Beauty and the Geek

I don't watch a lot of reality TV and similar crap, but I did end up seeing Beauty and the Geek tonight. I'm not sure if it was partly the beautiful women, empathy with the geeks, or simply the fact I was too tired to do anything more strenuous than sit in front of Channel 4 all evening.

Anyway the basic premise is that seven geeky guys - including one from Oxford (who claims to have deliberately accentuated his geekiness) - are paired up with seven girls, who mostly seem to be models, page 3 girls, FHM competition winners and such, to undertake a series of challenges.

I'm pretty shocked at the girls. I didn't think any of them were amazingly attractive. They're all dolled up in make up and sexy/slutty clothes, so it's hard to tell, but I reckon I could find quite a few girls round college who similarly done up would be just as attractive. Obviously, however, the producers were also after girls who - in the interests of entertainment - were particularly shallow and stupid. One was even interviewed saying "I don't know why I can't be friends with ugly people"...

This week, the task for the seven girls was a general knowledge test - which they had time and materials to revise for - and it was shocking. They were asked what planet the Appalachian mountains were on, and only one out of five said Earth (another even said the moon, which isn't a planet), one thought the Battle of Hastings was 1966, and one guessed that the square root of 49 was 489!

I'm naturally worried that these girls represent 'normal' people - which, of course, is as unfair as assuming the geeks do. I think I'd rather be a geek. After all, looks don't last.