Why beauty is a curse

I used to see someone who was beautiful and fight down a wave of wistfulness—how lovely to have those clear, thick-lashed green eyes, that perfect nose, that long, graceful neck… What I really wanted, Whitefield-Madrano suggests, was not the individual features but the life such attributes would bring: the confidence and social ease, the thrill of pleasing perfect strangers simply by existing, the reassurance of being admired and cherished.

Read more by Jeannette Cooperman here. Louis, offers the best in reviews, articles and creative non-fiction engaging the essential debates and issues of our time. I spent the first decades of my life staring in a mirror. Now I have shattered it. Why did I think I had to check every box? Besides, sometimes it is more fun to appreciate a gift from afar.

Pat Jones would snort. You can have all of that just by being yourself. Twitter Facebook Email. Close this module. Subscribe to our "Mixed Issue" email newsletter! Byatt's novel Possession features Maud Bailey, who as a professor of feminist literature finds her beauty such a curse that she keeps her head shaved for a while, then ties her hair up in tight braids and a scarf to fend off the accusations of her peers that she grows and dyes it to please men.

Arguably, the book is conscious of this trope she has an ex-lover who used to trapeze around naked and pointedly quote Yeats's "Your Yellow Hair" at her , but plays it very straight. Thomas Raith from The Dresden Files is a good incubus. Naturally, he has the supernaturally good looks one would expect an incubus to have, however he feeds on people via sex, and it can easily lead to Death by Sex , which he is unwilling to do due to being a good person and having made the woman he loved almost suffer that fate.

He was also for a while unable to hold a job, as his mostly female colleagues would throw themselves at him. Hell, he couldn't even go for a walk without random joggers throwing themselves all over him. Another, darker example would be Lily. All she wanted was to settle down, get married and have a family of her own, but because she's a changeling half human, half Sidhe , she's been tormented and abused by Lloyd Slate, the Winter Knight yes, like that purely because of her beauty.

Then she was a pawn in the Summer Lady Aurora's mad plan to end the war of Summer and Winter, the end result being that Lily was forcibly made the Summer Lady after Aurora's death. The Summer Queen Titania, mourning the sudden, painful loss of her daughter, was not willing or able to mentor her in her new role, leaving Lily easy prey to the machinations of the Winter Lady Maeve, who was if anything even more mad than Aurora had been.

She then gets tricked into an even more convoluted plot that would've both destroyed a huge part of the US and unleashed insanely powerful, nigh-unkillable dark creatures on the world, all while believing that she's the hero of the story.

And to top it off, Maeve then unceremoniously kills her off, just to spite her mother Mab, the Winter Queen. To worsen her misery, she has a mostly ordinary sister, with lots of boyfriends. Her family constantly battle to maintain her under protection because, even if she looks like an adult, she has the mental age of a preschool kid , which causes her to do and say things that are genuinely innocent but, to the ones who only see her hot body and pretty face, came out as seductive and provocative.

Whatever they try to mitigate her beauty backfires, only increasing her hotness. The poor girl is completely unaware of her own attractiveness or the reactions she provokes, and when people start to die out of love of her because they were distracted by her beauty she is unfazed and qualifies them as simple and dumb. The initial antagonist of Justine Larbalestier's How to Ditch Your Fairy isn't especially beautiful, but she has a literal All the Boys Like You fairy which makes her damn near irresistible to anything with XY chromosomes, regardless of sexual orientation; the only thing is, not only is she not all that interested in boys, she's miserably harassed and intimidated by their constant refusal to take "go away" for an answer, and none of the other girls in school will talk to her because they think she must be reveling in the attention from their boyfriends.

In the Wild Cards anthology series, Succubus is a Joker-Ace whose mutation causes her to look and act like the perfect lover for whomever gazes upon her.

Her parents pimped her out when she was a child, and her life does not improve from there. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga : Commander Elli Quinn: After getting her face burned off in a space battle, Miles pays for it to be replaced with the best face that 30th-century reconstructive surgery can supply.

She is initially delighted with her new face, "but the second time a soldier made a pass at me instead of following an order, I knew I definitely had a problem. It's not the beauty itself; it's because her change in appearance happened after she had already spent decades not being stunningly beautiful.

Growing up she had never learned how to handle being treated this way—never learned how to politely let somebody know she is uninterested or learned how her naturally friendly personality could be misinterpreted.

In Shards of Honor , many female prisoners-of-war suffer sexual assault at the hands of the Barrayarans, but a particularly beautiful Escobaran woman is picked for Vorrutyer's most creative tortures, simply because her striking beauty made her stand out. Magic by the Numbers : It's brought up by someone talking to the fey character in Riddle of the Seven Realms. She subsequently comes to adopt this trope as her own, and ends up in a relationship with Astron, because he's the only one who she believes can love her for herself.

Clara's beauty and charm may have played a part in ruining her family's fortunes. At one point, she says her looks overshadow any other aspect of her personality; Clara is juxtaposed with her stepsister Iris, who, despite being thin and plain, is observant, witty, and enduring. It awed people. Even hardened charmers, eligible young men about town, felt uneasy in her presence, clumsy and dirty and tongue-tied.

Quite early on in her teens she had felt intuitively that instead of attracting love, she might even helplessly repel it, through being too beautiful. I will be sad. I will be sad, and confused, and irritable, very often.

Bunny: That's all men want from a woman. Skeeve: Come on, Bunny. That's not fair[ Augustus: But can I help my own deadly beauty? Hazel: You cannot. Augustus: It is my burden, this beautiful face. Christian: I disapprove of your character, Mrs. Venetia: You do not know my character. You only know my face. Katalina had hair that was so light blond it was white in the sunlight, and pale skin to match. She was the embodiment of winter. Live-Action TV.

All My Children : Erica Kane, while a Proud Beauty later in life, was subjected to this, when her Hollywood Big Shot wannabe father Eric Kane , allowed one of his movie star friends to rape his lovely daughter in return to star in one of his movies.

She was 14 at the time. On a meta level, Susan Lucci was almost passed over for the role of Erica, as the casting directors thought she was too beautiful to play the part. A girl in cycle 13 or 14 of America's Next Top Model whines about how people don't understand how difficult it is to be beautiful.

Momoyama Lily, the main character in the Japanese drama Anna-san no Omame a. The Best Friend of Beautiful Anna is so convinced of her own beauty that she constantly thinks that people that she meets are either coming on to her or jealous of her beauty. A predicament that she bemoans loudly. A Reality Show contestant, Audrey Evans of The Apprentice , dove headfirst into this trope when she tearfully declared that she earned everything she has despite her life sucking because, among other things , girls she encountered growing up hated her for her beauty.

Parodied in Better Off Ted. Veronica, handling a complaint from a group of black employees, tell them that she, too, knows what it's like to deal with discrimination Veronica: If it wasn't for the modeling contracts and the comfort of college boys, I don't know how I would have made it.

Ari: The point, Eric is that he is an insecure fuck — just like every other beautiful-but-handed-everything-on-a-silver-plater person. He doesn't trust anyone in this world besides you. You've been born into royalty, baby. You know it. Now all you gotta do is be thankful and wear the crown. Joey: Fine, take their advice, no one ever listens to me. When the package is this pretty, no one cares what's inside! Izzie: What are these? Oh, my God! How does anybody practice medicine hauling these things around?

And what have we got back here? Let's see if I remember my anatomy. Glutes, right? Let's study them, shall we? Gather around and check out the booty that put Izzie Stevens through med school! Have you had enough, or should I continue, because I have a few more very interesting tattoos.

You want to call me Dr. That's fine. Just remember that while you're still sitting on two hundred grand of student loans I'm out of debt. Gloria: Is that all I am?

A pretty face? Bella: No, we need your tits and ass too. Jess: Ever since she got boobs, people stopped making her do stuff. Ani Difranco's lyrics, from "32 Flavours" include the lines "God help you if you are an ugly girl. Of course, too pretty is also your doom, because everyone harbours a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room. Which did become an actual plot in an episode see below Done more seriously and convincingly with Emilie Autumn 's "Thank God I'm Pretty", which is about the impositions made upon pretty women.

Thank God I'm pretty Every skill I ever have will be in question Every ill that I must suffer merely brought on by myself Though the cops would come for someone else, I'm blessed I'm truly privileged to look this good without clothes on Which only means that when I sing you're jerking off And when I'm gone you won't remember Thank God I'm pretty.

Oh, oh Jane, desired by the people at her school and work Jane is tired 'cause every man becomes a lovesick jerk. You know that it's crazy You wanna trust her Then somebody hangs up when you answer the phone If you want to be happy living a king's life Never make a pretty woman your wife Now all you have to do is just what I say And then you may be jolly, merry and gay Therefore, from a logical point of view Better marry a woman uglier than you.

Cos even beauty can be a curse when you're Everyone thinks you have money and friends, often and by heaps, at that I know a lot of people but no-one that I could talk to And men want only one thing, I can't find a single one I could live with I don't like sex and guys stress me out like hell I was premature and was raped already at age 13 and I feel like screaming, everything's so shitty Only my mother keeps me from pouring acid into my own face Cos I don't want to be pretty anymore, no I know y'all must be thinking "She's got to be crazy" When he turns her down, she hits him with a False Rape Accusation and gets him thrown in jail for several years.

Based on this story, both Jewish and Islamic legends describe him as being one of the handsomest men to ever live. He may have inherited it from his mother Rachel: Jewish tradition notes that when the family is meeting Joseph's Evil Uncle Esau, Joseph is listed as stepping out in front of his mother, while his half-siblings stood behind theirs. Apparently Joseph was worried that Esau would see Rachel and want to kidnap her for himself.

He got rid of the last one. Esther seems determined not to win, since she doesn't do anything to beautify herself before meeting him. Guess who winds up the new queen anyway. Celtic Mythology : Deirdre of Irish lore was the daughter of the royal storyteller of the king the kingdom of Ulster and her legendary beauty made her life suck so much kings and lords, among other men, fought over her that she is given the epithet "Deirdre of the Sorrows.

This later kills him as the king with healing hands didn't like how his fiance eyed him and ran away with him, and had children with him and didn't treat his wounds until it was too late. He met his end after turning down the wrong warrior-goddess. Classical Mythology : Helen of Sparta later of Troy , from Greek Mythology, was "the face that launched a thousand ships" and kicked off the ten-year Trojan War between her lover Paris and her husband Menelaus.

A war in which she did not have fun. If you read the myths that lead up to The Trojan War , Helen was living a moderately quiet and happy life before her status as "the most beautiful" got her tapped to be the bribe in a contest between three vain goddesses. She also got kidnapped when she was eight because her beauty was already evident, and nearly caused a war between her suitors. It took Odysseus's wisdom to prevent it. Poor, poor Helen. Psyche was so beautiful that first, everyone was worshiping her as a goddess, but no one was willing to marry her and then, second, Aphrodite — the goddess of beauty — got jealous , and sent her son Eros to make her fall in love with something loathsome.

Psyche was so beautiful that Eros, the god of love, fell in love with her himself and refused to carry out Aphrodite's instructions, instead taking her to live in luxury with him. Psyche ruins paradise by ignoring Eros's warning not to look at him at night and accidentally burning him with lamp oil, but, after a decent amount of suffering, Eros still loves her and convinces Zeus to elevate Psyche to immortality.

Princess Andromeda had a similar story to Psyche, with a little help from her Stage Mom , Cassiopeia, who bragged incessantly about her daughter's beauty. That got the poor girl Chained to a Rock and about to be eaten by a monster until her soon-to-be husband Perseus stopped by after killing Medusa and pulled a Big Damn Heroes. Narcissus, this trope's most famous victim. He was so beautiful that pretty much every woman and man who looked upon him fell in love with him.

He knew about this, and was a jerk about it, to the point of urging at least one suitor to commit suicide.

The gods, wishing to punish him, arranged things so that he would fall in love with his own reflection in a lake, resulting in him wasting away because he didn't want to tear his gaze away from the sight.

Hyacinthos was another famous victim from Greek mythology. He was so beautiful that two gods fell in love with him , Apollo and Zephyrus. Zephyrus ended up killing him in a jealous rage. Medusa , who in one version of her myth was turned into a monster by Athena because Poseidon "was overcome by her beauty" and raped her in Athena's temple. In the original she always was a monster. Adonis was so stunningly beautiful that he charmed two goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone when he was a baby.

While the two goddesses initially agreed to joint custody , the moment Adonis awoke to hormones Aphrodite used her powers to make him fall in love with her. The jealous Persephone told Aphrodite's on-and-off lover Ares about her new beau, and he killed Adonis in a jealous rage. Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was so beautiful that Zeus fell in love with him, decided to kidnap him and took him to live with him in Olympus as cupbearer for all eternity, gaining himself the anger of Hera in the process.

So much so that Zeus had to turn Ganymede into the constellation Aquarius "Water-bearer". Some myths from the Orphic tradition say that Persephone was courted vigorously by many gods besides Hades because of her beauty.

Demeter had to hide her in a cave in Sicily to help her escape her suitors and even then she was seduced by Zeus in the form of a serpent.

The whole thing ended with the famous abduction. Sita in the epic Ramayana is kidnapped by Demon King, Ravana because of her legendary beauty. She is also humiliated and stripped in the open court. Ara the Handsome was an Armenian hero considered so fair that the Assyrian queen Semiramis waged a war on Armenia just to capture him and have him for herself.

He ends up dying because of this. In American Indigenous tales , Mt. Helens is often the heroine or at least one of the heroines among the Puyallup, Cowlitz, Klickitat, and Yakima nations: according to the Puyallup, elderly Loowitlakla, or "Loowit", was rewarded with eternal youth by the Chief of the Gods since she had preserved fire in her lodge for two nations, but the chieftains of each tribe, who were brothers and handsome young men but notoriously hotheaded, began warring because the fair maiden who kept the communal fire could not choose between them, a war that burned and buried whole villages and forests.

The ostensible villain of the world of Death By Cliche wears a mask to hid his face not because he's ugly, but because he's so beautiful that anyone who sees it full-on promptly has their eyes melt, shortly before they drop over dead. Pro Wrestling. In the early days of the WWE Diva Search , the contestants that got sent to developmental territories to train reportedly had a very raw deal at the hands of the trainers.

One glamour model revealed that she and another woman were called to the front on their first day by Ivory who then said: "sluts like you all sleep your way to the top".

Kristal Marshall also said in an interview that she felt the trainers resented the fact that she wanted to learn to wrestle and "I don't think they wanted me to get good". Torrie Wilson suffered greatly throughout her career because of her beauty. Nidia was jealous that Torrie was chosen to pose for Playboy over her, Dawn Marie ended up making unwanted advances because she was attracted to her, and Sable was a bit of both. Likewise, Kenzo Suzuki fell for her, leading to his wife Hiroko to get jealous and attack Torrie for it.

In general female wrestlers who come from beauty backgrounds — modelling, dancing, gymnastics, etc. Usually the prettier the female is and if she has a modelling background , she'll quite easily be dismissed as just eye candy. For years it was also assumed that model-turned-wrestlers either didn't care about the business or were using it as a stepping stone for other forms of entertainment such as acting Not helping that some, such as Sable and Stacy Keibler have outright admitted as such.

Maria Kanellis once unloaded with a speech defying this attitude. You want to know my honest opinion on it? I mean, do you have any idea how much we would love to stay, we would love to be there, how we would love to do everything we dream about? The only reason a lot of us have left is because we didn't get the opportunities there we wanted or thought we'd earned, or the opportunities we fought for, that's the only reason!

All that "you're just a diva"; it sounds so trashy. If you are on the road Sure you get on television, but every weekend [on house shows], you're getting your ass kicked, you're all covered in bruises, I look at Candice Michelle, she was a Go Daddy girl she got there. But she worked hard. I used to look at her legs; from the top to the bottom they were covered in huge bruises from all the different places Beth had grabbed her to put her in position She worked her tail off to become champion!

For you to say that you have no clue how passionate these women are! I would still be there if I got the opportunities I wanted. We're not actresses on television playing an action star who doesn't really get hit; we were getting hit. I'm no longer there because I spoke up and because I got spoke up that's why I'm sitting here.

Krissy Vaine alluded to this when describing her battle with depression while in the WWE developmental system. She and the other Divas became paranoid about preserving their looks — "it's either be a perfect 10 or bye bye Diva wannabe" — even spending half their monthly pay on cosmetic surgery.

Krissy also noted that when DSW was integrated into OVW, the only reason she wasn't fired along with so many other girls is that she had a modelling background. Melina in her early days in WWE was mistaken for a Diva Search note a contest that gave models and other non-wrestlers chances to enter WWE girl — due to her background as a beauty queen and debuting on TV around the same time as several other Diva Search contestants.

She had actually trained on the indies as Kyra, but many people overlooked her wrestling experience and thought of her as a Fanservice valet. Due to some of the Fanservice she provided — dropping into the splits on the apron to give the crowd a Panty Shot — there was a storm of controversy when she won the Women's Championship.

Like many others, she shook this off through consistently good ring work. Serious wrestlers like Jazz hated her because they thought she was getting by on her looks. The prudish Molly Holly hated her sex appeal taking too much attention away from the wrestling. And then Victoria just hated her in a crazy jealous way. Years later her beauty also caused her to have a Stalker with a Crush in Mickie James — who did not like being rejected.

After his opponent Shiima Xion had introduced himself as the first Filipino model wrestler, Crossbones claimed to be the first male model from Parts Unknown. He added that he had to wear a mask because all the ladies would run to him if he wrestled without it. Puppet Shows. In a discussion with The Muppet Show 's guest of one episode, Miss Piggy claims her beauty is a curse.

While her belief that she is beautiful is unquestionably present, how beautiful she actually is — and how much she believes it to be a curse — is debatable.

In Survival of the Fittest v4, Charlene Norris's first thoughts upon realizing she is on SOTF is that "people like her, the popular girls with bodies to die for, were rape targets". Tabletop Games. She can, however, turn it on and off. In Second Edition, whether the nymph killed or blinded was based on whether she was naked or clothed, respectively, and couldn't be turned off voluntarily. The above being based on actual Greek Mythology.

Played more seriously with Medusas in 5th Edition. Unlike previous editions, 5E Medusas are supernaturally beautiful because they're people who foolishly made a Deal with the Devil for youth and beauty. Once the deal was up, they were cursed to become Medusas, but they retained their beauty and vanity, so if a Medusa ever catches sight of her reflection she'll helplessly stare at it until she succumbs to her gaze attack.

However, the highest levels of good looks can give you a reaction penalty if the other character already has good reason to dislike you. If you try to use magic to improve your appearance above the highest possible level you gain the Terror ability because "too much is too much". The point cost difference between the second-highest and very-highest level of good looks is fairly small. The rules justify this by noting that the very highest level exacerbates the negative side effects of good looks in addition to the jealousy problem noted above, there are issues like being noticed and remembered when you're trying to keep a low profile or attracting unwanted attention from would-be suitors, stalkers or even slavers.

In Scion , Epic Appearance comes in two forms — beautiful and ugly. The problems of high-level "ugly" Epic Appearance are a given, but it can be nearly impossible to deal with mortals on an even level with high-level "beautiful" Epic Appearance. As a result, there's a Knack that turns it off for a while — leaving you either generically pretty or generically ugly.

Exalted : There are no specific examples, but in a world with amorous jerkass gods, nightmarish demons, nihilistic ghosts, soul-sucking fairies, insane god-kings, eldritch abominations, and even worse entities, being attractive enough to attract the attention of one or more of them definitely counts as a curse.

For example, it's explicitly stated that concubines chosen by the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears Her hatred is safer. Stupefyin' Jones see entry under Film originated here. Question of the Week is a new blog series inspired by our Masterpiece of the Week tours, offered daily at the Getty Center at p.

Featuring an open and upbeat discussion among visitors and gallery teachers, the tours feature a new object and pose a new question each week. But beauty makes trouble. In Renaissance Italy, beautifully painted ceramics were decorated with favorite stories of the day. Francesco Xanto Avelli depicts the fateful moment in which Helen is abducted by the Prince of Troy and his strongmen despite their comparatively puny biceps.

Does she look willing here? So, beautiful reader: what is your experience: Is beauty a gift or a curse? Does the subject of the Renaissance plate shed light on your answer? Comments on this post are now closed. Please e-mail web getty. Beauty can definitely be a curse for those who have it. But beauty can also be a curse for those who admire, covet, resent, or envy it. That seems to be the case with the Trojan War. Check it out on line, or better yet, come to the museum and compare both the sculpture and the plate in person.

Which begs the question, why not? The story of Gizelle does not end well. She started behaving erratically around my kids, and when she left a loaded revolver in the house…it was time to set my beautiful creature free to seduce others. But she taught me a valuable lesson on the curse of beauty: when you bite into that apple, you are in a race against time. So, next time you are stuffing your jiggly bits into the latest shapewear or slapping on one of those slimy sheet masks, weep for the beautiful ones.

They have been warmed all their lives by the heat of approval. Some will realize the fleeting nature of this gift and develop an inner strength that will burn brighter than their perfect faces. But some will not. Feel just a tiny, tiny bit sorry for the ones who do not.

Because when the summer of their youth passes, they may have a harder time withstanding the cold. Editor of The Grim Historian. Contact: CarlynBeccia. Sign in. Felicia C. I hired a hot babysitter, and she opened my eyes.

Carlyn Beccia Follow. I Love You Relationships now.