Gabriela Allen
November 2, 2014
Professor Young
ENGL 1100
Essay #3
Beauty as a positive or negative
Have you
ever wondered if the way a person looks determines how far they go or don’t go
in life? Most people believe that the
way you look plays a great role in how you deal with your life. Beauty has its perks and then it doesn’t. It
can sometimes be considered as the devil, for sure. Sometimes it gets you
somewhere without trying or the other way around where you don’t get away with
anything and you have to work at whatever goal you are trying to achieve. Beauty
is considered both negative and positive. It is not fair to judge someone’s
beauty, whether it is positively or negatively done.
Beauty is a
topic commonly discussed in our world because our society is obsessed with it. There are always positive aspects towards it. If you show yourself off and put yourself out
there because you are beautiful, you will get a job over another woman that may
have ugly clothes compared to you or just someone who is not naturally
beautiful. Cameron Russell states,” When I was a teenager, I was driving with my friend who was
an awful driver and she ran a red and of course, we got pulled over, and all it
took was a ‘Sorry, officer,’ and we were on our way” (Russell 6:20). Not only will you get a job, you will
also get out of tickets when you get pulled over, as discussed in Cameron
Russell’s Ted Talk.
Imagine being at a bar when you are
of legal age. If you are that beautiful
girl that every guy has gone up to talk to, you will probably get a free drink
out of it. That is their money wasted
and you are not the one now wasting away your money! Having beauty has its perks, considered as
these ones specifically.
As you have
seen, beauty has its positives. But, unfortunately,
there are many more negatives aside from the positives. In Cameron Russell’s Ted Talk she talks about
how beauty is seen as fake. She states
how when you are a model people expect you to be perfect. She shows the
audience pictures of herself all done up for he career and herself when she is
at home. There is a difference in how
she looks, but our world expects these models to be thin and look perfect at
all times, so that is definitely a big negative. More negatives also come out of being
beautiful. Sometimes beautiful people who
know they are beautiful become cocky or some have more insecurity then you
expect. Beauty aspect of a woman makes
that woman run higher risks of getting sexually assaulted or harassed. If you are a gorgeous girl walking alone
somewhere or with someone who is not usually as pretty, you are automatically a
target. Even if you are under the
influence a man will the advantage of you or they will try to get you drunk.
I don’t
believe that the negatives and positives of beauty are fair. I believe true beauty should come from within
and that is kind of how Aimee Mullen’s describes beauty in her Ted Talk. Aimee Mullen’s states,
And people would come up to me after the conference, after my
talk, men and women. And the conversation would go something like this,
"You know Aimee, you're very attractive. You don't look disabled."
(Laughter) I thought, "Well, that's amazing, because I don't feel
disabled." And it really opened my eyes to this conversation that could be
explored, about beauty. What does a beautiful woman have to look like? What is
a sexy body? And interestingly, from an identity standpoint, what does it mean
to have a disability? I mean, people -- Pamela Anderson has more prosthetic in
her body than I do. Nobody calls her disabled (Mullen’s 3:32-3:38).
She talks about her
disability and it shouldn’t determine your beauty. Cameron Russell talks about beauty in a
negative way while Aimee Mullen’s talks about it in a positive way. Both of them determine how beauty is
constructed. Mullen’s discusses how it
is perception while Russell believes beauty is not real.
Beauty in a positive and negative way
is both unfair. It truly can be
considered the devil. Some crimes happen
because of beauty. For example, rape and
molestation are one of these crimes. No
one really realizes the effects that beauty has towards life events and the
future of your life.
Beauty has
its positives and negatives, as discussed.
It is not fair to say that beauty controls some of your future endeavors
an how hard you may or may not have to work just to end up somewhere in your
life. With the positive effects of
beauty, I do not believe it is fair.
Just because you are beautiful does not mean that you are more able to
get a job or get away with paying ticket rather than someone who is not as
attractive as you may be. Negative effects of beauty are also unfair. If you are attractive, you should not be set
as a target towards sexual assault. No
one should have to go through that mental and physical breakdown just because
they are beautiful.
Work Cited
Russell, Cameron.
“Looks aren’t everything. Believe
me, I’m a model.” Ted talk. Ted Talk. Oct. 2012.
Web. 15 Nov. 2014.
Mullen’s, Aimee. “My
12 pairs of Legs.” Ted Talk. Ted Talk. Feb. 2009.
Web. 15 Nov. 2014.
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