[4][5] In the context of the album's concept, the song refers to the privileged class of elites whom the titular character, a populist demagogue called Antichrist Superstar, fulminate against.

The original demo version was written in a hotel room while on tour, and recorded to four-track by Manson, Ramirez, and drummer Ginger Fish.

It also incorporates extensive use of guitar distortion, and the use of palm muting creates a highly rhythmic, driving style amplified by a heavy percussion track.

The song's characteristic element is its repetitive drum beat: a five-beat common time pattern played on floor toms, with a shuffle note each measure creating a triplet feel.

[10] Within this context, "The Beautiful People" deals explicitly with the destructive manifestation of the Will to Power ("There's no time to discriminate / hate every motherfucker that's in your way"), while also exploring Nietzsche's view of master-slave morality ("It's not your fault that you're always wrong / The weak ones are there to justify the strong"), particularly the concept's connection with Social Darwinism and its relation to various political and economic systems such as capitalism and fascism ("Capitalism has made it this way/Old-fashioned fascism will take it away").

"The Beautiful People" was performed sporadically during the 1995–1996 Smells Like Children Tour, frequently in abbreviated form as part of the Portrait of an American Family song "My Monkey".

[citation needed] The band took two weeks off following the last European show of their year-long Dead to the World Tour and, on September 4, flew to New York City and performed as the grand finale of the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.

[12] Preceded by a marching band playing "Hail to the Chief", Manson entered the stage in a full-body black fur coat flanked by mock United States Secret Service agents,[12] and delivered a speech to the audience of Hollywood celebrities from a microphone-covered lectern emblazoned with the phrase 'Antichrist Superstar' in classical Latin script and the band's "Shock" logo fashioned to look like the seal of the president of the United States: My fellow Americans, we will no longer be oppressed by the fascism of Christianity.

[13] Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez joined The Smashing Pumpkins at Mountain View, California's Shoreline Amphitheatre for an acoustic performance of "The Beautiful People" during the venue's annual Bridge School Benefit on October 18, 1997.

[14] Nine Inch Nails also performed "The Beautiful People", with frontman Trent Reznor on bass guitar and Marilyn Manson on lead vocals, on May 9, 2000, at Madison Square Garden.

Manson had been a surprise guest at the concert, appearing unannounced on stage during Nine Inch Nails' "Starfuckers, Inc."; this performance was filmed and released as a bonus feature on And All That Could Have Been in 2002.

[16] On October 31, 2014, in a special setup on Halloween night, Manson performed the song with Johnny Depp on guitar and Ninja (from Die Antwoord) as a background vocalist, in the club Roxy in West Hollywood.

J. G. Thirlwell's "The Not-So-Beautiful People" is a straight industrial reworking of the track, with rhythmic vocal samples and churning, filtered synthesizers.

[20] In 1997, MTV News reported that Manson had expressed interest in collaborating with Snoop Dogg to produce a rock/rap version of "The Beautiful People".

[21][22] It is unknown if the collaboration ever actually occurred, although in his September 4, 1997 keynote address at the CMJ Music Marathon, the singer referred to the project as "something I would still love to do"[23] and blamed the hectic touring schedules of both his own band and the rapper for the delay.

The clip, filmed in the then abandoned Gooderham and Worts distillery in Toronto, Canada,[25] depicts the band performing the song in a classroom-like area decorated with medical prostheses and laboratory equipment.

Intercut with these performance clips are scenes of lead singer Marilyn Manson in a long gown-like costume and aviator goggles, wearing stilts and prosthetic makeup which make him appear bald and grotesquely tall; after being placed in this costume by similarly attired attendants, he appears to a cheering crowd through a window in a scene reminiscent of a rally, and later stands in the center of a circle while people march around him pumping their fists into the air.

Other fast cut scenes include extreme close-ups of crawling earthworms, mannequin heads and hands, and the boots of people marching; and shots of the individual band members bizarrely costumed, including Manson in back and neck braces, a leather aviator cap and an orthodontic cheek retractor, exposing metallic teeth.

[28] In its 1996 review of Antichrist Superstar, Rolling Stone magazine described "The Beautiful People" as "suspense-filled", with "a zombielike, repetitive quality [and] ghostly electronic sounds.