“Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” Disney is full of it, the ugly stepsisters, Sleeping Beauty, Cruella De-vil and Prince Charming. All names which are onomatopoeic with the character.
Is there any good in being beautiful if you’re ugly? Or any good in being intelligent if you’re ugly? And what makes us think things like these are so important anyway?
Once again, we may look at evolution and the animal kingdom for some answers, and draw some inspiration from some of the more quirky animal lifestyles out there.
We’re going to discuss the Darwin-famous theory of sexual selection, a classic but timeless example. Male birds of paradise have exquisitely beautiful coloured tails. These help them attract females, the male with the most beautiful tail wins and is able to reproduce. These ‘beautiful tail’ genes are now in the population, so future males will also have beautiful tails, and so on! You can see how tails can get more ornate and beautiful through the generations. There’s no doubt that these tails are stunning, but is it a little stupid to have them? There comes a point when the tail is so big, that the bird can no longer fly as adequately which influences the bird’s ability to hunt and stay alive!
However, the looks, for these birds, are more important than the practicality. Similar examples may be seen in deer and lions, with the size of the antlers mane respectively. How smart are these handsome features?
If you were to do a quick google search for “world’s ugliest animals”, you enter a strange part of the internet, scattered with deep sea animals, hairless dogs and alien-like insects. Okay, probably not the best way to judge what is ugly and what is not, after all I’m sure that alien-like insects are attracted to one another and equally think we look just as heinous!
So let’s try a different approach, a more human-friendly approach. What makes us be attracted a person, or not? Dating sites think they have the answer, matching people based on shared interests, similar age, profession, looks and mutual hates! Despite however sexy we find our latest ‘match’, there’s some underlying factors which may also help us make this decision up. One strongly argued case is that you may have heard of before is how symmetrical is that person’s face. The truth is though, despite an initial judgement of how someone looks, there is a reason that we’re taught when we’re young never to judge a book by its cover.
Our perception on how attractive a person may be is not fixed in stone, and may vary based on actions we see them perform, or knowledge about their personal life. So hold comfort in the fact that not all humans are as judgemental or stereotypical as old-school Disney movies and we can see beneath the surface. Would you trade up a killer bod for your intelligence?
Does your perception of how cute Nelly is change after you see her learn and perform tricks?
If you’re still interested, here’s a great article on how we perceive attractiveness.
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