The people at People must be really, really exhausted. After all, they've just named Jennifer Aniston "the world's most beautiful woman."
Mind-boggling, if you ask me. I mean, the last time I checked, there were upwards of seven billion people on this planet - and at least half of those are female.
So Jen stands out in a crowd of 3.5 billion? Holy moly.
To arrive at their declaration, the folks at People - who likely don't even number in the thousand - would have been up to their eyeballs eyeballing gals across the globe.
No clue what their methodology entailed, but I imagine they were dispatched in pairs to each of the seven continents. In their hands would have been a picture of Jennifer, which they would have checked against every woman they happened to encounter - outside igloos in Antarctica, pubs in Ireland and ball parks in the U.S. of A. "What do you think?" a People person would
have whispered to her colleague. They would have been, oh, watching a line of people getting off a bus in downtown Berlin, or standing outside an opera house in Melbourne, or heading off on safari in Tanzania. "See anyone who measures up to Jen?" "Nope," the colleague would have said. "She's still No. 1."
Amazingly, Miss Pinnacle of Perfection was also tops in the world back in 2004. So this isn't the first time those People peeps have been globetrotting with their Jennifer pictures in hand.
I have to think, however, that there might have been moments - many of them - when the beauty search crew would have stumbled upon someone who presented some pretty stiff competition - literally. Say, a highland lassie with hair the colour of gold. Or a woman from Rio with perfect sun-kissed skin.
Problem is, of course, there might have been some head-scratching - not to mention panic in Hollywood - if People's cover had declared: "Ainsley MacLachlan is world's most beautiful woman."
Anyway, the whole thing strikes me as weird, creepy and more than a little subjective. Besides, isn't it time we got a little more creative with this world's-most-whatever thing? Forget most beautiful or most handsome, I say. Isn't it about time we identified the person - male or female - who has the world's mostly finely manicured toenails? Or quietest hiccups? Or curliest hair?
Most beautiful? Yes, Jennifer, no question you're attractive, but I'm kind of done with the pretty stuff. Don't know the state of your toenails, but People should really know.
