The Imperfect Body
I watched the first episode of the US "How to Look Good Naked" and it made me all happy inside--yay for the girl to figure out she's pretty! There was only one moment that annoyed me because it referenced my pet peeve. When they put the girl's body on the side of a building and asked passersby what they thought of it most people complimented her, but one woman said, "That's what a real woman looks like."
This annoys me on two levels. First because I hate that phrase. I'm not a supermodel by any stretch, but it's gotten applied to me because it's always used to mean that a "real woman" has to have a certain body type--usually whatever body type the person using the phrase thinks she has, or thinks she looks better than, and that's bullshit. All women are "real women." Even supermodels before they're airbrushed. The whole point is there isn't one way women look, everybody's different and they can all still be beautiful. Trying to change the aesthetic to put your own body type on top isn't freeing you from anything.
Secondly in the context of this show I thought--why can't you just give her a compliment on her own? Why does there have to be this implied comparison to some other "non-real" woman, who we all know is a supermodel, so that basically you just said, "She doesn't look like a supermodel." I'm sure the girl knows she doesn't look like a supermodel. That's why she's insecure. We're trying to get away from comparing her to people whose body types she was not born with and celebrate what's good about her. I just feel like while everybody else was complimenting the woman, this statement is more a political statement about the agenda of the person making it--down with supermodels. It's a weird day when "nice rack" is the more empowering thing said to a woman, but there it is!
Anyway, this also made me think about something I was talking about on New Year's Eve about fan fiction and bodies, specifically in media fandoms.
I've been reading some The Office fic. I hadn't thought about it going in, but it's different from HP because it's a TV show and not a book. I've read TV fanfic before, of course--I started out in XF fandom, though I was not into fanfic at all then so I didn't read much of it. LOTR fandom was sort of a combination because there were the books and movies combined in ways that don't happen in HP--most all HP fanfic I've read has been completely free of movie contamination (for which I'm grateful).
In LOTR otoh, perhaps because Tolkien isn't as clear about physical descriptions, or else perhaps because PJ's movie was really well-cast, there's some mixing up. The two things I remember most were Pippin's Scottish accent and Frodo's bitten nails. Both of those things obviously came from the actors--Billy Boyd's accent and Elijah Wood's nails, but they worked okay with the characters. Frodo's nails (and big blue eyes, a change from the book) worked for the character. The big eyes could make Frodo either beautiful or strange-looking, and that fit him. The nails, of course, both hinted at inner angst and just provided a really nice personal detail.
It's that that really interested me--the nice personal detail. Reading Office Fic I immediately noticed that man, there were a lot of references to Jim's stubble, especially in love scenes, and I think this comes directly from the actor. John Krasinski looks gets 5 o'clock shadow, and in some scenes you can see where his beard would start where he had one. That fits the character and the situation, of course--by the end of the day at work lots of guys look like that. But there's something really sexy about the way people fasten on to little things like that--things that would probably be considered flaws but are turn-ons instead of turn-offs. Bitten nails, visible stubble (by which I mean a guy who shaved this morning, not the Aragorn manly-stubble...I suspect House fic includes lots of references to Hugh Laurie's very very blue eyes and his not particularly good-looking facial hair too).
There's something really vibrant about them compared to descriptions you get in books which are always just that, descriptions chosen by the author. Physical descriptors more often tend to be positive ones--Harry's emerald eyes, Draco's silky hair. Or negative qualities made into positive ones--Snape's shiny hair. It's not that negative descriptors aren't ever used--I've read stories where Draco's pointiness is there or Snape's sallow skin and greasy hair etc. (Sometimes those things are intentionally written as repulsive because that’s what the author’s going for, which is a different thing.) But I've rarely seen authors able to infuse those negative things with quite the same kind of erotic power that comes so easily when you're talking about an actor the fic author presumably finds hot--does that make sense?
It's hard to explain, but there's sometimes a rawness you can get when you're working with a real person the author finds physically attractive. For one thing maybe there's just far more to work with, far more quirks that were created not by an author's imagination but by DNA. You're working with a real person whether you want to or not, so if the actor has sold you on his/her attractiveness things you might have not liked or been neutral on get erotically charged in ways they wouldn't be if they were only ever descriptions in a book. Like, this is an actual person you'd do, maybe, if circumstances were right, so it's immediate: the 5 o'clock shadow, bitten nails, the one ear that sticks out. Why are these things attractive? Because they're really "his!"
This annoys me on two levels. First because I hate that phrase. I'm not a supermodel by any stretch, but it's gotten applied to me because it's always used to mean that a "real woman" has to have a certain body type--usually whatever body type the person using the phrase thinks she has, or thinks she looks better than, and that's bullshit. All women are "real women." Even supermodels before they're airbrushed. The whole point is there isn't one way women look, everybody's different and they can all still be beautiful. Trying to change the aesthetic to put your own body type on top isn't freeing you from anything.
Secondly in the context of this show I thought--why can't you just give her a compliment on her own? Why does there have to be this implied comparison to some other "non-real" woman, who we all know is a supermodel, so that basically you just said, "She doesn't look like a supermodel." I'm sure the girl knows she doesn't look like a supermodel. That's why she's insecure. We're trying to get away from comparing her to people whose body types she was not born with and celebrate what's good about her. I just feel like while everybody else was complimenting the woman, this statement is more a political statement about the agenda of the person making it--down with supermodels. It's a weird day when "nice rack" is the more empowering thing said to a woman, but there it is!
Anyway, this also made me think about something I was talking about on New Year's Eve about fan fiction and bodies, specifically in media fandoms.
I've been reading some The Office fic. I hadn't thought about it going in, but it's different from HP because it's a TV show and not a book. I've read TV fanfic before, of course--I started out in XF fandom, though I was not into fanfic at all then so I didn't read much of it. LOTR fandom was sort of a combination because there were the books and movies combined in ways that don't happen in HP--most all HP fanfic I've read has been completely free of movie contamination (for which I'm grateful).
In LOTR otoh, perhaps because Tolkien isn't as clear about physical descriptions, or else perhaps because PJ's movie was really well-cast, there's some mixing up. The two things I remember most were Pippin's Scottish accent and Frodo's bitten nails. Both of those things obviously came from the actors--Billy Boyd's accent and Elijah Wood's nails, but they worked okay with the characters. Frodo's nails (and big blue eyes, a change from the book) worked for the character. The big eyes could make Frodo either beautiful or strange-looking, and that fit him. The nails, of course, both hinted at inner angst and just provided a really nice personal detail.
It's that that really interested me--the nice personal detail. Reading Office Fic I immediately noticed that man, there were a lot of references to Jim's stubble, especially in love scenes, and I think this comes directly from the actor. John Krasinski looks gets 5 o'clock shadow, and in some scenes you can see where his beard would start where he had one. That fits the character and the situation, of course--by the end of the day at work lots of guys look like that. But there's something really sexy about the way people fasten on to little things like that--things that would probably be considered flaws but are turn-ons instead of turn-offs. Bitten nails, visible stubble (by which I mean a guy who shaved this morning, not the Aragorn manly-stubble...I suspect House fic includes lots of references to Hugh Laurie's very very blue eyes and his not particularly good-looking facial hair too).
There's something really vibrant about them compared to descriptions you get in books which are always just that, descriptions chosen by the author. Physical descriptors more often tend to be positive ones--Harry's emerald eyes, Draco's silky hair. Or negative qualities made into positive ones--Snape's shiny hair. It's not that negative descriptors aren't ever used--I've read stories where Draco's pointiness is there or Snape's sallow skin and greasy hair etc. (Sometimes those things are intentionally written as repulsive because that’s what the author’s going for, which is a different thing.) But I've rarely seen authors able to infuse those negative things with quite the same kind of erotic power that comes so easily when you're talking about an actor the fic author presumably finds hot--does that make sense?
It's hard to explain, but there's sometimes a rawness you can get when you're working with a real person the author finds physically attractive. For one thing maybe there's just far more to work with, far more quirks that were created not by an author's imagination but by DNA. You're working with a real person whether you want to or not, so if the actor has sold you on his/her attractiveness things you might have not liked or been neutral on get erotically charged in ways they wouldn't be if they were only ever descriptions in a book. Like, this is an actual person you'd do, maybe, if circumstances were right, so it's immediate: the 5 o'clock shadow, bitten nails, the one ear that sticks out. Why are these things attractive? Because they're really "his!"