Dede Koswara is known as " The Tree Man." He is an Indonesian villager who is covered in warts from head to toe and has recently undergone his ninth operation to remove them. His condition is thought to be the result of HPV and a rare genetic anomaly. Normal life is impossible for him, both physically and socially. (Le Journal de Montreal 13.2.09). His situation is strikingly similar to that of John Merrick, the so-called Elephant Man, in his pariah status. Merrick's experienced physician remarked : " I supposed that Merrick was imbecile and had been from birth. " (Ugly = stupid). But he learned he was wrong. The man was " highly intelligent" (Montagu, 1979 :17-8). The doctor was deeply prejudiced by Merrick's appearance. Mary Shelley's " Frankenstein " (1817) was prescient : the monster was ugly but a good man, in accord with Rousseau's concept of human nature; and the villagers judged by appearances that he was evil and persecuted him. (Ugly = evil - because evil is ugly).
The fourth story is about the ABC program " Ugly Betty " which is thought by some to be expanding our aesthetic horizons and is marketed by ABC as such. In fact the opposite is the case. Betty is portrayed by the stunningly beautiful America Ferrara. The ugliness is removable and is not even skin deep. ABC could have employed a genuinely ugly woman to play Betty : to be rude, someone like Susan Boyle or Connie Culp; but the corporation did not. Far from challenging the beauty ethic, ABC reinforced it - but argued hypocritically that it was doing the opposite. Oh well. Indeed the visual media, both television and magazines, are powerful exponents of beautification. The announcers and stars are usually attractive - to attract viewers. The programs include make-overs and cosmetic surgeries; and the articles instruct men and women on how to improve their looks: hair, abs, butts, weight, clothes etc. and often in most unrealistic time periods. It's (almost) all about image and appearances. Appearances may be deceptive, as our folk wisdom advises, but they also constitute an important component of our social capital. Attractiveness really does attract.
Ellen DeGeneres laughingly talks to this very point in her TV ad for some cosmetic product : " Inner beauty is important, but not nearly as important as outer beauty." i.e. beauty trumps goodness. But the word-play indicates the union of the literal and the metaphorical, inner and outer, beauty and goodness. In our culture beauty and goodness are integrated as one, and have been ever since Homer and Plato, at least (Synnott, 1993).
These are all classic examples of uglyism and beautyism: the prejudice and discrimination exercized against or for individuals on the basis of their physical appearance. Add to that propoganda, the uglification of rival groups. We hear of beautification, but less of our cartoonish uglification, physical and moral, of our personal or tribal enemies.
Ugly is not often in the news. Usually it's beauty : beautiful people, how to maximise beauty, cosmetic surgery, beauty competitions - there are no ugly competitions. The good-looking people look good, lovely, divine, heavenly. The ugly look bad, they look like hell and they are as ugly as sin.
Ugly is repulsive. A financial services company president laments the collapse of the TSX, S & P 500 and DJIA in the March bear market as : " Awful, ugly, terrible, horrible" (Pett, 2009). Karl Rove protests a comedian's jokes about Rush Limbaugh : " These were nasty, vicious, mean, ugly comments " (Time 25 May 09 :15). In Israel, a Catholic priest argues that criticism of Pope Benedict XVI for being biassed between the Arabs and Israelis was " very nasty, very ugly and very embarassing as an Israeli " (Martin, 2009). This long list of synonyms indicates how repulsive ugly is. And the wide range of application indicates its prevalence.
Ugly is not only stupid, evil, awful etc, it is also criminal. The Economist comments: " As the economic tide recedes, it exposes all manner of ugliness, from the the gargantuan fraud of Bernie Madoff to books-fiddling at Satyam " (25 April 09: 39). This is evil as ugly : a reciprocal and symbiotic relation.
Ugly applies to far more than bear markets, jokes, criticism and crime. It applies to almost everything: ugly weather and ugly moods, situations, architecture, even ugly truths. Ugly goes far beyond the physical to the metaphorical and, with people, to the metaphysical.
Indeed, and here is the crux of the matter, at last, we still apply the medieval doctrine of sympathy, that everything is related : the body mirrors the soul, the outer reflects the inner, the face expresses the self, the physical is the metaphysical. Uglyism lives - and is itself both morally repulsive and largely invisible but everywhere.
