Let's Read? / Discussion of Beauty
Sep. 30th, 2012 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkBlah blah, still rambling and talking to myself because LSAT + midterm exams in all my classes = misery!
I was thinking of doing a Let's Read for some books, because...because.
Candidates:
+ Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo: Anyone who's been following this LJ might be thinking, "Haven't you bashed the book enough?" Clearly not. Also, this book is readable even if it has a lot of issues, so that's a plus in the LR department.
- What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang: I thought about it, but (a) this book is so slow I'll probably get bored, and (b) this book suffers much more when you look at it from a broad perspective rather that nitpicking the details (although there are a number of details that make no sense whatsoever).
+ Throne of Glass by Sarah Maas: Possibly. Three chapters in, and I'm already facepalming at some of the stuff, so it's definitely a candidate.
...And now, a discussion triggered by, surprise surprise, my reading of Shadow and Bone and Throne of Glass!
There's a trope on TV Tropes called "Beauty Equals Goodness," and while I'll accept that protagonists are usually written as being somewhat attractive, I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of protagonists always being OMG BEAUTIFUL. Especially for female protagonists.
I know I'm treading on possibly flameworthy ground here, so let me state clearly that I have nothing wrong with characters who are beautiful as a concept. There's nothing wrong with being fashion-conscious or having fabulous looks; in fact, I hate it when (female) characters are introduced whom you're obviously supposed to hate because they're prettier than the protagonist.
The problem is, I don't think looks should be something that's emphasized so much for female characters, particularly because we have enough of a societal issue with girls feeling insecure about their appearance. Let's walk through a couple of the most problematic manifestations of this problem.
1. Protagonist-Centered Beauty: It's Not Okay to be pretty unless you're the protagonist.
I've seen this in The Hunger Games and in Shadow and Bone. Katniss hates the girl from District 1 (I think? The one named Glimmer) because she's pretty, and possibly some of the other tribute girls as well. But as soon as Katniss steps into the dresses designed for her by Cinna, she can't shut up about how beautiful they make her look. In Shadow and Bone, Alina keeps moaning about how the Grisha girls are so much prettier than she is, and most of them are also either empty-headed or outright malicious, but Alina herself gets a Beauty Upgrade halfway through, and she talks about how helpful Genya, her stylist, is for making her more beautiful.
These kinds of messages are incredibly subtle and insidious, because they initially seem to be subverting the "In order to be the heroine, you have to be beautiful!" message, but ultimately end up reinforcing it.
2. Beauty just doesn't make sense in this context.
This can become the case in fantasy or survival novels. Protip: if your protagonist is either a fighter or someone who scrambles to make a living (prostitutes aside), physical appearance will probably be the last thing on their minds. Just logically speaking.
Case in point: Throne of Glass. Celaena Sardothien is supposedly the world's most feared assassin, and yet after a year of enslavement she complains about how dirty she looks. Seriously? Don't you think she should be focused on, I don't know, other things? She also talks about how she's used cosmetics ever since her teenaged years to make herself even more beautiful...but what's the point? An assassin won't be successful if she's pretty. Assassins aren't even rich, I don't think (otherwise I'm pretty sure they'd quit such a high-risk job), and only rich people can afford to buy things like cosmetics. (If I were an assassin, I'd take any extra cash I got and buy better weapons.) Moreover, assassins don't want to stand out; they want to blend in with a crowd, and beauty does the opposite. It's especially egregious when she complains about her breast size.
The only exception I can think of is if an assassin primarily kills people by seducing them, but the emphasis so far in the novel has been on Celaena's Awesome Fighting Skills, so I don't think that's her usual modus operandi.
3. The Omniscient Male Gaze.
Described better than I can over here.
I was thinking of doing a Let's Read for some books, because...because.
Candidates:
+ Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo: Anyone who's been following this LJ might be thinking, "Haven't you bashed the book enough?" Clearly not. Also, this book is readable even if it has a lot of issues, so that's a plus in the LR department.
- What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang: I thought about it, but (a) this book is so slow I'll probably get bored, and (b) this book suffers much more when you look at it from a broad perspective rather that nitpicking the details (although there are a number of details that make no sense whatsoever).
+ Throne of Glass by Sarah Maas: Possibly. Three chapters in, and I'm already facepalming at some of the stuff, so it's definitely a candidate.
...And now, a discussion triggered by, surprise surprise, my reading of Shadow and Bone and Throne of Glass!
There's a trope on TV Tropes called "Beauty Equals Goodness," and while I'll accept that protagonists are usually written as being somewhat attractive, I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of protagonists always being OMG BEAUTIFUL. Especially for female protagonists.
I know I'm treading on possibly flameworthy ground here, so let me state clearly that I have nothing wrong with characters who are beautiful as a concept. There's nothing wrong with being fashion-conscious or having fabulous looks; in fact, I hate it when (female) characters are introduced whom you're obviously supposed to hate because they're prettier than the protagonist.
The problem is, I don't think looks should be something that's emphasized so much for female characters, particularly because we have enough of a societal issue with girls feeling insecure about their appearance. Let's walk through a couple of the most problematic manifestations of this problem.
1. Protagonist-Centered Beauty: It's Not Okay to be pretty unless you're the protagonist.
I've seen this in The Hunger Games and in Shadow and Bone. Katniss hates the girl from District 1 (I think? The one named Glimmer) because she's pretty, and possibly some of the other tribute girls as well. But as soon as Katniss steps into the dresses designed for her by Cinna, she can't shut up about how beautiful they make her look. In Shadow and Bone, Alina keeps moaning about how the Grisha girls are so much prettier than she is, and most of them are also either empty-headed or outright malicious, but Alina herself gets a Beauty Upgrade halfway through, and she talks about how helpful Genya, her stylist, is for making her more beautiful.
These kinds of messages are incredibly subtle and insidious, because they initially seem to be subverting the "In order to be the heroine, you have to be beautiful!" message, but ultimately end up reinforcing it.
2. Beauty just doesn't make sense in this context.
This can become the case in fantasy or survival novels. Protip: if your protagonist is either a fighter or someone who scrambles to make a living (prostitutes aside), physical appearance will probably be the last thing on their minds. Just logically speaking.
Case in point: Throne of Glass. Celaena Sardothien is supposedly the world's most feared assassin, and yet after a year of enslavement she complains about how dirty she looks. Seriously? Don't you think she should be focused on, I don't know, other things? She also talks about how she's used cosmetics ever since her teenaged years to make herself even more beautiful...but what's the point? An assassin won't be successful if she's pretty. Assassins aren't even rich, I don't think (otherwise I'm pretty sure they'd quit such a high-risk job), and only rich people can afford to buy things like cosmetics. (If I were an assassin, I'd take any extra cash I got and buy better weapons.) Moreover, assassins don't want to stand out; they want to blend in with a crowd, and beauty does the opposite. It's especially egregious when she complains about her breast size.
The only exception I can think of is if an assassin primarily kills people by seducing them, but the emphasis so far in the novel has been on Celaena's Awesome Fighting Skills, so I don't think that's her usual modus operandi.
3. The Omniscient Male Gaze.
Described better than I can over here.
