Am I Pretty Enough for Pretty Privilege?

no

Last month (this post has been sitting in my drafts for a while), I watched Richard Linklater’s latest film, Hit Man. The previews made it seem so dumb that I didn’t even realize it was a Linklater film until reviews started pouring in online. I didn’t read any of them. I knew I wanted to see it regardless because I love Glen Powell (Scream Queens endeared me to him long ago). And, what I think about the movie isn’t really the point. Aside from it being propaganda for marriage/monogamy and an assault on single people, I enjoyed it. It was fun, romantic, and sexy. It’s a true story. Whatever. It served its purpose for a Wednesday night in (alone) after finishing part one of Bridgerton Season 3 and still needing to feel lobotomized by the TV.

What pressed me most about the movie is the fact that the main character’s love interest is a beautiful woman, which I don’t think was Linklater’s intention. I’ve tried very hard my entire life to be pretty due to the belief that bad stuff doesn’t happen to pretty girls. The object of affection in this movie murders her ex-husband (he deserved it) and gets away with it because her boyfriend, the hero of the film (Glen Powell), is basically a cop. After she murders her ex, they buy a house together and have two kids. And, the whole time I thought, she simply wouldn’t have gotten away with the murder if she were ugly. Like, Glen Powell posing as a hit man when he initially meets her decides not to lead her to a bugged confession, and that’s because he’s attracted to her. He has sympathy for her plight because she’s beautiful, which allows her to evade prosecution later on. This storyline was obviously added by Linklater, who wants to empower and add dimension to his female characters, but only if they are very pretty (and marriage material).

I’m all for femmes getting away with murder on screen. I want to see shitty ex-boyfriends and husbands die as much as possible. But I don’t like that only hot girls can get away with it, when I think everyone should get away with it. I want to see an ugly, weird, gross girl get away with murder. Actually, this happens in Eileen, a movie that I loved — but I don’t think they allowed Thomasin McKenzie to be as gross or ugly as the protagonist in the book, and that was disappointing.

The conviction that pretty girls don’t get punished is one I’ve carried around my whole life. I thought it came from watching movies and TV, but I’ve just realized there’s actually very few instances where the femme fatale gets off scot-free (doesn’t go to jail, die, or otherwise suffer punishment). Basic Instinct, The Last Seduction, Eileen, and Gone Girl are the few examples that come to mind (and it’s significant that all these characters are thin, pretty white women). Even if they initially get away with a lot, most of the time our heroines are ultimately punished for being some combination of beautiful and evil, and usually the more beautiful they are, the more evil they are — see To Die For, Cruel Intentions, Audition. There are plenty of stories where only mousy and/or virginal characters are allowed to be virtuous, while the hot, mean slut either gets humiliated, learns her lesson, or dies first in a slasher movie. This leads me to conclude that who gets punished on screen is not as much about being beautiful as it is about being likable and palatable, which both happen to also include being beautiful. Beautiful girls abound on screen; even characters that are supposed to be ugly are played by beautiful women. They may or not get away with murder, but ugly girls don’t appear at all, and that’s why I’m afraid of being ugly. I want to be pretty and evil, and get away with murder and get stuff for free, or else I’m afraid I don’t exist.

I haven’t been arrested when I deserved it, and I haven’t suffered grueling consequences when my behavior invited it. I’d love to think that I’m pretty enough for this to be due to pretty privilege, but it’s just white privilege. At the same time, trying my hardest to be my hottest hasn’t prevented me from getting assaulted or getting in trouble. I’ll admit, when I was 16 I thought I could get away with using my friend’s season pass to get into Six Flags Over Texas because I thought I was too pretty to get in trouble, but I was sent to Six Flags jail that day and was put on probation from returning to the park. By pretty privilege logic, I guess that means I’m ugly. Now I’m afraid that if I contact a hit man to kill someone on my behalf and he turns out to work for the cops, I won’t be pretty enough for him to take pity on me and let me go.

I’ve wondered, at times, if a man wouldn’t have harassed or fundamentally disrespected me had I been more beautiful. Like, I’ve worked really hard for beauty. Shouldn’t it earn me some respect? Shouldn’t it be intimidating? Shouldn’t it make people fall in love with me with so hard, so foolproof that they never hurt me? I’m not sure if men in particular don’t respect me because I’m beautiful or because I’m not beautiful enough. Hollywood should give more power to ugly girls by putting them on TV and letting them get away with murder.