Who's the fairest of them all
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SOME say it's all in the eye of the beholder but others needjust a little guidance. These days, the idea of beauty yousubscribe to may well be determined by which magazine you subscribeto as well.
This week, Who Weekly releases its yearly parade of thetaut and terrific — The Most Beautiful People list. But forthe first time, there is competition. Homeless support magazineThe Big Issue has responded with its own list, dubbed TheReally Beautiful People. "Looks don't matter; nor does age,"screams the tagline. "Beauty is about what you do, and who youare."Pythagoras saw beauty in mathematics and thought it could beexplained by the golden rule. Magazines also have their goldenrules. One of them is never put an ugly person on the cover.
Who says its issue is a "celebration of beauty, bothphysical and straight from the soul" and features both "classiclovelies and unconventional charmers". Of course, there are rathermore lovelies than charmers.
Beyonce makes the grade, so too Penelope, Halle and Scarlett.
Our Hugh makes it but Rusty is out. He may have A BeautifulMind but he also has an ugly habit of losing it at inopportunemoments.
According to Wikipedia, in Chinese, the word beauty is formed bycombining the characters for "big" and "sheep". Perhaps thisexplains why the Who list also includes two people who arefamous for being called ugly. They are America Ferrera, the star ofSeven's Ugly Betty, and Australian Idol croonerDamian Leith.
Big Issue editor Alan Attwood — a one-time staffmember at Who and The Age — says he was bored ofseeing the same bunch of actresses and models put forward each yearas exemplars of beauty. "This is an attempt to throw open to debatethe whole question of what beauty is," he says. "The conventionalpicture, as it is portrayed in the media, is terribly superficial,relates mostly to appearance and is a stereotype of youth andflawlessness."Instead, Attwood wanted to find a list of people who were"beautiful for what they do". Among them are volunteer carers, aveteran nurse, foster parents who care for six Aboriginal childrenand an assortment of tireless charity workers. There's not a pairof hot pants to be seen.
"Most of the people were very reluctant to take part becausethat is the nature of who they are," Attwood says. "They don't dothese things for recognition or reward.""Really Beautiful" person Alex Fabiani cares full-time for his40-year-old brother Frank, who has been a quadriplegic since aheroin overdose nine years ago. Fabiani changes more than 1000nappies a year and also bathes, feeds and shaves his brother andconstant companion. It's a relatively thankless, 24-hour job. "Icouldn't put him in a home," says the 49-year-old. "It's not easy,but we have a life together. He wouldn't have that in a nursinghome."Beautiful isn't a word the former truck driver hears abouthimself very often. He liked the photo shoot. Not because he'sbigheaded, he hastens to add, but he enjoyed doing something foronce that was about just him.
"I'm not beautiful, I'm a caring person. I've got a heart and Iuse it," he says. "The world has lost its compassion, it's allsuperficial. Celebrities are just a waste of space. I don't putanyone on a pedestal. Apart from Martin Luther King. He was a goodbloke."But it seems not even celebrities want to be beautiful if itmeans being vapid as well. Among Who's airbrushed angelsthere are repeated claims to that most mysterious of chimeras:inner beauty. About blonde, gorgeous actress Abbie Cornish it'ssaid: "People sometimes overlook how beautiful she is becauseyou're looking at what's inside her."Underwear model-turned-TV host Sarah Murdoch confesses: "I don'tthink someone's beautiful if there isn't something else going ondeeper."This year, Who even includes three "Everyday beauties"— a woman who helps "disadvantaged young girls", one who hasset up a child protection agency and a teacher working in Africa(you'll find them at the back, after the non-everydaybeauties).
Tokenism, perhaps, but if you thought that was the only commonground between Who's high gloss and The Big Issue's"real" spread, think again. Photographer Randy Larcombe foundhimself hired to shoot for both — a glamour pic of theMcLeod's Daughters cast in Who and, for The BigIssue, foster parents Lee-Anne and Leon Stanley, in a backyardartfully strewn with toys. Fresh from his Who gig, Larcombeasked: "Will there be make-up and hair artists attending this one,too?"Remember that when you thumb the pages of Who this week.
Beautiful they may be, but those people sure had help getting thatway.
Related: Who's the fairest of them all
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from www.theage.com.au
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