Posted: May 7th, 2020
Pet Shop Boys and Beauty
Success & Jealousy in Beauty Beauty, written by Jane Martin in the mid nineteen hundreds, is an ironic play about two successful women, Bethany and Carla. Both women were the same age yet complete opposites. They also had completely different personalities and were unhappy with their lives. Martin casted and characterized them this way to illustrate a few themes. The drama was mainly centered on the theme that no one is ever happy unless they get their wishes granted. However, in these two women’s cases, getting what they wanted caused them to realize there is nothing wrong with being different.
These two themes can be seen through the two character’s success, jealousy, and a genie. Bethany and Carla experienced success in Beauty. Carla was a famous, “beautiful catalogue model that was going to become a big time model soon after speaking with Ralph Lauren” (Martin 735). On the other hand, Bethany, the smart one, “received a $40,000 job offer straight out of college. She also published several short stories” (735). Carla was characterized as the perfect and beautiful success story, while Bethany was characterized as the ugly screw-up.
However, neither person was happy in their respective positions. Carla was always annoyed, “and always hung by her fingernails in modeling. She felt like she had zero privacy, and guys would hassle her on the street and pressure her from the beginning of a relationship. She never was able to have a long relationship” (736). Likewise, Bethany did not see herself as a success story because, “she did not see herself as a beautiful individual” (736). They both envied each other’s success and looks. This alone shows the reader that the characters were very jealous of each other’s lives.
Jealousy is very noticeable in Beauty, especially when it comes to Bethany. Bethany was extremely jealous of, “Carla because she looked beautiful. She represented that beautiful person that knocks a man across a room twenty-four hours a day. Beautiful was in the major leagues, whereas pretty was in the minor leagues as a way for people to simply discover each other” (736). Bethany just considered a self a disgrace and a piece of trash. Carla explained, “Bethany is beautiful and she has the charm, personality, and is perfectly pretty” (736).
Of course, Bethany places a stereotype on beautiful by saying, “it is the real deal. Carla gets discounts on makeup for no reason. Parents treat beautiful children better and they even statistically get paid more. Beautiful people can have sex any time, any place” (736). Carla, confused, did not understand why Bethany wanted to be just like her. Bethany hated Carla most of the time because of her beauty. This leads Carla to go on a rant about beauty and why it is so difficult to live and be beautiful simultaneously. Carla tells Bethany to be herself and she will have an amazing life.
Bethany begs to differ and says, “it is what everyone wants to be. Money can only make you buy things. Beauty makes you the center of the entire universe. All eyes are always on those individuals that are beautiful” (736). Carla says, “Bethany will hate her life is she was beautiful. She would be miserable and unhappy” (736). Bethany then pulls out a genie in a bottle. Bethany, determined, reiterates, “Carla’s thoughts do not matter. Carla was just lying about everything, which explains why she had no friends or a long relationship.
Bethany wanted to be just like Carla, and she had a god dam genie and only one wish to make” (736). Bethany indeed used her one wish and wished that she was just like Carla. The genie is used as a symbol to symbolize the fact that Bethany got everything she wanted to be happy. The genie allowed Bethany to “walk in Carla’s shoes”. Bethany and Carla looked at each other and realized they had swapped roles. Both women stated, “We have each other’s jewelry, legs, nail polish, clothes and shoes. We can see each other! ” (737). Upset, Bethany stated, “She wanted to be beautiful, but she did not want to be Carla. (737). In the end, both women realized they regretted getting what they wanted because they both had the same thing that every other human had. They both realize that their happiness was not good because it only showed that they both just had a plethora of different problems. Beauty is practically a real life drama that actually occurs every day in the world. There are hundreds of thousands of people that are not happy with their current situations in life. Many of them just want to be so much more successful, and, in Bethany’s case, more beautiful.
Too many people think that success and having good looks automatically lead to unlimited happiness. Sadly, this is a lot more false than true. People will only be happy if they are themselves and are different and unique. After reading Martin’s play, one can see that the two women are just like two people in the real world. They both have experienced success and jealousy. Too many people worry too much about their image and appearance. The genie in the play showed what happens sometimes when someone is given everything they ever dreamed of having.
The genie granted Bethany’s wish so she could realize how it felt being in someone else’s place or position. Afterwards, she saw that being different was okay and actually better than she initially thought. She realized that she did not want to be anyone but herself. Overall, Beauty illustrates a real life event that teaches people a valuable lesson: One should be happy and unique because there is nothing wrong with being different. Martin, Jane. Beauty. Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, Robert Funk, and Linda S. Coleman. Backpack ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2011. 733-737. Print.
