Via my ever-interesting MSN feed on hotmail.com, I stumbled across this article today about a model agency called “Ugly New York:”

Ugly New York’s mission: To find the look of someone who is anything but outright pretty. There are safe words to describe the look; it could be “real” or “eccentric.” But certainly, “tall,” “short,” “fat,” “thin” and, well, “ugly” also fit.

The model agency, who started in 1969 in England, is looking for people who are interesting-looking. People who represent reality. The agency represents a wide variety of people, regardless of shape, size, height, color, or age. And each individual has their own type of beauty.

Now, of course, they don’t represent just anyone. But the owner, Simon Rodgers, had trouble describing what he was looking for:

“The truth is, it’s just a gut feeling,” Rogers told Roker. “Some people just have that something special. For me, the basic thing is they’ve got to be happy with themselves.

“They have to be content with who they are because after all, they’re going to be out there in front of the camera.”

I have to admit, I was delighted by finding this article. Ugly NY seems to be really, really, correct in their whole enterprise. They’re taking people that most of the media and most of the world would say, “You’re ugly!” and showing that even normal people, women, men, young, old, etc., can be beautiful. They make me gleeful!

What did not, however, make me gleeful was the presentation of the article. First and foremost, it had a way of sort of back-handing it’s subjects. For instance, this delightful paragraph:

Brian Thomas, an extra-heavy-set Ugly model, joked that he already knew he was model material before the agency took him on. “Well, I’m hot,” Thomas said. “Let’s just get that right out in the open. I’m drop-dead sexy.“

But seriously?

“My sister actually sent my pictures in to Simon and when Simon called, I thought it was a prank call,” Thomas explained. “I thought it was my buddies at work fooling around. But it’s been a great ride. I’ve been having a blast ever since.”

Umm…what’s that “But Seriously?” there in the middle? I’m quite sure this guy is actually drop-dead sexy. Especially if he’s as playful, and confident, as he seems in those few quotes. Those are incredibly attractive qualities, not to mention that fact that his “extra-heavyset-ness” is probably quite sexy as well. Lose the attitude there, MSNBC.

Not to mention the fact that on my page, the article was presented with FOUR different sections that contained some sort of contradictory message:

Ugly NY Article ads

Ugly NY Article ads

Number 1: Ad for Crest Whitestrips. Because, you know, you have to be obsessed with the whiteness of your teeth. If not, you must be reading the wrong section of MSNBC.

Number 2: Hair worthy of gold medals, wrinkle busters, etc. In case you wanted to fuss even more over how you looked.

Number 3: Miss Venezuela wins Miss Universe. Beauty Pageant, enough said.

Number 4: Check out these ambush makeovers. We’re making people look better, because they loosed SO terrible before!

Ahem. MSNBC needs to catch what Ugly NY is throwing at them. Here they are featuring them in an article, and on the Today Show, apparently, and they still don’t get it. It almost makes me feel like they’re making fun of the whole thing. Like, they thought it was just so quaint that such a Model Agency existed.

Well, Ugly NY, you got my support! Keep making beauty real, and making reality beautiful! Thanks so much for what you do!