The Imperfect Body

[sistermagpie]

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,

Comments

[artystone]

OMG YOU ONLY LIKE HOUSE BECAUSE YOUR A HUGH LAURIE FANGIRL!!! HOR!!!

heh heh heh

>:-0

[sistermagpie]

I WATCH IT FOR THE HIGHLY REALISTIC MEDICAL PROCEDURES!!

Re: >:-0

[randomblade]

I WATCH IT BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT ARCHITECTURE!!

[isiscolo]

Oh, this is really interesting! I kind of notice the opposite - in a lot of due South fanfiction, Fraser tells Ray (Kowalski) he's "beautiful," but I can't associate that word in my mind with CKR. He's attractive in a kind of angly, spiky sense, but not beautiful. So there's a disconnect in my mind - I want to see him described as himself, really, his stubble and his teeth and his totally flat ass.

[sistermagpie]

In a way, it doesn't surprise me that the opposite happens too. Though I don't mind the character saying the other is beautiful when he isn't, since presumably that's subjective. It's just you want the author to be making it clear that when s/he sees the characters s/he's seeing the flaws as part of the beauty. You could do a lot with something like angular-ness, for instance.

[spark_of_chaos]

I've always been attracted to the human body, so much so as to choose it as a profession. The way it is always a perfectly synchronised, fluid machine, even in the most abject state of imperfection. You took Hugh Laurie as an example - what I love most about him is the fact he is so damn attractive not despite, but because of his differrences from the 'ideal'. There was one episode where he was shown just coming out of bed, bad leg and all, and I was, my god he is so beautiful!, and the girl I was watching it with stared at me

[sistermagpie]

You took Hugh Laurie as an example - what I love most about him is the fact he is so damn attractive not despite, but because of his differrences from the 'ideal'. Yes! And that's a great example about him getting out of bed, because that's part of it, the intimacy of seeing somebody scruffy and personal and completely imperfect. It's that it's *him* getting out of bed. That's far more sexy than a perfectly sculpted model getting out of bed. Pajamas can sometimes help too--like, whatever the person sleeps in, a rumpled tee-shirt, shorts, stuff like that. It's personal to that character

[xueyie]

It is interesting because in Harry Potter book, the heroes are not good looking (Harry is skinny, Hermoine's teeth, etc.) while the actors and actress look better than what is described. Perhaps one of the problem is that we seee the movie version instead of the book version. (Frankly it is very hard to shrug off the visual).

[merrymelody]

I think the heroes started off as not being overly goodlooking, but towards the end they've become sort of idealised, unfortunately (imho) - Harry's the 'most fanciable' boy, Hermione shows in GoF that all she need do is calm down her hair (her teeth are fixed by then) to be the class beauty, Ginny is apparently some kind of living goddess...

[mondegreen]

I agree with you so much with the "real woman" pet peeve. It's also a pet peeve of mine, and I'm constantly clenching my jaw when people say it around me.

Haha. How strange and coincidental. I just read my first The Office fic yesterday without even intending to.

I see what you're saying, though. There's a certain authenticity that comes with descriptors in TV-based fanfic. Like, say, if an actor has a cleft in his chin, and all the fans know he has a cleft in his chin, so it becomes a sort of visual marker for that character. And people tend to grow fond of that character trait.

For example, in the show Friday Night Lights an actress Minka Kelly plays a character Lyla Garrity. Minka is positively gorgeous, but she has a noticeable scar on her chin. Fans have picked up on that and sometimes use it in their descriptors. Now, personally, I find what would be normally considered a flaw to be absolutely sexy -- and sexy for Lyla, not necessarily Minka

[sistermagpie]

Honestly, what is it with the "real women" thing--even to the people who are supposed to be real it's really a put down. You're "real" while apparently there are these other women who are goddesses or something.

So maybe it's a trade-off: authentication of characters' physical allure versus reader identification.

I hadn't thought of that, but it's very true. I was even in writing this assuming that I was talking about the character I wouldn't be identifying with. So if I'd be identifying with the other person I'd be the blank slate and just be experiencing these quirks of the other person. If I were identifying with the person with the quirks that would be something that might also signal "not me."

Although of course that's not always a deal-breaker. Probably most readers identify first with the emotional place of the character so can translate flaws into whatever their own flaws are or whatever. But still, that is a positive of book fandoms.

Here from metafandom

[ext_59915]

Just a thought: maybe the dichotomy is not between "real" versus "perfect", but "real" versus "mediated".

Maybe it's not so much that the ur-bodies are more beautiful, I mean. Maybe it's that they are, literally, unreal, because they are created by media (image manip, camera angles, lenses, makeup, etc.), and don't exist in the real world at all.

It would be better, if that were true. Hopefully that's the conceptual dichotomy behind that phrase.

[jlh]

One of the things I like about writing fiction is the ability to eroticize real bodies, and their imperfections, as I find it is often imperfections that you eroticize, yourself, when you're thinking about a person you're attracted to. So like, Seamus has a wee tummy, or Ginny has big hips and a very round ass (she's very pear-shaped) or even easier, Simon's hairy barrel-chest and Ryan's blondish twinkness. If you can put an erotic charge on the imperfect body the entire thing becomes that much hotter, because who cares about perfect people having perfect sex and rock hard abs and all that? Who can keep up?

Though for what it's worth, I like Hugh Laurie's stubble. Brings out his eyes, just like Ryan's does.

[sistermagpie]

as I find it is often imperfections that you eroticize, yourself, when you're thinking about a person you're attracted to.

Exactly--I think there's an intimacy in the imperfections as well. You're "claiming" the person by the things that make them an individual. Even if the guy worked out a lot and was muscular, for instance, you'd probably look more for ways he was muscular specific to himself.

I like Hugh Laurie's stubble too--it certainly changes his face correctly from Bertie Wooster to House! But I like that it's stubble that looks like it comes from somebody not caring to shave often--just as his blue eyes can often also look like they've got shadows under them or are bloodshot. It doesn't look like calculated stubble. The leg is also a good example, the way you know that it's very scarred etc. It's funny because perfect sense between the perfect bodies always comes across as so sterile. It's like the opposite of hot.

[vixen_notatramp]

So incredibly not about this entry, but:

I thought I was the only one on the planet who thinks Simon and Ryan are hot like really hot things. I have a massive crushes on the both of them. -sighs rapturously-

[sistermagpie]

Oh, you must check out jlh's fic if you like Simon and Ryan being very hot and...doing things...together.:-D