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{{trope}}
[[File:xxxholicbeautifulpeople.jpg|link=
{{quote|''How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?''
''Now that you know who you are, what do you want to be?''
|'''[[The Beatles]]''', "Baby You're A Rich Man"}}
The '''Beautiful Elite''' aren't just beautiful. Their whole life is beautiful. They are more fashionable than anyone else, more sophisticated and charming than anyone else, and are usually fabulously rich. Their clothes are all way too expensive for you to ever own. They almost always live in a [[Big Fancy House]] that is so clean and well organized they look like they are [[Living in a Furniture Store]].
Most of the time they simply fell into this status. In many cases, they are of royal descent, of divine descent, or at least belonging to some sort of lesser nobility. If they weren't born to the upper crust, they have managed to become a part of it. More likely than not, they have been educated in elite private schools.
And to make all of this worse, those who don't rub it in, are so gracious about it that one has to wonder whether their unparalleled humility isn't just one more way they're better than you.
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* Absolutely everyone, including insignificant characters, in ''[[Shattered Angels]]''.
* Most everything by [[CLAMP]], especially in their detailed drawings. Specifically,
** ''[[
** ''[[Code Geass]],'' for which they only did the character designs.
** ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]''
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* ''[[Infinite Stratos]]''. All IS pilots have snazzy school uniforms, a 5 star hotel grade dormitories, pimping mecha suit, and of course, look very good.
* Most regulars in the ''[[Prince of Tennis]]'' anime are this. Especially Atobe.
* Virtually every named character in ''[[
* The [[DearS]] of the series of the same name are a race of beautiful alien slaves who are practically perfect in every way.
* The nobles in ''[[Reimei no Arcana]]''.
* Everyone in ''[[Skip Beat!]]'' especially Kyouko.
* The ruling class of Elites of ''[[Ai no Kusabi]]'' are ''elite'' in every way because they are designed to be.
* Just about everyone in ''[[Princess Princess]]'', especially the titular "princesses".
* Just about everyone in ''[[
* The mangaka Chi-Ran never draws anyone in any other manner than a) very beautiful and b) very feminine, whether they're [[Boys Love|male]] or [[Girls Love|female]], major or minor; they live in pretty surroundings too, whether mansions or nightclubs.
* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'': For all its [[Generic Cuteness]], [[Costume Porn]] and [[Everything's Better with Princesses|Princesses]], the manga and anime mostly avert this. No truly beautiful character is shown without serious flaws that spoil the image of elitist perfection, whether they're the [[This Loser Is You|good]] [[The Klutz|guys]] ''or'' the [[Vain Sorceress|bad]] [[Not So Above It All|guys]].
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* Anne Rice. All of her vampires, but especially Louis, Armand and, of course, Lestat are gorgeous and rich. This whole trend is heavily subverted with ''Near Dark'', where the vampires tend to be grimey, travel around in camper vans and almost definitely steal their clothes from the people they kill.
** Of course most of the above were chosen as vampires mainly for their looks, and they had money because they stole it; Lestat turned Louis at least partially because he had good stable wealth, and needed a nice place to care for his elderly human father.
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[Warhammer
* Inverted in the Australian school comedy ''[[Hating Alison Ashley]]'' by [[Robin Klein]] (later made into a play and film), where the beautiful and talented Alison is a genuinely nice person, but the 'ordinary' protagonist persists in believing she's a snob who's constantly showing off her superiority.
* ''[[The Clique]]''. The Pretty Committee, the titular Clique, are described with lavish prose down to their accessories and the brand names of their cell phones—and, mind you, these are ''seventh graders''.
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* The Koryon [Korean] royal court in ''[[Conqueror|Bones of the Hill]]'' is described in such a manner - the Koreans are all incredibly good-looking and exotic, the gardens are gorgeous, and the wall hangings and decorations are spectacular. Of course, that scene is told from Chagatai's [[Point of View]]; since this is probably the first time Chagatai has been in a building other than a tent or fort, it's only natural for him to be awed.
* Dick and Nicole Diver appear to be Beautiful People at the beginning of ''[[Tender Is the Night]]''.
* During the first few chapters of ''[[War and Peace]]'', there are various beautiful ladies hanging around a beautiful people party, where all the other beautiful people notice them being beautiful even in relation to their beautiful-to-begin-with-selves, and in fact whatever they do must be accompanied by a beautiful description of how beautifully beautiful they are, and their beautiful dresses, and the beautiful way they do their graceful beautiful beauty walk, and overall their beautifully beautiful beauty, lest you for a second forget what these ladies' apparent defining characteristic is. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120427015034/http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/5974 And also, you're drunk.]
* [[Deconstructed]] in ''[[The Great Gatsby]],'' a classic novel that starts off by showing all the glamor of the rich, then revealing the ugly truths behind why some of them are this way.
* The good guys in Ayn Rand novels. Example: John Galt from ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' is a brilliant enough scientist to rewrite the laws of physics, a brilliant enough engineer to build a perpetual motion device using his discoveries, a brilliant enough philosopher and orator to Author Filibuster on Objectivism for HOURS, and a brilliant enough leader to get every industrialist on Earth to join a utopian society of his own creation. Also, he's [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|incorruptible]]. And torture proof. And every word of his physical description is dripping with swooning adoration.
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===
* Princess Voluptua in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]].'' Lampshaded by the fact her appearance ''is'' an illusion, and she actually [[Starfish Alien|isn't humanoid at all.]]
* [[The Kingfisher]]: The vampire progenitors are born, and therefore a bit random looking or odd. Their "children" are chosen, and therefore...
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=== Video Games ===
* The [[Castlevania]] series received a makeover with more beautiful characters for both heroes and villains, males and females, courtesy of character artist Ayami Kojima. Her art is associated with Team IGA's tites, which started with [[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night]].
* [[Xenoblade]] features [[Bishonen|Shulk]], Fiora and [[Ms. Fanservice|Sharla]], all of whom would be top models in the real world (specially if you see them in a swimsuit), and Melia is pure Fetish Fuel. On the other hand this game has much less characters like this than one would expect from a JRPG. Dunban for example, while still physically attractive, is within levels reachable by the average person, and Reyn would be unthinkable in most of the rest of Japanese fantasy media. The NPCs attractiveness varies a lot throughout the game, too.
== Dream Worlds ==
=== Dream World Examples ===
* Mount Olympus, with it's inhumanly-beautuiful behaviorally-chaotic inhabitants, is one of the prototypes for this trope. Which makes it [[Older Than Feudalism]]. There were some exceptions among the Olympians, however, such as Hephaestus, who was scorned for his ugliness.
* Almost all cases of [[Our Elves Are Better|high elves and space elves]], from Tolkien elves to the [[Babylon 5|Minbari]], will look like this. Taken to impressive levels in the ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' movies, where elves apparently caused everything to move in slow motion and all looked like Australian and New Zealand models. Or they look like [[Flight of the Conchords|Brett McKenzie]].
=== Art ===
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* Just look at any illustrated advertisement from [[The Fifties]]. Good God, we should be so lucky! Those ads had you believe that women wore the most glamourous makeup ''all the time'', and that men had impeccable hair, dimples, and teeth - and, of course, everyone was always in a really good mood. Compare those with actual photographs from the 1950s, and you'll see the tremendous toll that an era when plastic surgery and physical fitness were still at a premium took on the appearance of certain people.
=== [[Live
* ''[[Sex and the City]]'' takes place in a fantasy version of upper-class Manhattan that appeals to the materialism in everyone. The main characters have absurdly easy but nonetheless well-paying jobs that give them time to be beautiful, have wild love lives, and own more shoes than Imelda Marcos.
** [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21494412/ One would argue that Sarah Jessica Parker's beauty] falls squarely in the territory of [[Informed Attribute]].
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== Evil Versions ==
=== Anime and Manga ===
* Siegfried's ''Contra Mundi'' team in the ''[[Trinity Blood]]'' manga. Perfect skins, stylish, expensive <s> Nazi</s> uniforms and haircuts, and ''[[Bishie Sparkle|ohmygod, he sparkles!]]''. (Then {{spoiler|Cain shows up naked and ruins the effect. Nice butt, though.}})
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* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'': The villains of the second season, the Black Moon clan, are all rather beautiful and seem to lead very dignified lifestyles. Special mention goes to Esmeraude, who is repeatedly seen in fancy clothes. The only one who does not abide by this lifestyle, is finally revealed as the [[Big Bad]].
** It is, however, heavily implied that this just be posturing. They still live on a planet made for prisoners (even flowers are a rarity). Furthermore, for all her apparent luxury, Esmeraude has never seen or tasted anything sweet before, leading to a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] when she [[Big Eater|wolfs down an entire tray at the local bakery's All You Can Eat opening special]].
=== Film ===
* ''[[The Stepford Wives]]'' takes place in a [[Town with a Dark Secret]] where the women and their houses look too good to be true... and are. Notable in that the people who run the town, the Men's Association, are the only things that are ugly.
* ''Seconds'' depicts a elderly man who pays to literally be remade as one of the Beautiful People; in a nice touch, post-transformation he is played by Rock Hudson. It doesn't work out very well.
* The highest-ranking members of society in ''[[In Time]]'', are very good looking and rich. In the film, everybody stops aging physically at 25.
=== Music ===
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* [[Marilyn Manson]]'s [[Concept Album]] ''Antichrist Superstar'' features a race of beautiful, superior beings who lord over the oppressed masses. The story is told from the perspective of "Wormboy", a downtrodden [[Muggle]] who seeks to join the ranks of these [[Ubermensch]]ian overlords and become the titular Antichrist Superstar. There's actually a song on the album entitled "The Beautiful People".
* [[David Bowie]]'s "Oh! You Pretty Things" tells the story of a perfect next generation, homo superior, who will discard and destroy the current population of humanity.
=== Literature ===
* ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]]'' is one of the most famous examples. A [[Dystopia]] where everyone is raised to be a [[Stepford Smiler]], and everyone looks twenty years old (except the Epsilons, the lowest caste; they are barely human).
* In Scott Westerfeld's book ''[[Uglies|Pretties]]'' everyone gets turned phenomenally [[
* In William King's [[Warhammer
* In Jim Butcher's [[Dresden Files]], the White Court.
** Averted with Inari Raith, Thomas' little sister. Cute, but not blinding, jaw-droppingly beautiful like Lara, although that's only because she is still human. It is shown in the same book that teenaged Thomas was, while not ugly, slightly overweight and had a "squint that suggested a need for glasses." So becoming a White Court vampire literally ''makes'' you one of the beautiful people.
*** Which makes sense because they're [[Horny Devils|Succubi and Incubi.]]
* Treacherous Beautiful People often figure in the novels of [[Sidney Sheldon]], dating back to his breakthrough hit ''The Other Side of Midnight'' and villainess Noelle Page, a poor French girl who clawed her way to the top by utilizing her beauty. Good Beautiful People exist too, but usually are the targets of the bad ones.
* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s novel ''[[
** The beauty turns out just to be a glamour field though - to anyone that can see through it, they look vaguely feline and not especially attractive at all.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[Iron Shadows in the Moon]]", the [[Physical God]] in [[Dreaming of Times Gone By|Olivia's dream]]. This might go under "Too Good to be True" since all we see him do is [[Revenge|avenge]] his [[Half-Human Hybrid|son]]'s [[Cold-Blooded Torture|torture]] and death. Then, it's a nasty revenge that endangers anyone who happens on it.
* ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]''
=== Live-Action TV ===
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* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' episode, "Number 12 Looks Just Like You", may have been inspired by ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]].'' (It was based on a Charles Beaumont story.) The future ''Dystopia'' in which the story is set forces its people to undergo an operation that makes them beautiful and ditzy. (Said people are only allowed to choose from a small number of idealized forms for their new bodies - which is why except for the main character {{spoiler|until she goes through the operation at the end}} all the roles in the episode are played by only three people - and thus have to wear nametags in order to identify each other.)
* The tv movie "The Girl Most Likely To..." is about a smart, homely, overweight girl who enters college and is routinely tormented by the beautiful people. Driven to the brink, she ends up in a major car crash. After months of hospitalization with her jaw wired shut and extensive reconstructive surgery, she emerges slim and beautiful. Returning to college unrecognized, she gets close to her tormentors who regard her as one of them—close enough to kill them off one by one.
=== Tabletop Games ===
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* Many of the [[Exalted]] are like this, particularly ones old enough to reach a permanent Essence rating of 6 or higher (who can thus raise their Appearance stat to beyond-human levels). Abyssal Exalted, unless they are so horrifically ugly that their Appearance is permanently 0, actually ''have'' to become this as they grow stronger.
* The Galateids of ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'' can only be created from the bodies of beautiful people. They exude charm and grace, and their innate power allows them to become masterful manipulators. [[Glamour Failure|And then you see what they really look like.]] Under the surface, they look like mannequins, statues... ''embalmed corpses''. When the world gets too much, they snap and [[Yandere|try to claim what they want regardless of who suffers]]. Part of what drives them to try to [[Become a Real Boy]], even though it means aging and decay, is to stop living out the lie.
=== Video Games ===
* The BB Corps in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'' are a collection of four stunningly-beautiful women from all over the world, described as being 'drop-dead gorgeous' and some of the most beautiful women in the world (in a universe where everyone has [[Generic Cuteness|Generic Sexiness]]). They also fall right into the [[Uncanny Valley]] due to being scanned into the game from real life actresses, and are really, really [[Ax Crazy]].
=== Web Original ===
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:The Beautiful Tropes]]
[[Category:Rule of Glamorous]]
[[Category:Improbable Appearance Tropes]]
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