Found this excellent article by Pat Archbold.
This post is intended as a lament of sorts, a lament for
something in the culture that is dying and may never been seen again.
Pretty, pretty is dying.
People will define pretty differently. For the
purposes of this piece, I define pretty as a mutually enriching balanced
combination of beauty and projected innocence.
Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence.
I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of
our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is. But some things were
different in the back then. First and foremost, many beautiful women,
whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence
and virtue. And that combination of beauty and innocence is what I define
as pretty.
By nature, generally when men see this combination in women
it brings out their better qualities, their best in fact. That special
combination of beauty and innocence, the pretty inspires men to protect and
defend it.
Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they
prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different.
When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a
certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.
As I said, pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend. Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity. Its value is temporary and must be used. It is a consumable.
Nowhere is this pretty deficit more obvious than in our
“stars,” the people we elevate as the “ideal.” The stars of the fifties
surely suffered from the same sin as do stars of today. Stars of the fifties
weren’t ideal but they pursued a public ideal different from today.
The merits of hotness over pretty is easy enough to
understand, they made an entire musical about it. Who can forget how
pretty Olivia Newton John was at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and
innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that
is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a
boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the
pretty. What we are left with is hotness.
Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as
it is consumed but brings no warmth.
Most girls don’t want to be pretty anymore even if they
understand what it is. It is ironic that 40 years of women’s liberation
has succeeded only in turning women into a commodity. Something to be
used up and thrown out.
Of course men play a role in this as well, but women should
know better and they once did. Once upon a time you would hear girls talk
about kind of women men date and the kind they marry. You don’t hear
things like that anymore.
But here is the real truth. Most men prefer pretty
over hot. Even back in 6th grade I hated the “hot” Olivia Newton John and
felt sorry for her that she had to debase herself in such a way. Still
do.
Our problem is that society doesn’t value innocence anymore,
real or imagined. Nobody aspires to innocence anymore. Nobody wants
to be thought of as innocent, the good girl. They want to be hot, not
pretty.
I still hope that pretty comes back, although I think it not
likely any time soon. For every Taylor Swift, there are a hundred Megan
Foxs, or Lindsay Lohans, or Miley Cyruses etc.
Girls, please, bring back the pretty.
Posted by Brittany
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