Beauty & The Nerd: Are the beautiful the superior species?

Over ten years ago, the first episode of “Beauty & The Nerd” appeared on German television. Even then, I avoided such formats like athlete’s foot. I am a real TV child and have seen all the reality formats on MTV. But I can’t win over shows that are dripping with clichés – and their creators obviously despise the participants. Nevertheless, this evening I am sitting at my laptop and watching star for the first time in my life “Beauty & The Nerd” – the final show. I will give the show a chance.

The format is taken from the American version “Beauty and the Geek”, which was first broadcast in 2005. Let’s take a quick look back: At that time, the social network “MySpace” and Apple’s media program “iTunes” were among the most searched terms of the year in Google’s annual list.

Wikipedia outlines the concept of the show as follows: “The show follows groups of 'beauties' (people – almost always women – who rely on their attractiveness and outgoing personalities but lack only intellect) and 'geeks' (people – almost always men – who rely on their intelligence but lack social skills) who must form pairs to compete against each other in competitions and avoid elimination. The last pair standing wins the grand prize of $250,000.” Oh well.

“Beauty & The Nerd”: Cliché after cliché

Not much has changed in the German version, but ProSieben is not giving away 250,000 euros: In Germany, the winning couple has to make do with 50,000 euros. That's not all that much, because the show often presents its candidates in the worst possible light. And the money has to be shared between the winners.

The nerds are assumed to be stupid, needy creatures. The makers of the show are certain that the way the nerds appear on set is wrong. But if you find out a little about the candidates, you'll see that almost all of them are in their early twenties. An age at which very few are self-confident – and rarely know exactly who, what or how they want to be.

ProSieben tells its protagonists that they are losers if they stay the way they are. As if that wasn't enough, the production company Endomol Shine gives the nerds a makeover. Then the viewers and the nerds are shown how much better they look now. But they don't: They look like they're in disguise. Because they tried to make them into other people. But a style has to be full of life, has to be authentic. That only works if you feel comfortable in your clothes.

Beautiful, more beautiful, beauty nerd

The beauties are the superior species in this universe. They don't need to be made over. Only the makers of the show know why it was decided that they are not beauty nerds. Because knowing how much a breast operation costs, what a filler is or how contouring works is also a specialist knowledge. But even the beauties are not safe from the derogatory comments of the voice-over. Of course, the women who have had multiple surgeries, injections and make-up are totally superficial. And on top of that, they can be bitchy, rowdy, loud, trashy – or not very intelligent.

Take Shelly, the master hairdresser, for example. While her team partner and ship nerd Sam was doing a parkour, the beauty was trapped in a cage. In the game, speed counts and Sam is much too slow for Shelly. He has to drag the heaviest objects possible over obstacles and place them on a seesaw so that Shelly's cage tilts: Only then can Shelly fish for the right key.

After the two lost the challenge, the voice-over joked that not only was Sam slow, but Shelly also moved at a snail's pace. And that despite this – superficial, bitchy and arrogant like a beauty – she only saw her team partner's mistakes and complained. Of course, as onlookers we don't know whether these were all her answers.

The show doesn't seem quite fresh anymore

The whole editing, the script, the condescending voice-over seem out of date. One of the low points of this almost two-hour final show was the moment when the beauties were made to look “ugly”. Body hair on women was shamed and spots were portrayed as ugly. As if people with skin diseases didn't already have enough to deal with the disease itself…

And then the reaction of the candidates: There was Shelly, who had a bald head and a few spots painted on her face. And she was very humbled because she had to wear a fake bald head for five minutes. Or reality star Kim Virginia, who is convinced that she gets a lot of hate on social media just because of her beauty. And she thinks that people on social media would be nicer to her if they had a few spots and a mustache.

I suspect she hasn't looked at the comments section under the bikini photo of the normally beautiful pregnant actress Margot Robbie in the last few days. There, mainly men complained that Robbie's breasts hadn't grown to the same size as her belly.

My summary: The show dragged on like chewing gum – and I was glad when it was over. In the end, Kim Virginia and Collin won the 50,000 euros. Kim will share the winnings among the nerds. At least Kim Virginia understood what the show was actually supposed to be about: “It doesn't matter which direction we geeks are in, it's the personality that counts!”

rha