Thursday, October 13, 2005

# 65 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Last night I watched an interview on 'Larry King Live' with Tracey Lindsay Melchior. Since then, I have to admit, I have been in a nasty mood. The topic of discussion was Tracey’s new book, “Breaking the Perfect Ten”. A kind of autobiography about a disheartening life wrought with hardships. Difficulties of greater rank and importance than one can ever hope to realize.

Now I am too empathetic a person to wind myself around everyone’s troubles because it ends up being too much. There has to be a certain level of discrimination over what is worthwhile grieving for and what is not. Anyway, for some reason I was skeptical about this person’s difficulties right from the get go. And even more skeptical when early in the interview she stated that her troubled life had stemmed from her exceptional looks. More than once she stated how her beauty had been such a terrible bother. She even made a point (with a laugh) how young boys ditched their steady girlfriends when she appeared on the scene.

She obviously wanted to impress on Larry and his audience one thing above all else – how beautiful she is. When she spoke of her physical beauty, and she did so without embarrassment or reluctance, it was with such conviction. But it was with less conviction, with some obvious insecurity, that she sought for an appropriate response to why she wrote the book. Eventually she derived from some simple cortex in her mind a scripted line to deal with the problem. Tracey wrote the book because she is now a born again Christian and she wanted to write this book to encourage others. To be a witness.

It was all too much for me. It probably wouldn’t have been if there hadn’t been so much of that God-factor involved. How can anyone empowered with so much concern and God-given grace towards others go on television and whine about a terrible life that stemmed most prominently from her (self-defined) incredible beauty? That’s like saying that everyone else is too plain, too not-beautiful to understand her life.

There’s an extreme vanity here that is far too puffed up. And there is an obscene lack of understanding as well. A lack of understanding that in this old world there are plenty of people living with the curse of marred faces – scarring or disfigurement from wounds, birth defects, or disease who would be deeply offended by this nonsense. And the rest of us, Plain Janes’ like me, found no encouragement in this discussion either. It is hard to swallow the nonsense that for those scarred and disfigured and for those Plain Janes’ like me, there is nothing for us to whine about – we are blessed and so incredibly lucky. After all, look how dreadful life could be if we were beautiful or looked like her, assuming that the two are one and the same. In addition, I don't think anyone appreciates being congratulated on having an ugly house, an ugly dress, an ugly car, or an ugly face. And in an oblique way, that is what her comments suggested.

Tracy pretends that life would have been so much better, the events so much sweeter, if she hadn’t been ‘cursed’ with such beauty of face. Give me a break. If it was such a curse why didn’t she pour battery acid on her face to simmer it down?

What seems to make more sense to me is that the root of Tracy’s problems may have been her own vanity and in acknowledging that, she probably could have written a better book. (though, admittedly I haven’t read the book and after watching that interview, I don’t intend to).

You know me. I’m not generally this negative. But maybe its just that right now, amidst the horrors of individuals ravaged by earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes, it is too difficult for me to switch to a similar ranking of the horrors of an existence ravaged by beauty.

5 Comments:

Blogger Eliz said...

Roberta, have you read the tagline for her book? I wanna know who she killed.

"In pursuit to become Hollywood’s “perfect 10,” Tracy Lindsey Melchior broke God’s Perfect 10—the Ten Commandments. She broke every one of them. She was relentless in her pursuit of fame and fortune."

Sounds like she needs to work on overcoming her vices. Sheesh! And how did you manage to stomach watching the interview? I would have changed the channel.

2:10 PM  
Blogger Roberta S said...

Eliz, you would have changed the channel and so would Hub. He asked at least a dozen times why I was watching such crap. Guess I'm just fascinated by the weird and unusual.

From the interview I can only assume that the killing she referred to was what she called "an unwanted abortion".

2:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Egad. Even absent of earthquakes and floods and famine, etc, that woman has no business complaining because she's had to endure "beauty." Tell that to all the people who are shunned because they're "less than beautiful" physically, having been disfigured in a fire, or a car crash, or some other terrible accident, or were born with a cleft palate for which surgery can only do so much, etc.

Maybe I'm jaded, too, but I have zero sympathy for her. The whole fake religious conversion thing was just ridiculous, too. If she really DID convert and become a born-again Christian, she would have realized that her God gave her a gift.

But, anyway.

3:04 PM  
Blogger tricia said...

"God lovingly and gently sought after the heart of a sinner named Tracy. And Tracy was found, not shinning bright on the big screen but kneeling at the lowest point in her life when she lacked even the strength to look up. Breaking the Perfect 10 is a beautiful story of the power of Christ’s forgiveness, patience, and love."

Gross. I had to look her up. Had never heard of her, but then again I do not know much about the soap opera world. Great post, Roberta.

I always think of spiritual people as tending toward genuine modesty and fighting their egos. I suppose this could be another example of the difference between religious people and spiritual people.

3:34 PM  
Blogger Roberta S said...

aurora, I couldn't agree more. Maybe I'm too much of an idealist or maybe I have an exaggerated idea of spiritualism. Your initial comment tuned in exactly on the reasons I was so ripped.

plumleigh, I never heard of her before either as I never watch the soaps. But similar to your thinking, I think "humility" is an aspect of spirituality that is paramount to how we see less fortunate human beings...and ourselves as well.

Thanks friends, for adding to the discussion.

3:28 AM  

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