more beauty more rage

This is the way that it is shaping up in the world that I am peering at - more brutal angry behaviour, and more demand to be beautiful.

I saw two news reports today that put it into focus. The first one I saw was from the perspective of a shop assistant who reported a general consensus that people shopping wish to touch, try on, and purchase clothing that has been touched by attractive people. As the shop assistant put it, "people wish to get the essence - the germs - of the attractive people, in hopes that some of it will rub off on them. " I love that she called it both "essence" and "germs. "

She also noted that people don't wish to touch clothing that has been touched by people deemed unattractive. Then an older man (an owner of a store) piped up that personality counts as beauty too. And then finally a report about a clothing store that was getting into trouble for sending pictures of potential employees to head office to have their attractiveness properly cleared there for hiring.

Now before i describe the second news report, I'd like to say that I've noticed lately that there is a lot more violent energy on the drinking streets when Friday and Saturday night role around. And I have a theory that it's caused partly by the rise in popularity of what's called Ultimate Fighting. This is a televised fight by people trained in muay thai and jujitsu-like fighting forms. Which means, it's kick boxing with grappling, but it is also presented with the same histrionics as none-olympic wrestling (you know, the kind represented by the WWF).

[Allow me to add a personal note here about ultimate fighting: I find it remarkably tedious. But there are many younger men who disagree with me. But regardless, of enjoying it as a viewer or not, it's the omnipresence of the thing that counts. Recent research has determined that steady exposure to even the notion of violence, particularly under the influence of alcohol, makes one more predisposed to resort to violence in one's response options. ]

Most of the bars where I live have TV screens with this playing or else violent sports like hockey. Which brings me to the second spot I saw today. It was back to back reports actually, about Chris Simon and Todd Bertuzzi (two players with bad reputations for acts of violence). The pervasive image of Bertuzzi smashing the other hockey player's face into the ice while punching him in the back of the head, all with the weight of his body pushing the guy to the ice and adding force, was played another 3 or 4 times as the announcer spoke of testimony related to a court case against Bertuzzi being made public. Then to the matter of Chris Simon, who has been suspended from playing the sport 8 times for acts of violence against other players. This new suspension was precipitated by what was deemed a more apparently premeditated act (in the footage he is seen stomping on another player's achilles tendon with the blade of his skate as he is casually heading for the bench.

Violence in hockey is not an uncommon sight, in fact, it is eagerly anticipated by a parcel of its fans (perhaps most of them). It is a fighting sport, and as such, it is subject to rules of decorum (kind of like ultimate fighting), so the stories are filed specifically as about transgressions within the reasonable expectation of violence in hockey.

Anyway, because the two reports, – the one about the desired contagion of beauty, and the ones about the blood sport (the sport of blood) – followed one another more or less immediately, it struck me that a perfect (in the terrible sense) match had been made, and quite clearly the standards of our society were being represented. This is what is normal now.

I suppose that it is more or less a gendered affair, which is to say that to women go the beauty, and to men the rage (kind of like during the second world war when young men went off to war with socially acceptable pinups of Betty Grable). But I'm sure that it could well be unisex as well.