People Magazine’s annual celebrity ego boost list was revealed this past Friday, in which they rank the 100 most beautiful (read: most aesthetically pleasing) people (read: celebrities) in the world (read: Hollywood).
The list is completely self-indulgent and meaningless, but as a man once prone to listing the hottest Big Brother housemates (I have Excel spreadsheets to prove it), I can hardly judge the existence of such a list, but I can sure as hell criticise its contents.
Number one on the list, and therefore “the most beautiful person in the world”, is Jennifer Lopez. Really? Yes, J-Lo. Now, it would be hard to argue that Miss Lopez is unattractive, because, well, she isn’t - but is she beautiful? I’m not sure, its a pretty big claim. It’s not quite as shocking to me as the recent Comic Relief fuss, when Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton pledged to strip to her bikini if listeners reached the £2 million mark; she has the body-frame of an 11 year old boy, who on earth wants to see that? (resisting urge for obvious Michael Jackson joke) Plenty of people it turns out, because the £2 million mark was easily reached, and the Cotton strip caused the Radio 1 website to crash.
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, we’re all familiar with that saying, and its true, beauty is completely subjective, but when you’re dealing with the world of celebrity you have to understand that different rules apply.
Celebrity culture, especially in the US, has a preconceived notion of beauty, a common consensus that is shared by the consumer nation in magazines, music videos, television, and movies. Celebrity beauty is unblemished, shiny, slick, and overly-photoshopped. Any slight physical imperfection is looked at as a flaw, and would significantly effect your placing on such a list. Remember, we were forced to believe that America Ferrera was “ugly” simply because she wore glasses and had braces!
It’s nothing new, mainstream entertainment has always tried to tell us what is “hot” and what is “not”. I still have anger towards the film The Truth About Cats and Dogs, which cast Uma Thurman as the stunning, irresistible model, and Janeane Garofalo as the unattractive, unwanted single-woman. When the main concept of your movie is supposed to be one character being significantly hotter than the other, then don’t cast Janeane Garofalo as the ugly chick! I’m not saying Uma Thurman is a munter, she isn’t, but I spent the entire film thinking I’d choose to go out with Janeane Garofalo’s character, because its Janeane fucking Garofalo!
I had a similar reaction to People Magazine’s list; its not that I find Jennifer Lopez unattractive, but why should she be number one out of the many many celebrities to choose from? Maybe it’s just another step in the mass marketing plan of her career resurgence, what with her joining the judging panel on American Idol and hawking L’Oreal products, and its not as if she has a new album to promote…oh, wait a minute. Cynical, moi? It brings to mind that episode of The Larry Sanders Show where Larry gets Ben Stiller bumped off People Magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive list.
There are some positives about the list though, Jennifer Lopez is 41 years old, which makes her a “mature” woman, and she is what celeb magazines label “curvaceous”, and its nice to see that those factors haven’t hindered her placing. Also, the absence of Megan Fox from the Top 10 is a reason to celebrate; people are constantly trying to tell me that she is beautiful, but to me it seems like she was created in a machine by the Generically Attractive Doll company.
In summary, I don’t resent Jennifer Lopez’s ranking, I just think there are plenty more celebrities that could have taken that number one spot. I’ve only read the Top 15, but where is Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, are red-heads banned? Or Monica Belluci, now there’s a “mature” “curvaceous” woman! How about Andrea Anders from the criminally-cancelled Better Off Ted? Or poker-star goddess Liv Boeree? Or the woman that helped make baking sexy, Lorraine Pascale? Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman, Karen Gillan, Diana Vickers, Kym Marsh, Louisa Lytton…wait a second, now I’m just listing people!
by Martin Holmes