Science Lite 



Life Styles of the Rich and Famou; 



Beauty meets the Beast 



by Roger L. Welsch 



I was on tour last fall, peddling my lat- 

 est book, and was about to appear on a talk 

 show on a Kansas City television station. 

 The producer led me to the studio's "green 

 room," the dressing room where guests 

 brace themselves. I got the distinct feeling 

 that I'd been there before — not deja vu, or 

 presque vu, but vraiment vu. 



"Yes," the producer said to my wonder- 

 ment. "You were here four years ago to 

 talk about another book." 



"Y-e-e-s," I said, the memory becoming 

 clearer. "I shared this dressing room with 

 some tall, sort of attractive young woman 

 who had just appeared on the cover of 

 some fashion magazine or another, right?" 



''Some tall, sort of attractive young 

 woman," the producer sputtered. "That 

 was Cindy Crawford!" 



Good grief. I shared a dressing room 

 with Cindy Crawford, one of the most 

 beautiful women in the world. I should 

 have given her a copy of my book. I 

 should have gotten her autograph on her 

 magazine cover. I should have had her 

 scratch her initials on my forehead with a 

 piece of broken glass. 



Weeks later, when I told all my buddies 

 this story up at Slick's Tavern, they ex- 

 pressed so much doubt and ridicule (not 

 that I had shared the room with Ms. Craw- 

 ford, but that I had not taken advantage of 

 the occasion, having mSiedA forgotten it), 

 that in order to restore my male credentials 

 I found myself also remembering that as I 

 left the dressing room, Cindy said huskily, 

 "Hey, you in the overalls — nice keister." 

 (Although, now that I think of it and as I 

 have made clear to Lovely Linda, she 

 might actually have said, "Nice to meet 

 you, sir.") 



The point is — and I suppose you are 

 wondering by now what the point is — 

 beauty is not something immediately and 

 inherently evident to all observers. In the 

 case of Ms. Crawford, she was to my eye 

 simply a nice-looking young woman until 

 I was instructed by magazines, newspa- 



pers, comedians, television, calendars, and 

 male friends that she is a ravishing beauty. 

 Of course, Cindy might have been having 

 a particularly bad day or I might have been 

 preoccupied with my own coif, but the fact 

 remains, physical beauty is cultural, not 

 natural. What is considered beautiful in 

 one culture or era is not necessarily beau- 

 tiful in another. 



If there is a universal rule of beauty, it is 

 that we consider those physical character- 

 istics that reflect wealth to be beautiful. In 

 classic EngUsh ballads, which exemplify 

 medieval and Renaissance times and cus- 

 toms, a good deal of plot development re- 

 volves around the tensions between char- 

 acters like "fair Eleanor" and "the 

 nut-brown maiden." Fair Eleanor is attrac- 

 tive, by virtue of her being fair, while the 

 nut-brown maiden — well, you know, as 

 we used to say in college, "She plays the 

 piano and all the girls like hen" If you 

 were poor, you had to work, and work was 

 almost inevitably outside. If you were 

 rich, you sat around the castle all day, 

 never venturing into the glare of the sun 

 and dangers of the countryside. Pale skin 

 therefore reflected wealth and came to rep- 

 resent beauty. 



So English women went to extremes to 

 have translucently white skin. They car- 

 ried parasols, swaddled their arms, shaded 

 their faces, and powdered and bleached 

 their skins, right on up to fairly recent 

 times. But these days working women are 

 indoors — sitting behind desks in corporate 

 offices, standing before classrooms, diag- 

 nosing patients, checking out books, tak- 

 ing care of kids. On the other hand, the 

 idle rich are outdoors — playing tennis, 

 skiing, and traveling to sunnier climes. 

 Today, the nut-brown English maiden is 

 the wealthy one, and therefore desirable, 

 and the only resort for pasty Fair Eleanor 

 is a tanning salon. 



Same with men. Fabio? Marky Mark? 

 Schwarzenegger? Obviously, these guys 

 have enough money to spend their lives 



lounging around beaches, working out in 

 salons, building their pecs, shaving their 

 chests. Working lugs get their exercise 

 pounding on computer keyboards, check- 

 ing mortality tables, taking motivation 

 workshops. 



In societies where famine is a constant 

 threat, fat is a sign of wealth and, ergo, 

 beautiful. That has historically been true 

 even of European and American culture. 

 Until recently. Now, when plenty is the 

 rule rather than the exception, fat is easy to 

 come by. Fat is no longer a sign of wealth. 

 Just ask me. 



These days, models like Kate Moss de- 

 clare through their physiques (or non- 

 physiques), "Me worry about famine? You 

 must be kidding." Wow, our greedy little 

 psyches gush: "She's absolutely skeletal. 

 She must be stinking rich and is therefore 

 ravishingly beautiful." 



Body mutilation, from tattooing to ex- 

 treme manicure, requires time to achieve 

 and is visible evidence of extended leisure 

 and undemanding physical exertion. Elab- 

 orate coiffures — shaved patterns or corn- 

 rows — take time, money, and the expen- 

 sive attention of others. Same with ornate 

 costuming, from lip rings and neckties to 

 high heels and body paint. Squandered en- 

 ergy, self-imposed physical restriction, 

 idle time, and, even better, the consump- 

 tion of other people's time require and in- 

 dicate wealth and have come to represent 

 beauty. 



The fliesis extends beyond human body 

 presentation, of course. The less arable a 

 piece of land is, the more scenic it be- 

 comes. So tourists speed past acres of com 

 and wheat, bored to tears, to gasp at the 

 sterile emptiness of the Grand Canyon or 

 Disneyland. The evident utiUty of the sta- 

 tion wagon makes it hopelessly drab while 

 the total inefficiency of a Lamborghini 

 makes it the stuff of dreams. 



But you don't want to know what has 

 determined beauty in the past. You want to 

 be a step ahead for the future, right? What 



24 Natural History 5/94 



