ImpostorMom

I’m going to take a break from all my mommy rambling and such to talk about something really important. Does anyone else watch Beauty and the Geek?

Ok, so maybe not important but sadly, TV is one of my hobbies. For some strange reason the husband and I get hooked on silly reality TV shows. They are one of the few things that we watch together. Beauty and the Geek, Survivor, and recently The Biggest Loser (although I have stopped watching that one). I don’t know what it is but we just get sucked in.

Beauty and the Geek this season happens to have a team that have the exact same names as the two of us and it is kinda funny. I think we were drawn to this show in particular because we are both kinda geeky with a little bit of beauty thrown in. Neither of us would completely qualify for either of those classifications for that show but we can see both sides of the challenges most of the time.

Traditionally this show has consisted of male geeks and female beauties. These people are paired together and they compete in challenges. The geeks basically compete in challenges that test their social skills and outward appearance and the beauties are usually in challenges that test their intelligence. This season they have thrown in a male beauty/female geek pair.

It is amazing to see how the other teams instantly hate these two people and I wonder why that is. It is more the other women than the men from my observation and I guess that isn’t necessarily unexpected seeing how catty women can be. The male beauty is just ridiculous too. With all his posing and posturing, he is even more irritating than the majority of the female beauties with their “look at me, I’m so pretty but so stupid” acts.

As silly as this show is we do watch it and find ourselves discussing the social implications of this “experiment.” Most of the time teams leave with this new found respect for people different from themselves. It does makes me wonder how many of these beauties go back to their regular lives and really do change their ways though. They should do a follow up show to see if these women have returned to their shallow, dismissive ways when it comes to people that are viewed as geeks.

The geeks on the show probably benefit the most. They typically walk away with a new found confidence and learned socials skills that they were previously lacking. This is not to say that all geeks are that way, my husband for example is a geek for sure but he has ample social skills and is quite funny and charming.

The geeks on this show however seem to be lacking in the social skills and some are even painfully shy. The experience itself seems to teach these men (and now a woman) that if they just have a little more confidence that it can completely change the way they are seen by others. I think that is a good lesson for everyone even if it comes from a silly reality television show thought up by the likes of Ashton Kucher.