this beautiful woman symbolizes the antithesis of all requisite efforts that must come together to create and produce wealth of mankind. In short, random luck provides a particular human being with an attractive appearance that trumps all other ideals that we hold as more important. The powerful, intellectual, and educated man's (Richard Gere's character) choice for this woman (Julia Robert's character) primarily on beauty alone, tends to denigrate all of the human effort to rise above our baseline naivete and ignorance. With all of his character's accomplishment, why does he not seek out a woman who has climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, collected high level degrees, and started her own successful company, etc.? This film captures the dilemma for man---that, in spite of our ideal of becoming honest in the sense of Ayn Rand's thesis ("An honest man (or woman) is one who does not consume more than he produces or creates") and productive through the development of our minds, he still cannot resist basic God-given beauty. By the popularity of this movie, I think it points out this phenomenon, and furthermore tends to promote beauty over the other ideals. In fact, there are masses of achievers and educated individuals who successfully ward off the temptations of beauty and choose the attractiveness of a well-developed mind and on-going accomplishment. To me, this movie seems to help perpetuate the sophomoric and juvenile concept that beauty, romantic relationships, and self-directed pleasure rather than development of God-given potential are all that life is about. One might say that this movie gives the beautiful person (as well as the person who perceives oneself as such) a mistaken notion, or at least a temptation, to rely solely on that beauty and to ultimately cash in on it and as a result live a superficial meaningless life, without ever achieving one's God-given potential. Chazz