Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking of the relation of society to beauty. Whereas beauty used to be actively promoted by our rulers, in contemporary society the exact opposite is the case. What is worse, the status quo is so bad that you may not even realize how perverted society has become in this regard. I use this word deliberately because there is overwhelming evidence that humans, even new-born babies, are instinctively drawn towards beauty. We like to look at beautify objects, landscapes, faces, etc. The opposite claim is so counterintuitive that it would need significant evidence to be taken seriously. Instead, it is decreed with an iron fist that you now have to admire unattractive celebrities and marvel at horrendous-looking modern art.

I remember the first time I visited Stockholm. I went to a random bar with a friend, not at all a fancy place. There was nothing special about it at all. In fact, it was a pretty small bar and there were hardly any people in there. Yet, behind the counter stood one of the most attractive women I had ever seen in my life, an absolutely incredibly good-looking young woman who apparently only wanted to make some extra money during her studies. There is the cliche that Swedish women are so beautiful that there is nothing special about them individually, but this is of course nonsense. The average Swedish girl is perhaps slimmer than the average American girl but it is not the case that you feel as if the entire country runs a perennial model convention. It is also true that big cities like Stockholm draw young women to them, so you are bound to meet more of them. Still, really good-looking women stand out regardless.

My first thought was that there is an obvious defect in society if resource allocation does not work properly. The idea of the free market is that people end up in positions where they can maximize their own income while providing their maximum utility to society, or business. Of course, we may only speak of a local maximum, in mathematical terms, but by and large the idea is that if you are, e.g., good with numbers, you go into a quantitative field because this is where you will both maximize your own income and deliver more value to society. Similarly, the best-looking people should end up on billboards, in magazines, and on film. Beautiful people do not just disappear because modern society no longer promotes them. Instead, they simply languish, unable to live up to their own potential. This is also detrimental to society because societal utility overall would be greater if more people would be exposed to more beautiful people.

While not every attractive woman can become a movie star, there used to be other opportunities, for instance occasionally working as an extra in a film. This may not pay well but it surely comes with certain other benefits, including the opportunity to meet successful men. However, random hot women in film have apparently disappeared. In the past, it was quite normal that virtually everybody in a film was at least above-average looking whereas today even the main protagonist may be challenged in the looks department.

I recently watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), a blockbuster back then because it was a vehicle to promote Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie who played the lead roles and who were also a couple in real life. Back then, they were hailed as the sexiest couple in the world. While Brad Pitt’s status as a sex symbol I would not challenge, I do find that Angelina Jolie’s status has been quite astro-turfed. She is a skinny woman who has had a lot of cosmetic surgeries. Her botox-filled lips look often quite comical. She also popularized the idea of getting big silicon implants in Hollywood whereas that was originally seen as tacky if not trashy and much more common in the porn industry. Mr. and Mrs. film is serviceable but you probably do not need to go out of your way to watch it. However, with twenty years between its original release and the present day, there is a brief scene that is quite remarkable. It is enough to post one screenshot:

Look at this blonde chick! In my view, this woman is more attractive than Angelina Jolie. Hollywood just put this smoking hot woman into this movie as mere eye candy. She seems to be an uncredited extra. Yet, there was apparently some surplus of hot women in Hollywood at that time so some of them did not get big roles and instead had to be happy to show up for a few seconds on screen. Today, however, you no longer randomly spot hot women in the background in some film you watch. Otherwise, I would have noticed this, just as I had noticed this particular woman. Today, of course, you do not even get attractive main characters. Incidentally, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a great example. As it turned out, Amazon recently turned this movie into a TV show, and look at the two main characters, as shown on the official Amazon Prime landing page:

I cannot quite put my finger on it, but I have the vague sense that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie made a more attractive couple. Of course, I am more than happy to read any analysis that would explain to me why this is not the case and why it would be misguided if not unethical or even illegal to think otherwise. From my own and very uncultured perspective, I find it unfathomable that a blockbuster movie that was built on the sex appeal of its two stars gets turned into a TV show with two leads that I cannot quite imagine featuring prominently in the masturbation fantasies of any man or woman. Then again, I may simply be missing something. Perhaps human biology instead simply radically evolved in the last two decades and the “modern audience” is binge watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith on Amazon Prime, enthralled that two of the most attractive modern-day actors teamed up to deliver top-notch entertainment.