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Robert C Coop's avatar

"As Victoria Jackson, the former professional runner, told The Free Press, everyone knows “sexiness and attractiveness” are critical to scoring NIL deals, and it is “unfair.” It reminded her of her running days. “You would notice that somebody would get a big deal when she was middling, at best, and happened to be good-looking" - This statement sums up the entire conundrum of "fairness" and "privilege". Some people are more talented. Some people are naturally more attractive - and yes that gives them an advantage - just like IQ does. Weird that in sectors like acting or movies that "good-looking" is not seen as an unfair advantage. Just how many Quasimodo male actors have become star material with serial hit movie opportunities? Take a seat on the "good looking and talented people have an advantage" line of thought.

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Brian Villanueva's avatar

This sort of thing can be measured statistically. Our obsession with white or male or straight privilege looks even more absurd since "beauty privilege" dwarfs all of those effects by at least an order of magnitude. It applies to both men and women. I used to work in theatre, so I'm pretty sure it applies both gay and straight.

The attraction to symmetry and beauty is very deep evolutionarily. No amount of harping about patriarchal oppression by hairy feminists and metrosexual, wimpy, male allies is going to unmake it. Youtube / OnlyFans stardom is that evolutionary drive married to modern technology and post-industrial capitalism. Which means no amount of harping will stop this either.

I'm not saying it's good. I don't think it is -- for them or for us. But it's also not stoppable.

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Celia M Paddock's avatar

You said it perfectly: "beauty privilege" is far more ancient than "whiteness." It was a factor in who got to mate with whom when we were all still in Africa.

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Skinny's avatar

Yip the nail on the head.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

Hollywood is very talented at making every individual look their very best. Julia Robert's, Jennifer Anniston, or Sigourney Weaver for example do not have classically beautiful features but are nevertheless very beautiful and attractive.

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Chute Me's avatar

Skills and talents that "ought" to determine success in a particular field are being usurped by good looks (as if this is news). People who are only mediocre at sports or medicine or some other high-skill field are excelling not on their talents in the field but rather on unrelated or extraneous features. How dare they? It's very much like the Donald Trump TDS thing: he's not one of those self-important Yale or Harvard Law grads who think they're entitled to run the country. How dare he? All of this reflects our current "credentialism" obsession, so common on the Left. Call it a form of cultural appropriation. Lefties really don't like their own cultural markers getting appropriated.

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Brian's avatar

Trump did go to graduate school at top-5 MBA program Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, one of those elite Ivy League schools that produce people who think they're entitled to run the country.

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Comprof2.0's avatar

I'm sure he got in legitimately, too.

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publius_x's avatar

As the Bush/Kerry election taught us, the world is run by C students.

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Brian's avatar

Or as the Trump/Biden election taught us, former D students who have devolved mentally into something bordering on dementia.

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Gen Z's avatar

A good comment, but youre missing the main point: the standards of attractiveness are mostly applied to women who are athletes, not men. So while a male college athlete can get a good brand deal primarily because of his athletic achievements, a female athlete would get one primarily because of her looks. So women know that if they want a better chance at a brand deal, they have to be conventionally attractive, wear makeup, and appeal to men by acting a bit slutty. And at the same time they see that men dont have to do that. It is more disheartening that these standards are applied to you because of your sex.

I cant blame the twins for taking advantage of the situation though. Theyre playing by the rules.

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Dave's avatar

The NILs for men are paid by boosters first and secondarily to how popular the college team is. Women don't have that type of interest/rabid fans yet for their sports. On the other hand women once they attract a sizable audience have cosmetics firms, clothing manufacturers, etc. that are more than happy to pay them for that audience. Think of it as the social media version of Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Vogue magazines.

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Brian's avatar

Well, this is a function of MOST men's sports being more entertaining and more popular than the relative women's sport. Off the top of my head, exceptions are certainly gymnastics, and probably figure skating. Also possible are tennis, and maybe sports like volleyball and swimming. If you notice, the Big 4 American professional sports are not included in that. Most relevant is the WNBA, which despite constant promotion (bordering on harassment) from ESPN and the NBA, few people watch. And as hilarious comedian Bill Burr pointed out, that includes women. Women basketball fans don't watch the WNBA! As an anecdotal example, a coworker, who I used to share an office with, is a huge basketball fan (played a little in college, even) and fancies himself a liberal feminist. He couldn't name one WNBA team name when asked.

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Celia M Paddock's avatar

I used to enjoy watching figure skating, gymnastics, and skiing events...until the sportscasters started spending more time on backgrounds and training and commercials than on keeping the camera on the athletes.

Now about the only thing I will watch is an occasional football game. At least in football, we get to see ALL the action (often from multiple angles). Basketball, baseball, and soccer bore me.

The amusing thing is that I am the sportswatchingest person in my family. Neither my husband nor my sons are into sports entertainment.

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Brian's avatar

Yeah. I still like watching those sports in the Olympics, just to root for the good ole USA, but you're right about how US networks cover those sports. I was still working in Europe when the 2006 Winter Olympics were going on and watched the events on the EuroSport network. It was all sports, all the time, with very little of the "human interest" filler that NBC et al blast us with. If you're a fan of ski jumping, you'd have loved EuroSport. They never missed a ski jumping event.

As for my regular sports watching, with streaming packages, I pretty much only watch my favorite team's games, mostly hockey and baseball. There is so much available there that it pretty much fills up my sports watching time allocation. I won't even watch the Super Bowl unless a team I like is playing, or I'm invited to a party.

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Skinny's avatar

Yip and playing them very well I might add.As long as it last I say keep going

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JBell's avatar

Case in point being LeBron James....... ugliest mug in America

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Skinny's avatar

Yip!!

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Birdie's avatar

Nature designed man so that he would find appealing a woman with symmetrical features, strong teeth and bones, good curves, etc., for successful reproduction. Nature designed woman to seek out a man who looked to be a good provider and would protect her and her children in a brutal world (so, strong or cunning, etc.). Human nature doesn't change.

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Gen Z's avatar

Youre correct but that doesnt change anything. The issue is that the standards of attractiveness are factored for female athletes but not male athletes.

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HBI's avatar

You are correct, but women athletes should probably be happy that is the case, because it gets them attention that would otherwise be hogged up by male athletes.

A thought experiment: imagine I opened up an all male strip club in a rural location, as many all female ones are. How much foot traffic would you expect, considering that most women and non-gay men would not want to go? I mean, you could make this idea work in a city with a large gay population, but out in the sticks there aren't going to be enough clientele to make it worthwhile. Yet down the street, there's an all female club where the women are making bank. What is different?

Another thought experiment: let's say I started a baseball league for people who couldn't make it onto farm teams. Low labor costs, for sure. Let's presume all male for the sake of argument. The quality of play would really suck in comparison to the actual farm teams and major leagues. Do you think i'd get a lot of ticket sales or fan attention? Why or why not?

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Gen Z's avatar

Women athletes compete to prove their athletic skill and not their sex appeal for men. We aren't happy thats the case because we are here to play sport and make records. You may think that all that women's sport is good for is for the hot ladies, but its for the athletes themselves.

Your analogies make no sense because 1) the first compares womens sport to strip clubs, so you think that womens sport is for men leering at women's bodies and 2) the second compares womens sport to the leagues of men who arent good enough, which means you think that women are lesser, weaker men. You may think the quality of play "sucks" compared to mens sport but you are also too short sighted to realize that the quality of play is amazing compared to womens sport. Women arent defined on what men are or are not.

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publius_x's avatar

"Women arent defined on what men are or are not."

Tell that to Johns Hopkins University

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publius_x's avatar

Professional women athletes compete for money. FTFY

This happens in men's sports all the time. Compare Henrik Lundqvist's career with that of Martin Brodeur. Who was the "more accomplished" player? Who had more endorsements?

Don Mossi was a very talented baseball player in the 1950s and 1960s. Couldn't sniff an endorsement, ever. Perennial All-Star Joe Torre didn't start making endorsement money until he was much older and managing Derek Jeter.

DNA is unfair.

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HBI's avatar

Women's sport is mostly men leering at women's bodies. Otherwise you have the WNBA where the attendance/engagement is poor because the play is not at the highest level possible. No one is going to get excited about people playing second tier anything. That was the point.

In fairness, I did try to make the point without stating it obviously.

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Dave's avatar

Women's softball and soccer are both gaining popularity. And it's not because all those women athletes are beautiful. Not anywhere near what the men are in terms of interest/attendance, but not directly connected to "men leering at women's bodies" either.

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publius_x's avatar

And women prefer taller, richer men because biology suggests they are better equipped to care for offspring. Such is life. Liberals piss on this stuff, but make fun of people who don't believe in dinosaurs. Darwinism is Darwinism.

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Skinny's avatar

So true

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Rich Smith's avatar

Luckily for males, being a great athlete seems to coincide with being tall, chiseled, and muscular with symmetric features. While it is a double standard in that male athletes are chosen based on their athletic achievement, all the ones I can think of with big endorsement deals are also good looking.

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Frank Stein's avatar

It isn't fair that Victoria Jackson was so fast. No matter how much I train, I will never be as fast as she was.

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Sghoul's avatar

I feel like we used to teach kids that life wasn't fair and some people would have advantages that you don't have and you might have some that others don't. Not sure why so many seem to think this is new...or worse the people that think they can 'fix' it.

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Madjack's avatar

Correct. I’ve always been a “grinder”, not particularly talented or smart I will out hustle and out work you. Always.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

I think being like that forces you to think outside the box. Which is a great ability.

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Sghoul's avatar

That reminds me of the first episode of Brooklyn 99. They are talking about the various Detectives and their skills. One of them, Boyle, who is a silly weirdo is listed as a Grinder. And throughout the series we see him surprise and even outdo his more talented coworkers simply by just doing the work.

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JBell's avatar

Steve Buscemi (sp?)

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Contrarian's avatar

The only person I know of whose career would suffer if he fixed his teeth.

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Skinny's avatar

😂😂😂true

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Sghoul's avatar

He still generally plays characters, not leading men. He is also a really good actor and well liked, so he basically had other abilities that helped him overcome his shortcoming. There are always exceptions to every 'rule'. I doubt many teenage boys have had posters of Meryl Streep on their walls, but she seems to have done pretty well for herself.

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Brian's avatar

As annoying as I've found many of Streep's characters, she is not a homely woman, especially not when she was younger. As with Tom Hanks, mentioned in this thread, even the "average" looking folks who are successful in Hollywood are usually above average in looks out in the world with all the rest of us schlubs.

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bbren's avatar

Can you say Jack Black?

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Brian's avatar

Well, there are exceptions, especially if they're funny.

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Sghoul's avatar

I didn't mean to imply that she was a troll or anything. Just that her looks are not exactly her calling card. She is known for her talent/skill. She also remains relevant into her later years, which is a hurdle many young actresses have trouble transitioning to.

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publius_x's avatar

I take it you never saw The Deer Hunter.

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Madjack's avatar

Tom Hanks is average looking but his incredible talent shines through.

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publius_x's avatar

Tom Hanks is tall, slim and has symmetrical facial features. Compare his career to Peter Scolari's.

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Sghoul's avatar

Exactly. Looks are just another tool in the toolbelt. Some people have many tools, some people are really good at using 1 or 2. There is no one right way to be.

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