Free Essay about Under the Skin - Social Psychology Film

The film "Under the Skin" is a science fiction movie about an alien that comes to earth and starts hunting men. The alien seduces men to her home where she engages them in a mating game before she devours them. For Laura, the appearance of a man does matter. Laura seems men like her source of food and nothing else. The way she looks at human beings is different as is evident when she lures a man to her place whose face is deformed to an extent that she has never had sex with a woman because of her appearance. Appearance is a dominant factor in human interaction when determining how people relate to each other. Beautiful and handsome people tend to make friends easily compared to people who are no "good looking". Although this phenomenon is important in humans, aliens who appear to be more advanced do not seem to care about how somebody looks.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Across different cultures all over the world, people have agreed somehow on who is attractive and who is not good looking (Langlois et al., 2000). The way a person looks determines whether he/she is going to having it the easy way or the hard way. Attractiveness is essential for all age groups whether a child, an adult, male or female (Langlois et al., 2000). However, not everyone judges people according to the way they look. There are a few people who have overcome this challenge and judge individual according to who they are and what they can do (Langlois et al., 2000). Human's beings also tend to overlook an individual's appearance once they achieve something great in the society. People like soccer players and celebrities are judged based on their achievement more than their looks.

Actors, musicians and other people who have been able to achieve great things have worked hard to reach their goals and aspirations. Some sportsmen such as South Korea skater Kim Yu-na starts her training at down. She does not look at the limitation such as cold or the poor condition. Her determination despite several injuries has made up achieve what she wanted and became a world-class skater. The self-discipline has enabled her to maintain a healthy body throughout her career. According to the skater, she has never taken a midnight snack and has been careful about what she consumes. The hard work, discipline, and dedication enabled the skater to win a gold medal during the Olympic making the South Korea nation proud. People these days do not associate the skater with her looks but rather her achievements as a skater.

The maxim "do not judge a book by its cover" was coined to mean people should look at a person for what he can do rather than how she/he looks (Langlois et al., 2000). It is essential to go beyond a person's look if human beings need to advance. According to the movie "Skin Deep", the alien views human beings as equal. Once we go beyond the skin, everyone looks the same. The difference from that point is the character of an individual. Just like human view a cow or a pig as just a source of food; aliens too view us as food to them. The movie shows that beauty is a manmade concept. When Laura is observing human behavior, she does not see their beauty or color but rather their actions.

References

Langlois, J. H., Kalakanis, L., Rubenstein, A. J., Larson, A., Hallam, M., & Smoot, M. (2000). Maxims or myths of beauty? A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 126(3), 390-423. doi:10.1037//0033-2909.126.3.390