Fearful Symmetry Redux
Jun. 2nd, 2008 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaI have discovered that I am just not all that into fan-photomanips. Some of them are cute, but for the most part unshopped photos or screencaps with lewd titles just end up doing more for me. Image vs. text again, I suppose. But I find digital art using photos as very close reference to be just as enjoyable as hand-drawn fanart; in fact, I have such a piece as my desktop image. *scratches head* I think I have a very inconsistent reaction to image-based fan-content, much more inconsistent than my reactions to text-based fan-content.
In the process of discovering this, I have also realized that the rule about attractive faces being more symmetrical has some pretty glaring exceptions. Jude Law and David Tennant both have crazy-asymmetrical faces, such that when a photomanip flops them they look absolutely wrong. And yet they are clearly both smokin' hot, not merely by my judgement but by that of squealing fangirls (and fanboys!) worldwide. (Come to think of it, Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal aren't exactly even functions either, so it's not just an Anglophilia thing.)
Oddly enough, I can't find any 'conventionally hot' women with the same degree of asymmetry. (Tina Fey doesn't count; she's a comedic actress, and they're neither required nor expected to be conventionally attractive. And she's still not anywhere near as quirked as Tennant is.) Is that because the audience for male stars (straight and bi women, bi and gay men) is more tolerant of a slightly skew nose or crooked jawline than the audience for female stars (bi and lesbian women, straight and bi men) is? Maybe women who achieve a certain level of fame almost always get their asymmetries 'fixed,' while male famous people find it easier to resist such pressures? (The story of Jennifer Gray's nose writ large?) Or is this just the Hollywood beauty machine working? (Anyone arguing that Tennant wouldn't have made in it LA either still needs to deal with Law, who clearly has.)
In the process of discovering this, I have also realized that the rule about attractive faces being more symmetrical has some pretty glaring exceptions. Jude Law and David Tennant both have crazy-asymmetrical faces, such that when a photomanip flops them they look absolutely wrong. And yet they are clearly both smokin' hot, not merely by my judgement but by that of squealing fangirls (and fanboys!) worldwide. (Come to think of it, Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal aren't exactly even functions either, so it's not just an Anglophilia thing.)
Oddly enough, I can't find any 'conventionally hot' women with the same degree of asymmetry. (Tina Fey doesn't count; she's a comedic actress, and they're neither required nor expected to be conventionally attractive. And she's still not anywhere near as quirked as Tennant is.) Is that because the audience for male stars (straight and bi women, bi and gay men) is more tolerant of a slightly skew nose or crooked jawline than the audience for female stars (bi and lesbian women, straight and bi men) is? Maybe women who achieve a certain level of fame almost always get their asymmetries 'fixed,' while male famous people find it easier to resist such pressures? (The story of Jennifer Gray's nose writ large?) Or is this just the Hollywood beauty machine working? (Anyone arguing that Tennant wouldn't have made in it LA either still needs to deal with Law, who clearly has.)
