The Beast of Beauty
There is a play by Andrew Posner called “Life Sucks” which is vaguely based on the Russian author’s Uncle Vanya. It goes through the lives of six characters all living around each other for a weekend. They each hate something about their lives. The “Uncle Vanya” character hates other people and himself, Sonya hates not being beautiful and overlooked, Elea hates being beautiful and not seen.
Elea is married to an older professor, but everyone around her lusts over her and makes assumptions of her. She tells it like it is and just wants to be listened to and heard for her thoughts but no one seems to hear past her looks. She hates this. And yet it is a brilliant portrait of the beast of beauty.
The assumptions that come with looks, confidence and mystery, either you are:
loved for them and nothing else, or everything else about you is wonderful too and feeds that lust and the male gaze, or
hated and vilified for having these qualities either:
by other women (Sonya) who want love/lust/anything! And it’s not fair because you are getting the attention and swatting it away like an obnoxious fly or
by men for rejecting their oncoming’s so many times they finally get it and hate you.
You can’t be seen for yourself.
This holds true for not so pretty women too. You are overlooked for not being beautiful and therefore no one wants to hear what you have to say either. Damned if you have looks, damned if you don’t.
And she’s even married! This goes to show the competition of men – as if the younger more prominent men can fight for her and win her from the old guy she doesn’t even like. That’s her choice and the other men try to manipulate and convince her to leave. Women a with a mind of their own, who choose an older man or woman or heaven forbid no one are told that’s not actually what they want.
I have a deep seeded distrust of men for these reasons. I don’t want them near me – no one seems genuine. Everyone is trying to get something out of me. That’s just the way it is. That’s how people behave. If they can convince you that they know best for you then they can control you. They can get something out of you. And to an insecure man there’s nothing more dangerous than a woman in control of herself.
That’s why we need more conscious women who know themselves, what they want and won’t back down when pushed a different direction, and who are able to stand firm (not push back), to weed through manipulation. And are genuine.