appreciating the daily mail

A Daily Mail Writer Wants to Tell You Just How Hard It Is to Be Beautiful

Photo: Daily Mail

Summing up the perverse brilliance that is the Daily Mail almost too perfectly, self-appointed attractive white lady Samantha Brick wrote a lengthy and self-pitying article about the “downsides to looking this pretty.” She’s sick of jealous harpies (read: other women, all of them) hating on her looks — she can’t help that she’s aesthetically perfect! As you’d expect from such a textbook case of “Did she really just say that?” journalism, the piece is proving controversial among the Mail’s readers in print and online. Here are five of Brick’s most egregious assertions, graded by their outrage-inducing silliness.

“If you’re a woman reading this, I’d hazard that you’ve already formed your own opinion about me — and it won’t be very flattering. For while many doors have been opened (literally) as a result of my looks, just as many have been metaphorically slammed in my face — and usually by my own sex.”

6/10. Okay, Brick is just getting started, but she’s not holding back either. Shame on you, women everywhere. Surely straight men everywhere (Brick’s allies by default, you see) are left wanting to cuddle and console her not only because of her beauty but because she’s been oh-so-wronged. As a gay man, it’s mostly lost on me — but then, to Brick, that makes me a hater, too.

“You’d think we women would applaud each other for taking pride in our appearances … Unfortunately women find nothing more annoying than someone else being the most attractive girl in a room.”

3/10. Come on now, we’ve heard this before — often from Megan Fox.

“It is not just jealous wives who have frozen me out of their lives. Insecure female bosses have also barred me from promotions at work. And most poignantly of all, not one girlfriend has ever asked me to be her bridesmaid.”

5/10. Who isn’t left wondering what sort of masochist would consent to a spot in Brick’s circle of friends? This quote would benefit from a tearful confession from one of Brick’s “girlfriends,” admitting that Brick — even hidden in the back of a bridal party in a frumpy meringue gown — would steal the spotlight on her wedding day. (And just think of the scandal when the groom inevitably picks Brick over his bride for the first slow dance.)

“I find that older women are the most hostile to beautiful women — perhaps because they feel their own bloom fading. Because my husband is ten years older than me, his social circle is that bit older too … As a result I find dinner parties and social gatherings fraught and if I can’t wriggle out of them, then often dress down in jeans and a demure, albeit pretty, top.”

8/10. No lady-oriented Mail piece is complete without some menopause-related fear-mongering.

“So now I’m 41 and probably one of very few women entering her fifth decade welcoming the decline of my looks. I can’t wait for the wrinkles and the grey hair that will help me blend into the background. Perhaps then the sisterhood will finally stop judging me so harshly on what I look like, and instead accept me for who I am.”

9/10. Perhaps, Samantha. Or perhaps they’ll continue to shun you once they realize your preferred conversation topic — no doubt accompanied by photo evidence — is the breathless reminiscing of your glory days. But, hey, when that happens, you can write about it, too.

Daily Mail Writer Says It’s Hard Being Beautiful