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Are people simply afraid of being judged for their looks by someone they want?


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#1 Mercurius

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Posted 13 August 2016 - 06:46 AM

Now I do realize that evidence points toward the answer being yes, especially with all the platitudes abound that detract from the importance of beauty, but I want more opinions on the matter and this is in a specific context. I found it rather perplexing that the last topic I made in this subforum caused a fair amount of confusion because I figured that was one of those "oh everybody would vaguely understand what I'm talking about from experience they just haven't really thought about it(or did) or seen it pointed out" sorts of things. In this case however I'm fairly sure everybody should be capable of having an answer to give.

 

I was reading a comment earlier in which someone described their frustrations over how female characters claimed to be praiseworthy for their sexually forward nature in an anime towards the male protagonist were not particularly interested in the main character's actual physical features, with the implication of their reasoning for attraction being for personality traits alone. This is to an extent fair, there are plenty of people out there who haven't been blessed with the most pleasant countenance to speak in charitable terms, and many of them are still married nevertheless and some of them are claimed to have an advantage in the form of charisma. Remember, in the context I have referenced, it is already assumed that the recipient will have a positive evaluation in matters of attractiveness.

 

However, because this was meant to be specific to how female characters feel about men, initially I had thought to answer with reference to the cross-cultural social environment that has a tendency to socially condition women to placing extreme importance on their appearance, while largely forgiving men for being sloven, causing them to have a widespread tendency to feel entitled to love without respect for others' feelings. However, I then realized that, as someone who also consumes media that was meant for the wish fulfillment of women, I saw that the male characters who take interest in the female protagonist in those works were not particularly likely to comment on the protagonist's appearance either, doing the exact same thing of avoiding mention of their physical preferences in favor of focusing on personality traits or some non-visible feature (a very common example being that the female protagonist has some kind of special blood in vampire stories) and thus came to the question of whether it is simply that, in the situation where you have characters designed to be attractive options to the viewer, is it that the viewer is afraid of seeing them to be persons that would form judgments using shallow qualifiers?

 

Now obviously as someone who has cute younger boys and pretty older girls on their mind more or less 24/7 the thought of someone being averse to being noticed for their visual characteristics (at all) has never particularly occurred to me personally, especially in situations where they are not even specifically attracted to you (they are attracted to the protagonist character), and in the situation presented it is not as though it is meant to be a matter of someone's body being of more relevance than their personality, but rather the omission of commentary about that body by the characters attracted to them. Comments about appearance are easy to find when they are mentioned by people who aren't marketed to be attractive to the intended audience, it's particularly when a character meant to be appealing in a certain way doesn't bother to actually show or speak of who is their actual type.


I believe in judgment of humans through their judgment of fiction, for nothing else tells better of their disposition freed from apprehension.


#2 Blue Leafeon

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Posted 13 August 2016 - 11:05 AM

My personal opinion for what you are describing is that in a dream society, nobody would judge merely on looks.

 

While it's totally debatable depending on the show/book/video game/etc., fiction, in my general opinion of it, is a way to escape reality. (This does not mean they can get away with nonsense and stupidity nonstop, in my case, because that will drive me up the wall.) We get enough focus on "you must look good to impress" IRL, so the last thing we really want is to be slapped with it while trying to escape. And in fact, if a character is shallow enough to judge others by looks, we will quickly grow to dislike them.

 

One example is in Monster Hunter Generations. Well, there's three examples. One of them, upon first seeing the player character for the first time, makes a snide comment on how young and inexperienced they look. (In my case, this is hilarious because the comment was directed towards a human hunter rather than a cat prowler, but that's beside the point.) There's another who makes a comment that "You better be able to outrun whatever you're hunting with those scrawny legs of yours!" And yet ANOTHER makes a comment about how you look like a noob.

 

While these are all instances of talking down to someone, that is usually what judgment is about. People in the real world rarely meet the quota of handsome or beautiful without serious, considerable amounts of work. In fiction, this is a different story, because characters can be "perfect" naturally without any effort, but to have other characters constantly point that out would be unpleasant to the viewer.

 

Another reason attractive characters are not specifically pointed out to be attractive is because of the viewer's self-esteem. It's well known that young girls--thanks to the type of society we live in--are naturally low in self-esteem. Media likes to paint a picture of what the 'perfect woman' looks like, and girls/young women mostly fall short of this goal.

 

But we're talking about anime. Not even sure what Japan society is like. So my post may be moot. lol


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#3 Mercurius

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Posted 14 August 2016 - 10:22 PM

Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter? (I don't really have anything to contest about Blue Leafeon's response myself, besides how in my dream society people are judged for looks even more than they are now.)


I believe in judgment of humans through their judgment of fiction, for nothing else tells better of their disposition freed from apprehension.


#4 ^Leo^

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Posted 14 August 2016 - 10:41 PM

normally i would reply anyway, but i really don't have any strong feelings on this =P i'll try to come up with something though.



#5 Blue Leafeon

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Posted 15 August 2016 - 06:43 PM

Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter? (I don't really have anything to contest about Blue Leafeon's response myself, besides how in my dream society people are judged for looks even more than they are now.)

...Why?


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#6 Mercurius

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Posted 16 August 2016 - 04:41 AM

...Why?

Hygiene/Health

It is well known to everyone that outside of those with a sexual fetish for it, the obese are not considered respectable in body...which is also why there are so many coming to their defense with a plethora of excuses for why they should be free of ostracization even in consideration of the health problems it may present, as well as trying to give it more positive connotations through terminology such as "healthy" or "fluffy". Likewise others are granted solace through this overall mentality of speaking as if there is no fair judgment toward them, and to those comfortable with putting little effort into their presentation of others comes entitlement to love and a lack of motivation to bother keeping up with hygienic concerns. Inheritance of less than desirable genes, in other words, factors outside of their control, is not really anything that makes me feel differently about the matter, that means nothing but misfortune. (This isn't to say people that do aim to look pretty aren't disgustingly negligent of their cleanliness at times. They just require more concern to avoid the problems that would come with a dirty lifestyle.)

 

The Clothing Market

I utterly despise that the vast majority of easily available fashion out there must be limited in flamboyance and variety of form (this applies even to women's clothing but nowhere near how much it does for men) and even color. Racks and racks and racks and racks of navy and brown and grey and beige without pattern or striking feature, T-shirts and denim jeans abound. Now I don't have anything against clothes that aim to be plain to easily match other pieces or in favor of a low price, but it really says something when even actors on TV in roles of highly attractive and even wealthy individuals are expected to wear what I could only describe as having the virtue of focus on functionality. People wear these things and dismiss many other options as tacky or costume-like more for the sake of avoiding standing out than anything, even to the point of where women's clothes aim to bring emphasis to the skin through the reduction of surface area the textiles protect. This, while being part of judgment of appearance, is in contempt of spectacle and is more a concern of how normal you are than it is how nice you look.

 

Media Depictions

This is redundant to the rest since art likes to imitate life as it is known. I will point out however that an extremely significant reason to why I greatly favor anime over other kinds of media is because it is not shy at all to use outstanding colors everywhere and bless most characters with cute features and tight flesh. It is by far more comfortable to look at for people that aren't the most fond of the grotesque.

 

Double Standard

Consider that most people out there recognize gemstones to be much more pleasing to the eye than say, granite. Even the Ancient Romans who were all about glorifying badasses liked to produce a smooth and youthful look to their statues. I believe humans to recognize inherently something specific as having the quality of beauty and for them to find alternatives to be appealing for reasons otherwise. That doesn't stop an extremely widespread conception of expecting men and women to be held to different standards of attractiveness from occurring. Now to some degree I must agree with this idea in that I find, say, men with rotund breasts to be utterly appalling, but that is for reasons similar to disgust toward diseased flesh. Men are expected to be tough and rugged and women polished and clear, and it is easily seen to most living in reality that the man will be granted acceptance or forgiveness far further than women ever will for disregarding refined presentation of themselves because to begin with people weren't expecting them to try and look pretty in the first place. I am more troubled of that than anything and even further so whenever I hear of someone quite revolting to actually have married another.

 

I want both men and women to be of beauty and look to each other with a sense of equality between them and that will never come to surface for as long as these contrasting expectations are desired. Most I've heard would say that they would rather do away with the value of youth and high maintenance beauty placed onto women for a better and fair society. I would rather that men are valued for their youth and be looked down on for choosing to slatter themselves as women are now.

 

(Of course, in terms of dream societies, I also have other ridiculous interests like everybody involved being eternally youthful and thus immune to decay with all girls being interested in cute younger boys and all boys interested in pretty older girls, rabbits being the national animal and pretty much depicted on everything marketable that isn't food because why the hell not, it being the social norm to utterly deck yourself out in jewelry until stereotypical rappers are envious, and absolute radical disgust towards anything relating to the anus and feces beyond their intended biological function as well as all insects/worms/myriapodas/arachnids, but this is one of the more reasonable features about what I want.)


I believe in judgment of humans through their judgment of fiction, for nothing else tells better of their disposition freed from apprehension.





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