or Why Ashton Kutcher Is Your Kid's Worst Nightmare

Not so long ago, in the days of classic television shows like The Twilight Zone, people were entertained by the “alien visitor” exercise: If beings from another planet were visiting America, what would they think of us? What would they conclude about how our society works? The exercise was weird, and fun, because it invited us to look at ourselves with a fresh eye, to examine what might not otherwise draw our attention because it is so familiar. The alien visitor has gone on to be a comedy staple since then—think the Coneheads, Mork and Mindy, or Third Rock from the Sun—and although the ponderous self-examination of Rod Serling has been replaced by something much lighter, or sillier (depending on how ponderous one is feeling on any given day), the exercise is still a good one. With that in mind, I ask you, dear reader, the following question: Have you ever watched Beauty and the Geek?

Imagine you were a visitor from another planet and you watched an episode, or (God forbid) the entire season of Ashton Kutcher's recent venture into television “reality.” If you were an alien visitor, you would learn one important thing about American culture: American earthlings come in two subgroups. There are beautiful people who appear to be hotly desired by everyone else for something called “sex” and there are ugly people who are not desired at all for the thing called “sex.” And then there are intelligent people, who seem to know an awful lot, and stupid people, who seem to be, well, really stupid. And here's the really interesting part, if you're the alien visitor: All the really intelligent people are ugly, and all the beautiful people are dumber than a box of rocks.