Samantha Brick, the woman who wrote about how being so beautiful has been both a blessing and a curse, was on a British morning talk show today to defend herself against the the shit storm she's encountered in the two days since her Daily Mail piece was published. Weirdly, during the entire 10-minute interview, everyone ignored the ugly elephant in the room: Brick's face. It has, after all, been at the center of this controversy, as most people's problem with her article wasn't so much what she said but that she wasn't pretty enough to be saying it. (Barbara Walters concurs!) It's kind of a shame, since it could've started a much more interesting conversation about how women are conditioned from such an early age to aspire to a certain beauty standard, but damnit if they aren't delusional bitches to think they've actually achieved it.
But Brick doesn't have the kind of debating skills and intellectual footwork to engage in this dance beyond her 1200 word missive. A talking head psychologist on the show was able to dismantle Brick's whole argument pretty quickly, getting her to admit that the incidences she described in her piece—of being treated well by men and horribly by women because of the way she looks—weren't as common as she'd led on, and said there were "shades of gray." She also wasn't so ready to admit that she believes she's "beautiful" on air, and instead, when asked, answered, "I believe the perception of me."
She also went on and on and on about how she lives in the French countryside. (She mentions it six times in nine minutes.) When pressed, Brick, who is married to an older man, implied that much of what has shaped her theory about her beauty is that she lives in a sparsely-populated community of much older people and that these older French women in her social circle are jealous of her youth and beauty. Whether that's really the case or not, Brick seems to think it is, so no wonder she thinks she's such hot shit, being 41 and living amongst retirees.
In truth, though, Brick has touched a nerve and it's worth pointing out that her confidence—which amazingly hasn't appeared to have wavered amidst all the backlash—is interpreted by others as arrogance, largely based on how she looks. We don't hate Samantha Brick because she's beautiful. We hate her because she thinks she is. And that's pretty ugly behavior.