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

[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.

[entrenous88.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that sounds terrible! I haven't seen that at all; I suppose I should be glad.

If you feel like giving more details, I'm curious -- have you seen it more in BtVS, or in other fandoms as well? In any case, that's troubling. And I agree with you there - it's creepy both ways, whatever the author's identity.

[invisionary.livejournal.com]

I've only seen it in Buffy fandom, but I don't read in any other fandoms where magic is part of the canon, so I suppose it's possible that it's out there in other places. I don't know. It's pretty rare even in Buffy fandom; like I said, I've only seen it a few times, and I've read quite a bit of fic over the years. I just mentioned it because your comment about plastic surgery made me think of it.

I mean, I guess it's just another way to accomplish the "redrawing" of characters that under discussion here, but even so.... *shudder*

[entrenous88.livejournal.com]

It does seem even more creepy, I agree, to make the transformation magic (particularly if *another* character is engineering the transformation -- don't know if that's the case, but I'm imagining scenarios uneasily).

Thanks for the reply!