Stop Airbrushing My Dudes!

[cimorene]

Fic peeves: you know how most people look sort of normal? Of course there's a bell-curve of normal, and movie stars don't map out along the bell curve and tv stars don't either. Some shows are eerie to watch because everyone's really attractive.

But: blockbuster movies do that more than your average weekly primetime show. I mean, yeah, Emily Deschanel and all the women on the CSIs and all the women in the Stargate shows are... pretty hot. But nobody's perfect even so, and there's a wide sample of dudes on tv who are downright funny-looking.

Even when you're in love with someone, and are perfectly convinced that their crooked little nose or their funny lantern-jaw are perfect and would be inferior if they looked more average, you are not under the illusion that these things are perfect. And especially if they're pudgy you're unlikely to think their abdomens look like a washboard, okay.

It's not an insult to say that Blair Sandburg, Duncan MacLeod and Methos, Bodie and Doyle, Starsky and Hutch, etc look knobbly, lopsided, dopey, unibrowed, soft around the middle, or a bit cross-eyed if it's true and it certainly doesn't mean they're not slashy. I mean, it's not like people from all along the bell curve don't fall in love and hook up and have all sorts of sexual preferences!

So, you know, it really, severely throws me out of a story if a pov character who doesn't seem to be unreliable in other aspects, and has a firm grip on reality, suddenly starts saying that someone's hairless when they're hairy, tall when they're average, flawlessly or classically handsome when they're squinty and lopsided or knobbly or hawk-nosed or unibrowed (they might be extraordinarily handsome, of course. Just not classically or flawlessly so), or amber-eyed when their eyes are incontrovertibly green or hazel, or green-eyed when their eyes are brown, or golden-haired when they're a brunette, or milky-pale when they're kind of pleasantly tanned and olive.

I mean, you're not blind, and your readers aren't either. If you have to recast the show in your head, or airbrush the hell out of everything like stretchmarks and love handles on a swimsuit model, before you can get off on the characters getting off - well, okay. I think it's sad, but I can't do anything about it. But what in Bob's name makes you think it's a good idea to change random easily observable visual facts about canon in your fanfiction?

Comments

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

This isn't an issue for me in band slash since generally people are described as just "sexy" or "attractive", or short or tall. And I can suspend my disbelief with Panic ;)

It irked the hell out of me in the X-files fandom, though. Because if Fox Mulder is in his early forties, yes, let's write him as soft skinned and bright eyed and generally looking like a twelve year old girl.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yes, I find the younger fandoms and RPS fandoms have less problem with this for some reason. It's like airbrushing has gone out of fashion a bit. If so, thank God for small favours.

[jennaria.livejournal.com]

I've seen this in anime fandoms as well -- although given the doujinshi tradition, wherein artists feel free to render anyone and everyone as sweet-faced teenagers, maybe it's a little more explicable.

Still. Blair Sandburg is observably not so small he can practically fit into Jim's pocket, to choose a story example I still haven't forgotten after ten years. If you're changing so many things about the characters that the only resemblance to canon is the names, wouldn't you be better off just writing original fic?

[cimness.livejournal.com]

WORD. And the size/height one is the strangest of all when you're talking about tv, where you can, you know, look at the guys standing side-by-side. In the Pros I honestly thought Bodie being "huge" and "lumbering" meant he was like, taller, when in fact, I think the guys are pretty much the same height to within half an inch, and only a size or two apart around the middle.

[tilney.livejournal.com]

Oh, very, very true. I am reminded of someone's fanart portraying the fanon image of Snape with the smooth, olive skin and silky hair and there's this small comment on the margin: 'Doesn't he look like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Llewelyn-Bowen)?'. I find it hilarious how characters get twisted out of all recognition to become more conventionally handsome.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

I was going to comment on the main point, but I had to take a moment to say that I adore LLB (who is kickass gorgeous, but definitely has moments of rabbity-ness).

[saturnalia.livejournal.com]

Oh, god yes. So much word.

[eleveninches.livejournal.com]

ITA. I notice it especially in slash stories where one of the characters is feminized. I recently read an SGA story where McKay was injured and Sheppard picked him up and carried him to the stargate, cradling him like a little kid, and I was like, Um, McKay and Sheppard are the same size and Ronon could barely carry McKay on that one episode.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yes! Girlifying Rodney is so bizarre. There was this whole huge... trove... subgenre... (I'm not sure what to call it) at Wraithbait full of small, girly, sensitive, fainting damsel-in-distress Rodney. Of course in a lot of those he was insecure because he was fat, though...

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

Word.

I'm having a Spike/Xander renaissance right now, and reading through the archive like an obsessed person, and the sheer number of people who write stories set in the last season of the show but insist on casting a younger, thinner Xander into the role are just driving me batshit. And the people who are writing *post* series stories who insist on giving Xander some sort of horrifying trauma and/or malaria for the sole purpose of justifying their desire to have him be suddenly slender are killing me. Fandom anorexia is just yuck.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

You know, I remember your past posts about that and it's still one of the more sickening examples of this particular problem. I don't know if people realise the message they send by claiming counterfactually that their characters are all slender/muscular/swimsuit-model-ish, but it's the same gobsmacked reaction I get to those airbrushed covers they show of already-skinny and already-gorgeous models, because, I mean, if Nick Brendon the way he actually looks is not good enough, then... who is? It's like that cover where they airbrushed Faith Hill's wrinkles out and actually, like, airbrushed her hands, of all things, which is burned indelibly on my memory. God Forbid a forty-something woman have smile lines.

[norah.livejournal.com]

I know this is no longer your fandom, but when people wrote bandslash and gave the tenors "deep" voices I was always like O.o WTF. THE PATRICK STUMP OF WHOM I AM AWARE DOES NOT SOUND LIKE BARRY WHITE, NOT EVEN A LITTLE, FANDOM.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

That one's particularly funny because of how presumably their voices are the, er, salient features of the dudes in question.

[almostnever.livejournal.com]

Reading SGA fic is always funny to me in that respect, because I got into the fandom first and the show a distant second, and though I can see how he's good-looking and all, Sheppard's not my type. So I read a lot of breathless fic descriptions of him as flawlessly smooth-skinned and golden tan and incredibly gorgeous to everyone who witnesses his charm and beauty (while thinking that he should be pretty scarred up by now, his tan varies, and c'mon, he's a nice-looking guy but he's not everyone's type; pleased to meet you, I'm exhibit A).

Then I watch the actual show, and I like Shep a lot in all his kind of nasally laconic obnoxiousness, but charming and beautiful and universally appealing... not so much.

On the other hand, I also hate SGA stories that seem to make excuses about people being attracted to Rodney even though he's supposedly physically oh-so-average or "overweight" or whatever.

Holy shit, what? I know the show makes fat jokes at his expense too, and that's fucked up also, because imo, having a barely-visible stomach and a fleshy chin at forty is not "fat". And it bugs the crap out of me when stories feel like they have to give elaborate other reasons for people to think Rodney is hot because of course they would never find his body sexy. Despite the fact that legions of fangirls demonstrably do find everything about the guy sexy.

So uh... yeah. Rantage, sorry about that. I agree with you, and it goes both ways. The airbrushing sucks, and IMO, making excuses for characters that aren't airbrushed also sucks.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. ._. Word to all that too. "It's actually all muscle!" and "But it's his MIND that's attractive" are actually to my mind guilty of the same sin and both labouring under the strange delusion that the way he actually looks is fat and unattractive. I've always found those positions hard to understand when usually other parts of the story tend to imply the author does find him attractive, and if she doesn't, at least you'd think she'd realise that her POV character kind of has to for it to make sense.

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

Heh. In Hercules: the Legendary Journeys fandom, many of us used to complain about "the cult of the pale hunter," in which fanfic writers kept portraying Iolaus as incredibly pale, slender and child-like. Not to mention weepy, helpless, prone to tearful temper-tantrums, and totally vulnerable to any random thug who decided to jump him in the street. Mind you, we're talking about a character who canonically looks like this:



I have never been able to figure this out...

[metal-dog5.livejournal.com]

weepy, helpless, prone to tearful temper-tantrums, and totally vulnerable to any random thug

What!? Did these writers not watch the show, ever?

Here via Metafandom

[sniggs.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say YES! My main fandom is BtVS with a focus on Giles and it is amazing how many people can look at an actor who's pushing fifty and then write about some buff dude with a six-pack and an unlined face.
Love how you made your argument eloquent and short and avoided rantage, I really enjoyed reading it.

[misslucyjane]

Off-kilter beauty is the best kind. So, big giant HELL YES.

Here via Metafandom

[xjestx.livejournal.com]

I've lost count of the number of times I've made this exact complaint. Well, perhaps 'exact' is the wrong word for it. I've never used the expression 'bell-curve of normal' before but, if you don't mind, I might start. :)

Re: Here via Metafandom

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Just don't credit it to me in front of any statisticians, okay? ;)

[entrenous88.livejournal.com]

That is so annoying, when people disregard canon appearances or descriptions to make the characters fit their mold of what's attractive.

In line with what I commented to another respondent above, I get particularly peeved at people who do story-focused makeovers, like Xander losing weight because he's working more in construction, or Snape suddenly stumbling across a range of haircare products, so that everyone around them thinks, "Okay, *now* he's handsome and worthy of desire!"

Thank goodness I've never seen fics in which people get actual plastic surgery (though I'm sure they exist; just... *shudders*).

[invisionary.livejournal.com]

Does magical body alteration count? Because I've seen that (albeit only a few times, but it was more than enough).

It especially skeeves me because it's usually being done to female characters, and it feeds off of the whole (ugly) societal stereotype that says if a woman doesn't look like a swimsuit model, she's unattractive.

I can't decide if it creeps me out more to see a male or a female author do it, but I've seen both. Ugh. DO NOT WANT.

[phiremangston.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU.

This happens in so many of my other fandoms, and it bothers me so much when people in Crossing Jordan fandom are trying to make Nigel more universally appealing. He does not have six-pack abs and strong hands. He's LANKY and skinny in that Alan Cumming sort of way.

I like my fic realistic, thanks.

[magglenagall.livejournal.com]

Oh, my dear sweet Lord, hell yes in a handbasket. I recently read a fic that described Gene Hunt as "slim." My jaw hit the floor so hard I think I broke it.

(here from metafandom, btw)

[floriatosca.livejournal.com]

Mine would too. I'm more familiar with Philip Glenister's earlier historical stuff than with LoM, but he wasn't a stringbean then, either.

[yourlibrarian]

There clearly are a lot of examples where beautifying has been done for reasons of preference, but I think this can also verge into people just being unfamiliar with canon or seeing things no one else is seeing. For example, if I didn't know what James Marsters looked like I would probably rarely guess through reading fanfic alone. Two descriptions I remember in particular are of his long legs and elegant hands.

In SPN, where you have two incontrovertibly tall and good looking guys I've seen a few odd things said as well. The one I've seen most often is how Sam is dark-skinned. Granted he probably tans whereas Dean burns but he is anything but dark skinned. In one fic he was in disguise and his skin described as cinammon toned and I did not figure out it was him until he was revealed because I couldn't square that description with the character.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

Fanfic writers aren't the only ones who do it. I have to laugh at The Tudors and The Other Boleyn Girl, because by the time Henry VIII got around to marrying Anne, he had been married to Catherine for 20+ years before the divorce, and was already starting to put on weight. Catherine was the only one, pretty much, who got to sleep with him when he was slender. But nooooo ... we have to have a "hot" Henry. You can see how attitudes have changed, too: the early 1970s Masterpiece Theater production distinctly shows Henry's physical decline - but then again, they're not romanticizing him.

[trailingoff.livejournal.com]

I think there's kind of a continuum, though, with the fluffy feminised stories you're talking about at one extreme, and ultra realistic stories at the other. I'm not saying it's evenly balanced -- I reckon there are probably fifty fluffy feminised stories for every ultra (and I mean *ultra*) realistic one, but they're certainly out there and I've been coming across them lately with a lot more frequency.

Er ... I guess you're wondering what I mean by ultra realistic ... I'm sure there's a better term but I can't think of one right now. I mean the kind of story where the characters fart (with sound and smell described), burp, barf, scratch themselves, rub their curly-haired hairy (I can't emphasise the hair enough) chests together, go to the bathroom in front of each other because they just don't give a damn, have graphically described medical things done to various bodily orifices, etc.

Personally I think the explanation for the fluffy feminised stories is that some fanfic writers like to ignore all of the gritty things that men (and human beings in general) do and are. There's a convention in the romance genre ... er, probably in most genres, really ... where women never so much as break a sweat because it's not 'ladylike' or 'angelic' or whatever. Ladies don't sweat, they *glow*, and so forth. They're "perfect", "gorgeous" and "adorable", and they have "creamy alabaster skin" and "sparkling emerald-green orbs" (instead of eyes). So I think a large portion of slash writers are just applying this convention to men, which is, you know, not exactly productive, but it's never really been done before (except in yaoi anime and manga, I guess), so it's kind of interesting. It happens in het too, it's just people don't notice it so much because women are often depicted that way in mainstream culture.

Meanwhile, there's a backlash from writers who are getting as graphic as possible with their descriptions, often to the point that the narrative is superseded by the physicality of their characters (imo and all that).

I can see why people write and read both kinds of stories, but I'm definitely a middle-of-the-range kind of girl. Actually I prefer as few physical descriptions as possible, because I like just enough to get my imagination going.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

WORD. I completely agree with this entire post. And really, I never noticed it until I recently got into House fandom, and discovered that various fanbrats feel the need to insist that James Wilson is:

a) supernaturally-thin with glowing eyes and cheekbones and silky hair. And just - no. He was awkward-looking in S1 of House (the lighting did absolutely nothing to help, either), and really, if you want to see RSL with flowing hair and cheekbones that could cut glass, rent Dead Poets Society or Much Ado About Nothing.

b) a huge fatso because Robert Sean Leonard finally grew into his height around S3. Seriously, the man is perfectly normal-sized. Putting on a few pounds =/= "fat". EVER.

c) a flailing effeminate drama queen whose only hobby is pining after House, who is the only person he's ever loved. In fic, this is usually achieved by him having hideous fashion sense. Um, have you seen what he wears? With the color-coordination and lovely cut? (Okay, lavender shirts nonwithstanding). Look, I admit, the man does blow-dry his hair and apparently wears toenail polish, but seriously. He likes monster trucks. He plays practical jokes. He kicks all kinds of ass at poker. And he's a serial divorcee who's variably described as a "slut", who "loves everybody", and "always told his wives" when he did and didn't love them. It's fairly safe to say that he likes women and fell in love with other people.

I don't think anyone even wants to start me on the prettification of Greg House, whose stubble magically does not hurt when rubbed against sensitive body parts, whose leg scar is magically "not nearly as bad as you'd think" (um, we've SEEN it, it's pretty bad), and if I hear one more description of piercing or glowing or penetrating "indigo/cobalt/azure/navy/sky/etc orbs", I will scream. Yes, Hugh Laurie has drop-dead gorgeous eyes. No, we don't need to hear about them every ten lines.

[c425cc33.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely, especially for this fandom! Couldn't have said it better. Plausible H/W fanfic appears to be challenging to write for a variety of reasons and respecting their physiques is just one of those. Finding the good ones can make the hunt worthwhile, though.

HP Observations

[ritakitty.livejournal.com]

HP fanfic is rife with airbrushed characters, which is bizarre when you consider how very few characters are described as being physically attractive in the series.

Handsome/beautiful: Gilderoy Lockhart, Tom Riddle (as a teenager), Thomas Riddle Sr., Sirius Black, Lily Potter, Fleur Weasley (formerly Delacourt), Bill Weasley (pre-Book 6), and Cedric Diggory.

Pretty: Hermione, Cho Chang, and Ginny Weasley.

I'm sure I've missed a few, but it's a short list. Much like real life, not everyone is drop dead gorgeous.

I still haven't decided which is more annoying: the outright "character makeover" (eg, Snape with a tan and blinding white, straight teeth + blond hair)or the "subtle change that nonetheless contradicts canonical" description (eg, Snape is taller than Sirius Black). I'm suspect that fanfic authors airbrush to show that their favorite character is good/worthy/superior. After all, good = handsome, tall, smart, etc., right?

It's painfully reductive, especially for a series where the author repeatedly points out that "It's your choices that make you who you are." Not your wealth, weight, house at Hogwarts, or your physical appearance. Ergo, Mad Eye Moody is ugly, but he's a good guy. Tom Riddle was a handsome young man who is rotten to the core. Lily Potter -- beautiful and good. Bellatrix Lestrange beautiful but bad. And there's a whole range of people in between in terms of both looks and goodness.

Re: HP Observations

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

"It's your choices that make you who you are." Not your wealth, weight, house at Hogwarts, or your physical appearance.

Word! She actually killed Snape off to DEMONSTRATE this to us!

[lone-gunfreak.livejournal.com]

Matt/Mohinder (Heroes) fandom is RIDDLED with this. Either Matt (Greg Grunberg) spontaneously generates a 6-pack and 2% body fat, or long stretches of the fic will be devoted to justifying Mohinder's attraction to him. Matt is canonically a bit insecure about his appearance, but not to the "weepy teen girl" extent you see in some fic. Also - dude. Geg Grunberg's hot, and awesome. The attraction is not that big a mystery.

There's also a strange tendency to stretch out Mohinder. I keep reading stories that describe him as tall, which is ... interesting, when IMDB says Sendhil Ramamurthy is 5'9" (and I'm pretty sure that's in some pretty thick-soled shoes - dude's pretty tiny). In comparison, Greg Grunberg and Zachary Quinto are both listed as 6'2", so if your fic is describing Mohinder as taller than Matt or Sylar or even the same height, something is awry. He's nearly half a foot shorter.

I don't read much Peter fic, but the few I've seen describe a guy who's either way bigger or way smaller than Milo Ventimiglia actually is. Sylar also seems to get twinkified in some fic, and Nathan gets a height adjustment similar to Mohinder's. Canon Heroes has a pretty wide range of body types for a TV show (mostly among the men), but you wouldn't know that from reading the fic.

Here via MF

[intheyear2004.livejournal.com]

I think you seriously underestimate the number of writers who a) write fic without ever having seen/read the source material and b) although knowing the source material, value fanon higher than canon, i.e. they like fanon descriptions of character X being this fragile little petal more than the reality of character X being a rather tough dude. ;)

[loz]

Here via metafandom

I so agree with this.

There was one writer in my primary fandom (Life on Mars) who used to do that and I just... what? What what? Aren't they great because they are the other side of ordinary? Doesn't it give them character? Can't you capitalise on that?

here via metafandom

[dustbunny105.livejournal.com]

Word.

That's all I have to say.