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

[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.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely. That's one of the reasons I do love H/W - they're so far from physically perfect, and yet both still extremely attractive. Besides, the authorial gymnastics required to write plausible H/W are WAY more difficult on the personality side of things. You have a grouchy misanthropic bastard who genuinely is smarter than most people in the room, and a boy wonder oncologist who eats neediness for breakfast and can actually hold his own with House.

[pandorasblog]

Re: House's scar - I don't read House fic but that would strike me as downright offensive, given that it implies nobody could ever love or have sex with someone with a noticable, unpleasant scar. Which, in my personal experience, is untrue.

[ms-treesap.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

Oh, it drives me absolutely nuts. I mean, they deal with it in canon quite a bit - it's vicious-looking, but it's not like it stops the man from getting laid (Stacy, various hookers, etc). And it's never going to go away, because we come in five years after the infarction, and the scar's still pretty pronounced and he's popping Vicodin like candy to deal with the pain.