The Grange Hall

by Kristen Buckley

Ugly adj. displeasing to the senses and morally revolting.

My mother always laments the fact that Daniel Day Lewis hasn’t looked good in a movie since The Last of The Mohicans.  After that movie it’s been nothing but ugly.  It seems to me that Daniel Day just loves being ugly, although this is nothing new among actors.  Ugly characters tend to have more grit and more depth and as a result end up winning more awards, though in the case of DD I don’t think that’s what motivates him.  But the fact is, ugly is harder than it’s opposite, beauty.  Being ugly makes for obstacles and obstacles make for interesting stories.  Charlize Theron made herself seriously ugly in Monster and won an Academy Award, Umberto Eco writes about the monstrous and the deformed, but he is also quick to stress that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And lately it seems that ugly has gotten a bit kinder and gentler – sort of more Hunchback of Notre Dame and less Frankenstein.  Though in all honesty I’ve always felt very sorry for the monster.  He probably wasn’t so bad if someone had just taken the time to get to know him.  But back to Daniel D…

In his last ugly role he played an oil tycoon.  Oil is inherently ugly because it’s slimy and dark and makes you dirty.  They call it Black Gold but really it should be called Valuable mud or Rotting Dinosaur Corpses.   Geologists find dirt to be irresistible but I tend to think it’s ugly.  In fact, ugly things often lie hidden beneath the surface.  The deeper you go, the uglier things get.  This is true in the ocean, it’s true of the ground, and it’s also true of our psyches.   If our bodies mirror the amount of water on earth (I believe we are the exact same ratio if I recall correctly) then, I think it’s possible the geology of the earth mirrors our own hidden fault lines.   This is why in movies dead people often resurrect from hidden graves or the muddy depths of lakes.  You never see the killer come down from his perch on a fluffy, white cloud that resembles a bunny rabbit. 

More often than not, bodies (without the help of slimming clothing) can be quite ugly.  Ironically, ugly men typically think they’re hot stuff.  They often walk around thinking they look fantastic.  Unlike women, they tend to not have body issues – at least not with themselves, though they are pretty quick to judge women.   The irony of course is that most women won’t even walk around naked when they’re alone.  

Umberto Eco would probably say it all boils down to semiotics.  Ugly exists in relation to beauty and the world around it.  Ugliness takes all sorts of forms, from industrial to physical to aural.  The ugliness of Stravinksy, Bartok and Mussgorgsky pop into my mind.  Or let’s say Shostakovich, whose work didn’t sound ugly but was in fact embedded with odes to the victims of fascist oppression.  Shostakovich buried profound themes underneath dominant themes of a banal nature and opposite sentiment.  In doing so, he managed to keep his own voice while complying with the Russian government’s policy of socialist realism art.  On the outside his music was all about the triumph of Leninism and the complete (albeit contrived) optimism of Soviet life.  Underneath it was all the ugly truths of the fascist regime. Shostakovich was so paranoid that the authorities would hear what he was doing that he waited outside every night with his suitcase waiting to be picked up by the police. To be honest, I never heard any of that when I listened to Shostakovich, but that was because my stepdad’s business partner (who used to take me to Carnegie Hall every Sunday) would pass out at the beginning of every concert and snore at intensely high decibels.  This would leave me mortified and paranoid (much like Shostakovich) that the ushers were going to come and kick us out.

Maybe ugly is popular now because we’re losing touch with Beauty, as in the platonic beauty that lies beyond our grasp.  We need ugly in order for beauty to emerge.  Just consider how much more beautiful Ugly Betty’s Vanessa Williams looks when she stands in close proximity to the furry uni-brow of America Ferrara (who for the record is just homely). 

Birth is ugly but it makes something beautiful. The decay of the body is ugly.   Death is seriously ugly.  In fact, I would say ugly is more true than beauty.  The Japanese have a term mono no aware which is the sorrow of knowing something beautiful will die.  It’s sort of an underlying feeling of sorrow that accompanies beauty.  There is no word for the feeling that exists alongside ugliness but it is safe to say that Ugly helps us appreciate the beauty within the world.

Interestingly, and maybe this is the good news, ugly is within all of our grasps.  We can pack on fifty pounds, let our teeth go to hell, encourage zit formation with poor dietary practice, buy Birkenstocks, grow piccadilly weepers.  We can live with ugly, and win awards, and be loved for the beauty within (by our mothers) before becoming contestants on Extreme Makeover.  

Still, ugly is hard to pinpoint.  According to Voltaire the toad thinks his wife is the supreme beauty but how many of us would agree with that assessment?  We’re constantly changing our definition of ugly.  What’s ugly today can be fashionable tomorrow.  Witness the Grunge Momement, or 80s shoulder pads, or Renoir’s hugely fat women as  paradigms of beauty. 

Beauty shifts and with it, so does Ugly.  Leaving us to ponder: What is Ugly?

I’ll tell you what:  Daniel Day Lewis in a top hat.  That’s ugly.