That Carrie post reminded me of my biggest and oldest pet peeve: adaptations taking a character who’s supposed to be ugly, or at least not beautiful, and casting someone perfect-looking. A lot of the time this is simple misogyny, but the inability to allow ugly people to exist also extends to men and boys, and I remember how pissed I was when I started understanding this at around the age of eight.
Bastian of the Neverending Story is fat and weird-looking, in the movie he’s a perfectly photogenic all-American kid.
Hermione is buck-toothed and unpretty, in the movies she’s a perfect little girl who grows into a very attractive woman.
Carrie is fat and unpretty, in the movies she’s a supermodel in slightly unflattering clothes.
Don’t even talk to me about Ugly Betty.
The latest Frankenstein adaptation continues a long trend of trying to convey the message of “this monster is not inherently evil” by making the monster look good. Because obviously if the monster did look bad, it would be evil and people would be justified in shunning it.
Even supposedly more serious media does it. Imre Kertész’s Holocaust novel Fateless has a minor character, a wimpy weird-looking member of the group of boys who got deported together. The other boys don’t really like him, and disdainfully agree when he’s deemed not fit for work - of course they don’t yet know that it’s a death sentence. In the atrocious movie he’s not weaker just younger, a photogenic little boy, and him being sent to his death is played as a sentimental tearjerker for the audience instead of forcing us to grapple with the complexity of the original, where mundane teen boy cruelty continues to exist in boys who are currently victims of a genocide.
A written text says: this person is ugly, this affects how people treat them, this affects how they feel about themselves, how they behave, how they live in the world. This might just be an incidental part of their story, or it might be its entire point of the whole fucking book. And then the movie sweeps in and says: oh, but they aren’t ugly! They have always been beautiful! They are being bullied and shunned for no reason! So unfair!
And the unintentional but very obvious implication arises that if they *were* ugly, of course they would deserve the bullying, the audience would agree that they deserve the bullying, the audience would want to join in, kick spit point laugh. The idea of empathizing with an actually ugly person doesn’t compute. (Maybe it’s clear by now that this has done low-grade but long-lasting damage to me as a person: weird ugly people are simply not allowed to exist, not even in stories about being weird and ugly.)
Btw this is why “everyone is beautiful” type body-positivity does nothing for me, and why I’m hyper-sensitive to how people discuss ugliness in reality and in fiction. For example, I love the Just King Things and the Shelved by Genre podcasts, but I think they struggle to see the value of written descriptions of ugliness. They interpret Steven King’s descriptions of Carrie as cruel, they interpret Tiptree’s description of P. Burke in The Girl who was Plugged In as cruel and fatphobic. Sure, I don’t want to give King kudos for all his depictions of women, but he did get it right that time, and Tiptree absolutely did. Describing a character, especially a woman as ugly, genuinely ugly, no not secretly beautiful, actually ugly, and then telling her story, a story about existing in the world as an ugly woman, is really really fucking important. And people keep shying away from it, oh, it’s cruel to call anyone ugly, let’s pretend that ugly people don’t exist instead.
I am whatever the opposite of a speed runner is. I am a game meanderer. I have to look at literally everything. I am overly cautious in every way. I forget to pause and wander away from the game. I take a minimum 7 hours to get through any given level. If you give me a timer I will cry.
ok so i’ve seen some of you aren’t that sure that this is actually embroidery (i was suspicious too bc damn!!!!) so here you is another embroidery of his with some close ups♥ :
My absolute favourite comic journal by Stevenson. Made me cry my eyes out. Even when I can’t articulate it, it gets to the core of what I think love is.
if i had a dick i would love to have a disappointing orgasm in the shower while thinking of something or someone that i felt i should not be thinking about & then stand under the water with my forehead against a wall watching the proof of my guilt & shame go down the drain
The insight I get into the female mind thanks to this website is amazing.
aren’t gorillas gentle giants or something. i stay out of his way, he doesn’t maul me, we have a nice time picking out clothes together in opposite sides of the mall
Male gorillas are super aggressive and territorial. Also they interpret nearly every human mannerism as a sign of aggression or a challenge. Smiling and eye contact are both things that zookeepers have to be taught to suppress when they’re in the vicinity of gorillas.
Well unless the mall is his native territory I think I’m fine, I wasn’t planning on smiling at him
This is all irrelevant because the obvious answer is five black mambas. I mean, that’s not actually very many snakes, and malls are fucking huge. And unlike a gorilla you can definitely outrun a snake if it does show up. Find an open space in the mall where you can see any snake coming and just hangout out there. Fucking easy.
Misguided! I would much rather have a mallmate I can easily see and hear coming. I’m confident I can stay out of the gorilla’s way, but if I step on a snake or one otherwise gets the jump on me, it’s all over.
It’s not just about the physical danger either, it’s about my mental health. One gorilla, unless he’s actively mad at me, I just keep a healthy distance between us and make sure I never get trapped. With the snakes, it requires a lot more constant vigilance
They should substitute “chimpanzee” for “gorilla” in this hypothetical.
if it was a chimp i’m taking the fucking snakes
Black mambas have a reputation build on being very venomous and very fast. I’m not sure why you would think you could outrun one (or five) in an enclosed space like a mall.
Malls usually have pretty slick floors, and escalators. I’d choose the gorilla simply because I think that would make an more interesting story (and a better-selling autobiography, I Survived the Mall Gorilla) but I think I’d stand a pretty good chance at avoiding the mamba. They’re fast and aggressive and will chase you but unless we started immediately beside each other I think my sneakers would have the terrain advantage over scutes.
this is too good to leave hidden in the replies
fucking enamored with the implication that this gorilla is fully intelligent but is trying to manufacture plausible deniability like the movie barnyard
