Analysis Of Liking What You See: A Documentary By Ted Chiang

Lookism: How It Affects Society
Often times, in TV shows and movies, science fiction is a great genre to watch from Black Mirror to Arrival. What happens when you combine the topic of lookism into a science fiction story? Well, that is exactly what in “Liking What You See: A Documentary” is about! In “Liking What You See: A Documentary” by Ted Chiang, lookism is an important concept in this short story. The main character, Tamera Lyons cannot enjoy beauty because of an implant called calliagnosia that her parents implemented in her. Calliagnosia does not hide beauty, but rather desensitizes a person’s ability to see beauty and ugliness. Throughout this short story, Chiang illustrates that beauty is a part of life and people need it to enjoy

By utilizing science fiction, Ted Chiang can convey his message about how beauty should not be restricted from humans but embraced. This is important because in today’s society, lookism is not discussed as much like racism. Lookism affects how much money people receive to lower conviction sentences. The more beautiful a person is, the better advantage they have at life (Talley “The Ugly Side of Lookism and What We Can Do About It”). This is due to the idea that beauty is valued in society. Today’s society is obsessed with beauty from “facetuning” a selfie to post on Instagram to setting a new year’s resolution to lose weight, these actions only serve to make a person look beautiful and desirable. This is the negative side effects of social media and seeing beauty. Social media has a way to make people envy other people for their looks and encourages children to fit into society’s beauty ideals (Simmons “How Social Media is a Toxic Mirror”). If a technology similar to calliagnosia is introduced now, perhaps

Beauty is often sought after, especially in Asian countries. For example, in South Korea, the way you look is important. Lookism affects South Korean society due to the concept that the more attractive you are, the more likely you will be hired. This is detrimental to mental health, especially to South Korean teenagers. Double eyelids are preferred over monolids and often, parents force their children to do a double eyelid surgery. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but society decides that (Kong “Plastic Surgery and Lookism in South Korea”). By creating a “utopian society” where beauty is not recognized, Chiang explores how beauty affects the world. For example, when Tamera removes her calliagnosia, she does not instantly feel beautiful yet. It takes her a while to familiarize herself since she’s truly never been able to appreciate beauty before (Chiang 246). Once Tamera figures out she is beautiful, she tries to win back her ex, Garrett, with her looks. This is one way of abusing beauty since she is trying to rekindle a relationship with her looks and that is unhealthy (Chiang 268). Typically, people who have beautiful faces can abuse their power and do immoral activities. For example, this experiment utilized men and money. The men can give all their money to their partner and their money will doubled. Most of the time, the attractive men kept the money and did not