Thursday 14 June 2012

From Russia with Love

Huge thanks to Twitter pal Curtis (@Curtos07) for this doozy. It is strangely comforting to see that bad, thoughtless, terrible journalism isn't limited to the United Kingdom. Shame on you, Paul Sullivan! You have shamed your fine country of Canada with this one:

 http://metronews.ca/voices/just-saying/261050/beauty-is-whats-behind-your-next-raise/

Let's analyse this baby in full FJM (firejoemorgan.com) style!

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When Maria Sharapova won the French Open on Saturday, it was another victory for the Beautiful People.

Loved their second album. Their third - and final - album "Mongoose Overdrive" left a lot to be desired however. No real surprise they split up after that one.

Sharapova, all six-foot-two of her, is gorgeous.

She is. Oooh, I'd really like to kiss her!

But then, so are a lot of tennis players these days. 

Right!

Somewhere along the line, right at Anna Kournikova, perhaps, it became important for female tennis players to be beautiful as well as talented.

This is a load of bollocks, quite frankly, and it serves as a warning as to all the nonsense that's still to come in this one. First off, there's been loads of beautiful tennis players gracing the courts down the years - a few that spring to mind were around before Anna Kournikova swung a racquet around in anger. The Kournikova reference is just lazy. But that isn't really the point, here.

"Important to be beautiful as well as talented"?

Eh...not really. I mean, yes, beautiful tennis players will rake in more $ when it comes to modelling etc - let's not be naive on that one - but to pretend that a professional sportsperson should place as much importance in their appearance as they should harvesting and using their talent is just a bit pathetic, quite frankly. I bet Petra Kvitova really regrets not doing as many photoshoots as Maria Sharapova does when she wakes up every morning and sees the Wimbledon trophy on her mantelpiece.

Partial list: Daniela Hantuchova, Sabine Lisicki, Vera Zvonareva, Lucie Safarova, Maria Kirilenko, Simona Halep, Tatiana Golovin, as well as the aforementioned Kournikova and Sharapova.

This is one of the most blatant and shameless "Shit, I need to fill my word count for this piece" tactic I've ever seen. Simply listing women you fancy. Good work sir, good work.

Kate Upton. Kelly Brook. Jessica Alba. Scarlet Johansson. Zooey Deschanel.

Wow this is a fun game!

Apparently, it doesn’t hurt if you’re eastern European either.

Bit racist, no?

One honest BBC producer has admitted that “babes and Brits” get the centre-court treatment at Wimbledon while less attractive players have to grunt it out on the outer courts.

I don't understand this paragraph, at all. Whether you take "centre court treatment" in a literal way or not, it still doesn't make any sense. Literally - well, a BBC employee would have no say whatsoever on which court a player plays on. The "Brit" bit isn't true, because Andy Murray plays on centre court not because he's British but because he's normally seeded somewhere between #2 - #5 in the competition. Don't think we'll be seeing Elena Baltacha on there anytime soon. As for the "babes" bit - Ana Ivanovic regularly wins the "sexiest tennis player" award and the last time I recall her playing on Centre Court was back in 2009 when she played Venus Williams. That might not be right, as my memory isn't the greatest, but I sure can recall her playing a lot of matches on the small, outside courts these past few years.

Non-literal way? Well, that then doesn't fit with "have to grunt it out on the outer courts" and it's still wrong. The Williams sisters have got an awful lot of attention the past decade or so, yet I don't see them in FHM's Top 100 List. Anyway, let's move on, I'm boring myself.


But that’s the way of the world. If you’re gorgeous, you’re golden.

Daniel Hamermesh, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin and author of Beauty Pays, estimates that, in a lifetime, a bad-looking person can earn $230,000 less than a good-looking person, all other things being equal.


I'd really love to see the science behind that claim.


The truth about looking good is out there.

In the job market: Attractive people get more job recommendations, are considered more qualified, more likely to succeed, more likely to be hired, paid more, promoted more and less likely to be fired.

In the courts: Juries think physically attractive people are less likely to be guilty. Attractive people get lower bail, lighter sentences and smaller fines. Except maybe not Luka Magnotta. But imagine how much trouble he’d be in if he was really ugly?

In school: Attractive people get better grades.

On Facebook: Attractive people are more “friended” than ugly people.

Sex: Attractive people get more dates, have more sex and even have more orgasms.


The really tragic thing about this article is that it could have been written with an interesting and thought-provoking take on this matter. Attractive people do better in life blah blah - why? What does that say about society? Does society need to change, to stop being so vain? Sadly we know Paul Sullivan isn't going to do this, seeing as he spent a good paragraph telling us which tennis players he'd like to have sex with.

OK, too much information, perhaps. Good thing I’m attractive.

Hoho. By the way - remember this piece being about Maria Sharapova winning the French Open? No, me neither.

Did I mention that generally, men tend to overestimate their good looks? Women go the opposite way. More than eight out of 10 hate the way they look in a mirror. 

Can't help thinking that you should either use "eight out of ten" OR "8 out of 10" rather than mashing the two.

One study showed women see themselves as fatter after eating a single chocolate bar. It would have to be a 35,000-calorie chocolate bar for that to be true.


Hamermesh (whose wife thinks he looks average) finds that 70 per cent of people agree on what’s attractive most of the time. It has to do with symmetry. The more symmetrical you look, the more attractive you are. Jug ears are out.

Well, if we combine that with all the guff you've provided us with above, that means Gary Lineker will never, ever be successful in his media career, right?

So that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” stuff is fine … just as long as you’re beautiful.
Have a nice day, and if possible, stay away from mirrors. They’re bad luck, in more ways than one.

I am going to have a nice day because I've just decided that I'm never going to read your writing ever again.

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