Funny lookin' people.

People make fun of funny lookin' people. In a movie, if you want to show disgust for a bunch of (usually white) people, maybe doing something stoopid like going to church, get a bunch of funny lookin' people and film them lookin' bored. And funny. Unlike the cool kids in Hollywood, these people are obvious all stoopid. If they were smart, they'd be good lookin', right?

Of course, in the Internet age we don't even need TV or movies to make fun of average people. Sites like People of Walmart celebrate the underclass, if by "celebrate" you mean "expose to massive ridicule."

I think our modern attitude is most obviously seen with teenagers, who are not only the biggest offenders and consumers of stuff that's insulting to average goofy folks, but also its biggest victims. They think everyone around them is a geek or dork or just an old fart, because they don't look like people in the media. And yet they take little comfort in their own society, because most teens are pretty funny lookin' too, whatever the YA books say. No wonder life is so painful for even the cool kids.

The fact of the matter is, most people are funny lookin', not just the adults in the vicinity of children. You may think that in places like Hollywood, people would be much more attractive, and you might be right to some extent. Where show business is important, good looks are worth cash money; saying that professional actors look better than normal people is like saying professional athletes are in better shape than normal people. It's a tautology. However, the agents, lawyers, grips, caterers, janitors, everybody else who works to get those pretty faces on screen? Funny lookin'. Ever see Henry Waxman (D-Beauty) who represented Beverly Hills in Congress for four decades?

Yeah, I know.

Our perceptions have become skewed because of our continuous media diet. This may go back as far as the ability to reproduce line art, but it's everywhere now. If you spend a lot of serious screen time every day, the world looks like a stark division between hilarious horror show and sexy catwalk.

The fact is, God must love funny lookin' people, because he made so many of us. Bald, dentally impaired, scrawny, dumpy, saggy, baggy, chubby, weak-chinned, bent-backed, knock-kneed, big-nosed, stoop-shouldered, droop-eared... And that's not even counting the self-inflicted goofiness of bad clothes, bad haircut, bad habits, bad tattoos, bad piercings, bad attitude.

Bad makeup.

What I say is: Relax. Embrace your funny-lookin'-ness. Sure, there's always room for improvement, but don't go crazy over it. Better to be healthy and happy and good than good-lookin' and rotten. It's an imperfect world, and if you have to choose to be better inside than outside, focus on the inside.

Except for hygiene. It's healthy. And it's better to look bad than to smell bad.