“Beauty and the Geek” — It’s Good To Be King
Lookin’ sharp.
True story: yesterday, having just had my birthday and feeling the need for some change in my life, I decided I was going to stop exclusively wearing my trade-marked low-top navy blue Converse All-Stars (laced in reverse) and instead start dressing like an adult — I was going to wear out my black pair of low-top Converse All-Stars. This was a big step for me. I’ve been rocking “the relaxed dignitary” (as I like to call them) for just about the entire decade. Changing this aspect of my attire (even momentarily) was like changing from PC to Mac or Judaism to Scientology or lungs to gills. There was one problem. I knew there were rules about black shows and certain shades of pant, and I certainly didn’t want to violate said rule. I placed a panicked text message to a highly reliable source, a female, and found out that it was OK to wear those black shoes with dark jeans… just as long as my shirt wasn’t brown or blue. In other words, I found this week’s Beauty and the Geek makeover episode, highly relatable. More after the jump…
The makeovers are really this show’s bread and butter. Watching the geeks either embrace or reject their new look is kind of fascinating and highlights how deep seeded their geekdom may be. This isn’t to say that it’s the clothes that make the man, but I think we can all agree that feeling attractive is generally a pretty positive self-esteem boost. Plus, wearing sport coats is really fun. The pictured Joshua came out with the coolest look, perhaps because it managed to keep his collegiate geekiness firmly intact while amping up the hipness. Least successful was William, though I blame that in part on the fact that his hair was so short to begin with it didn’t really allow for the stylists to do anything too creative. In the end it was just his normal self in a nice suit. Nicole, the geeky girl, came out looking great though not really all that different because, as I’ve mentioned before, she was never really all that geeky to begin with.
With their hot new threads and freshly dyed and gooped-up hair, the Geeks were going to be going to prom. There they would have to convince the other prom attendees that they should be voted the king. Each geek had to ask a beauty to be his date, but it couldn’t be his partner (Nicole had to ask another geek), meaning when all was said and done Sam (the dude) and one of the beauties wouldn’t be going (it ended up being Shay).
At the prom mingling took place and John ultimately took home the crown. His strategy, just act completely normal. Most of the attendees were shocked that he was in fact one of the geeks. This is in comparison to Luke who perhaps thought his new awesome look would somehow make the cheesier aspects of his personality come off as insanely cool and not just insane. Dave was kind of a lost cause. It’s just really hard to explain larping and make it sound as cool as it is.
On the flipside of the episode the beauties had to go to an elementary school and teach a lesson to a group of kids. Those who succeeded tended to use the venue to highlight their personalities. Sam and Shay both excelled because the way they taught was as important as what they taught. Others just got tripped up on the material. Hey, fractions are tough! Shay eked out the win.
Once the challenge winners were decided it was time to send people to the elimination round. John sent Sam and Nicole. Shay picked Katie and Luke. Again, I don’t entirely understand how one could successfully try to win this game aside from winning every single challenge, but that, I suppose, is besides the point.
Despite Katie nailing a word problem that even tripped me up (the answer was 31), she forgot that California was not the western-most state (it’s Alaska) and thus lost the round for her and Luke… who are now out of the house.
This afternoon I went shopping for some new clothes, feeling that most of my wardrobe over the past seven years had devolved into such an abstract collection of colors and sizes it looks like it could belong to a series of late-90s retail workers and/or skate-punks. Now I can at least say I own one pair of pants that fit.
