Here's the "Be Ugly" manifesto: "It's a fact that society has an unfair and unrealistic definition of beauty, but many people still struggle daily to achieve it. What's the result? Most of us continue to feel less than beautiful.
"
When was the last time our daughters got that message?
In a Jane Austen novel, probably. They'd be hard-pressed to find it anywhere in our popular culture, even in supposedly highbrow magazines.
I find myself inadvertently subscribing to magazines that ought to be delivered in brown paper wrappers. I find myself blushing as I say, "I read it for the articles." Case in point: The March 2006 Vanity Fair cover featuring stars Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley completely in the buff.
I don't usually subscribe to magazines that I need to hide from the children, but this one was quickly whisked to the bedroom. A few months later my anger was ignited by a completely different kind of cover: a full-face portrait of CNN star Anderson Cooper, staring soulfully with his ice-blue eyes.
It struck me that Vanity Fair would never give this kind of treatment to Christiane Amanpour or Katie Couric or any woman.
Other than the occasional grouping of stars, I couldn't recall a single Vanity Fair cover girl who wasn't in some state of undress, as if these stars spend all their time lolling around in Victoria's Secret lingerie.
When Rolling Stone's "Yearbook 2006" hit the stands, it was the same story. There were the somber, evocative portraits accompanied by headlines such as "The Genius of Bob Dylan," "The Passion of Kanye West" and "Neil Young: Inside His Private World.
"
Only a handful of covers featured a woman mdash; and each of those displayed serious cleavage. Sample headlines: "Christina Aguilera: The Dirty Girl Fights Back" and "The 20th Annual Hot List Starring Fergie: A Good Girl Gone Wild."
I stared at the unsmiling yet strangely compelling close-up of Neil Young, who looks like a noble old lion.
It was virtually impossible to imagine a similar cover shot of Chrissie Hynde or Annie Lennox.
And then there's Donald Trump's vicious war of words with Rosie O'Donnell. On his first volley he called her a "big fat slob.
" Apparently thinking better of that, he amended it to "big fat pig."
So that's why I'm feeling so appreciative of Ugly Betty these days. Never mind that Betty is pretty fetching on the show itself and the real-life actress America Ferrera is certifiably gorgeous.
Never mind that the "ugly chick" in movies is invariably pretty mdash; Janeane Garofalo in The Truth About Cats Dogs, Winona Ryder in Little Women, etc.
We'll forgive Ugly Betty her actual cuteness because at long last there's a campaign that tells girls to "be true to yourself and discover your own beauty within."
Let's hope our girls are listening mdash; and tuning out the 100,749 messages a day that tell them, "You're defined by your looks alone.
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