Looks Aren’t Reflective of Character

An obvious yet oft-ignored sentiment, at least online.

Bringing Your Looks Upon Yourself?

Countless posts have pointed out how some celebrities don’t seem to age — in particular, Andy Samberg and Paul Rudd — with the implication that they appear younger and still attractive because they are unproblematic. Not entirely serious, but still so frequently repeated that it almost feels believed.

I appreciate both of them for their use of their platforms for social issues that don’t directly affect them as white men. Beyond that, they’re talented and from what I can surmise without knowing them personally, kind people. I have nothing but love for them.

That being said, according to Google anyway, they each have a net worth in the tens of millions. While I think they are good-looking enough, that money wouldn’t change their appearances too much, it doesn’t hurt that they have enough wealth to afford the best care products and that they are usually not seen outside of TV/movie sets, photo shoots, or public events where their appearances are aided by professionals. Not every celebrity with those same resources looks as good as they do, but money can only help their looks.

But beyond that, what implication do these posts give? Establishing a correlation between good character and good looks feels like every simplistic fairy tale or a great deal of media representations. The evil witch is ugly, or at least never as pretty as the pure-hearted maiden. No, happily ever after if you don’t look like Prince Charming or Sleeping Beauty.

This dichotomy between evil and ugly with good-hearted and good-looking seems further perpetuated by how often physical appearance is targeted in controversial people. This was especially highlighted in the past few weeks, as my Twitter feed was flooded with posts showing an aged Prince William, with the implication that he brought his aged appearance on himself.

Let me be clear: I don’t care about Prince William himself. He seems, at best, complicit in an institution that protects its image at whatever cost and is historically steeped in colonialism, racism, and wealth inequality.

But also, while the before-and-after pictures of him are a little jarring, he just looks like an average middle-aged British man in my opinion. I doubt Prince William is an active Twitter user, so he won’t see the criticisms. But I’m sure there are plenty of other middle-aged men who could see aspects of their appearance in him — losing their hair and tan, getting wrinkles.

As a twenty-two-year-old woman, I can’t exactly speak to middle-aged men’s insecurities, but I know if I saw tens of thousands of people liking a snarky Tweet mocking someone else’s not-super-white teeth, or a stomach that seems too big for a skinny frame, or anything else I am personally sensitive about, I wouldn’t care if that specific person deserved to be dragged. I’d be thinking more about how I also have such universally hated characteristics.

And if Prince William ages badly because he’s a bad guy, then what does that mean for others? I’m reminded of posts mocking Brendan Fraser’s aging, or the similar backlash Carrie Fisher faced for not looking like an attractive 20-year-old space princess as she got older.

After seeing a post showing Fraser’s young, attractive self compared to his older, “ugly” self several times, I finally began to see some backlash. Much of it centered on Fraser’s struggles and character; he suffered sexual assault and subsequent blacklisting for speaking out against his abuser, underwent depression due to his mother’s death, endured several surgeries across seven years due to injuries from his stunts, went through an alimony-strained divorce, and throughout all this, seemingly remained a great guy.

After the assault, Fraser’s career “withered on the vine…In [his] mind, at least, something had been taken away from [him].” Between his personal dealings with the assault and a career that, through no fault of his own, now only opened the door to movies like Furry Vengeance, a film about woodland creatures taking revenge on his character, it’s no surprise the stress would have aged him.

But also? He deserves to be left alone even if he didn’t endure anything traumatic, or suffered no career setbacks, or even if he had some known character flaws. People gain weight and age. He’s fifty-two at this point; he doesn’t exist to be a sad echo of a younger self. (And this is coming from someone who has watched George of the Jungle several times, partly for Fraser’s appearance).

Online posts that paint aging as something tragic or befalling those who do “deserve it” worsen the societal stigma against a natural process that all of us experience, albeit some more than others.

And withholding criticisms over appearance only if they are “unproblematic” enough seems to be the norm even for minors. For years, I saw memes poking fun at teenage Jojo Siwa, some less vitriolic, like mentioning her tall height, but some that would make any adolescent sensitive, like mocking her receding hairline. And while I admittedly might have been amused by some of them, in the back of my head lingered thoughts that she was not even an adult. Did her appearance really need to be so scrutinized by much-older Internet users?

Then, she came out as queer and my social media was full of celebrations for her. While I was glad for this praise, at the same time, it felt uncomfortable. Wasn’t this the same Twitter that had been mocking her appearance at a young age? Now, I saw comments over how cute she was. I’m sure her appearance will be targeted less now, or at least that the comments will be a little more playful.

She shouldn’t have to be a Queer Icon to evade criticisms, particularly as a mere teenager.

Celebrities Are Human, Too

It’s easy to argue that these celebrities are rich and powerful, and thus don’t need our pity. But they’re human too.

Meghan Markle and Michelle Obama, for example, have faced a slew of criticisms from the media as powerful Black women. Obama was compared to “an ape in heels.” Markle recently disclosed her suicidal ideation stemming from “the toxicity of the British press.” To expect them to be entirely untouched by vicious, racist, and untruthful attacks on a consistent basis is unfair.

Of course their struggles are not worse than anyone else’s, and you can make a solid case that celebrities shouldn’t get such an immense spotlight, no matter the worth of their words. Still, many people are interested in what they have to say, and there are worse ways to use their platform than highlighting the setbacks that Black women face.

“Men talked about the size of my butt. There are people who were telling me I was angry. That stuff hurts, and it makes you sort of wonder, what are people seeing? That stuff is there. And look, I’m a Black woman in America. And you know, we’re not always made to feel beautiful. So, there’s still that baggage that we carry, and not everyone can relate to that.”—Michelle Obama

Robin Williams, Anthony Bourdain, and Kate Spade, to name just a few of many, are tragic examples of how wealth and success don’t mean that you’re untouched by poor mental health.

The Full Picture

Besides, societal consensus over who is “‘deserving” of criticism is not absolute and unfailing. It’s easy to point out that Michelle Obama should not have been targeted by those racist comments. Or that Prince William, born into immense privilege that was gained through colonialism, is not the embodiment of someone worth pitying when he organized a ‘Colonials and Natives’ costume party and helped his brother choose a Nazi outfit.

But often, we don’t know enough about someone to really discern their character. It seems better to veer on the side of kindness unless we have the full picture.

I wasn’t old enough to consider deeply how Britney Spears was being portrayed in the aughts, but news about her back then painted her as someone deserving of being seen at her worst, appearance-wise and beyond. Without nuance and probing, one probably wouldn’t question how fair that coverage was. She was said to be a bad mother and a cheater and damaged a paparazzo’s car.

Even a heartbreaking video of her crying, wishing she would be left alone by the press, was taken out of context and used against Spears — she looked at her most vulnerable, not like her usual attractive and polished self. I remember using a picture from that interview in some dumb video at age 11 in an attempt to humorously indicate sadness, with no clue as to why she had been crying. Because even as a kid, knowing almost nothing about her, I knew it was encouraged to look down on her, and thus it gave me a perverse pleasure to find photographic evidence that she was worth laughing at.

It wasn’t just purely evil people who harbored smugness toward her failures and resentment toward her successes. With such widespread vitriol, it’s inevitable that scathing media outlets found ways to paint a young, beautiful woman as unattractive as possible, showcasing her looking disheveled and disturbed by intrusive paparazzi, or crying, or shaving her head, with the implication that she was crazy. Her physical image was rendered synonymous with her public image: pitiful, bizarre, “rightfully” disgraced.

Now, many people have reconsidered their ill wishes toward her as a result of the Framing Britney Spears documentary and the conversations it sparked. But a lot of the damage to her image and (presumably) feelings is already done.

This article isn’t meant to shame anyone; I think most people, however well-meaning, have smiled at some funny yet unkind Tweet. And I recognize these posts are not intended to be taken so seriously.

But over time, the frequency of them, as well as the lack of nuance often inherent on social media, begins to oversimplify appearance in ways that can not only harm celebrities who perhaps don’t deserve such criticisms, but also people who see their own physical attributes in those being mocked. There are few people worth total demonization, and even for the ones who are beyond redemption, there are less shallow targets than appearance.