Pretty tough

Television opened my eyes this week. You and I – we all have things that go wrong in our lives. We all have our disappointments and problems. And we’re used to fixating on them and feeling sorry for ourselves. \nBut did you ever stop to think about just how hard beautiful people have it?\nSure, they probably get laid a lot more often than you or me. And they can make loads of money without any education, talent, intelligence or hard work. And studies have shown that, even when they’re working normal jobs, they get paid more than less-attractive people – and that individuals are nicer to them in just about all circumstances, from college classes to court trials. It might seem terribly unfair. \nBut simply switch on the TV and flip through the channels, and you’ll find that the programming is how the world compensates beautiful people for having incredibly difficult lives. \nFor example, turn to the networks during prime time. What will you see? \nYou’ll see beautiful people whose lives are thrown into disarray by quirky neighbors, unlikely coincidences and madcap situations that normal people never, ever have to deal with. Or beautiful people who are heartbroken because, somehow, they can’t hook up with one another – all while other uglier people plot to ruin them or their careers as beautiful doctors, beautiful lawyers or beautiful breeders of champion whippets. Or you’ll find beautiful people having to interrogate skeevy criminals because other beautiful people were robbed or murdered. On “Lost,” beautiful people are stuck on an island filled with dangerous secrets that might kill one of them in the season finale. On “24,” beautiful people live under the constant threat of a nuclear attack while getting the bejeezus beat out of them. Or you’ll see game shows, where beautiful people’s dreams of fame and riches are dashed for not being able to eat five goat testicles in one minute. \nThe tragedy!\nYou and I, living among the average-to-unsightly population, we could never handle the strains of such lives – the uncertainty, the disappointment.\nAnd they don’t have things any better on cable. On the Sci-Fi Channel, beautiful people are imperiled with alarming frequency – via giant snakes, giant two-headed snakes, giant radioactive snakes, giant cyborg snakes, snakes with wings and snake-borne viruses, often all in one 12-hourlong block on Sunday. E! tells us all about their break-ups, controlling parents, their descents into a vortex of drugs, alcohol, anorexia, bulimia and uh, streptococcus. And on the Home Shopping Network they beg for our help in buying Oscar Blandi two-piece hair-styling sets and Royal Doulton sculpted napkin rings.\nTruly such things make the biblical trials of Job look like a mosquito bite. Knowing this, the good folks behind TV have sought to make us feel better about our lives by focusing on the beautiful people and broadcasting their stories. Which you know must all be true – because they’re on TV.