anti-anti beauty standards

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There's a giant wall/board in the campus plaza now, with pictures of supermodel women in bathing suits and lingerie, and some statements criticizing "unattainable standards of beauty". Now, I think it's a stupid topic because there's no sense fretting over how you look, or blaming photographers for how you feel. However, there's huge blank section of the board for students to write comments on the issue, and it's practically blank! As an artist by hobby, that's a canvas I can't pass up. It could remain up for the rest of the week. I was tempted to draw a bunch of super-wacky-looking women, but I decided to lay down my ideas on paper first, and one idea I came up with was this.



She's obviously nothing like the supermodels: no eyelashes, no puffy lips, no whispy hair, a pointy nose & chin, wide mouth, giant head, small breasts, and inhuman claws that can tear your face off.

So I was going to pin it on the wall, but I didn't have anything to pin it with. Do you have any suggestions (artistic or otherwise) before I pin this tomorrow? and do you think anyone would misinterpret my sarcasm?

Last edited by Fatal-Noogie on 14 Oct 2008, 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Unique style. (looking at your avatar).

I would not sign it, but posting it would be fun.

Sign and post it. I think it would be awesome.

I think the claws are a bit too much. The combat knife at her waist is enough.

Awesome! Maybe fill her out a little bit around her stomach/give her a stomach bump, she's just a bit too thin, which sort of defeats the purpose.

if its waht you are attracted too then its not anti bueaty

A heart-felt "Sour Grapes" to the loser-ettes that sponsored the wall/board!

Beauty is an entirely subjective thing. I find most supermodel-types to be pretty repellant to be honest.

But for a start:

1) How is it an 'unattainable standard of beauty', if the girls photographed are real? Clearly they've attained it, so theoretically, what's to stop anybody else looking that 'beautiful'?
2) Posters like that are basically (at least in part) blaming these people for being 'beautiful'. Clearly that would indicate that there is something wrong with being so. Can you seriously tell me that's the case? Or are these people just jealous because really, they'd like to look like that, too?
3) As Fatal-Noogie points out (the sketch is awesome BTW ), the whole thing inadvertently reinforces the notion that these women are supposedly extremely beautiful. Way to shoot yourself in the foot.

The whole thing just makes plainly obvious that the people who commissioned the whole thing are just a bunch of sore losers who'd rather whine about such things than do the sensible thing and just not care.

PS, Fatal-Noogie, you should take some photos of when you get it up there

I think the images on the wall were severely photo-manipulated. They probably cleaned every last dot and spec form their skin, raised the color contrast, and stretched some dimensions.

I think that that's what the people are protesting. Maybe they're also angry because only certain kinds of women make it into TV commercials and magazine covers. Maybe they're trying to promote self esteem on campus. Maybe they're worried about the few women who feel pressured into getting surgery to alter their appearance. I don't know. It all seem quite inconsequential to me.

In any case, I think it's stupid to criticize archetypes of beauty without proposing an alternative, so I gave them one: a half-goblin lady with an attitude, who doesn't mope around and worry about her appearance.

Thanks for complimenting my drawing, RogueProcess. I taped it to the wall this morning, and it seems like the students who saw it thought it was funny.

I absolutely adore it. My one criticism (you know I have to have one) is that the goblin-girl is really cute, even with the claws. I would (also) have liked to see a truly ugly "call me ugly" girl.

Then again, if your subject had been dwarn overweight, it would have been a totally different statement.

Or am I still missing the point, that your goblinette was supposed to be cute, just not supermodel-cute? No, I get it. It's great.

I bet you can't wait to see if anyone posts something else tomorrow. I'd practically be stalking the billboard.

She looks awesome. Wonderful picture; I especially like her pose. Very well done.

Do it. don't think about it too much or you might have second thoughts.

Anti-anti beauty standards - You don't like anti beauty standards, and thus you really like supermodels.

No, I don't like supermodels. I just think that complaining about them is stupid. Read the thread.



For those of you who are still watching this topic and want to see more of my art, go to
http://fatal-noogie.deviantart.com/gallery/

Lets not forget that due to advanced digital editing, you can look like anyone or absolutely flawless.
They used to use Vaseline for film making, to make people look more "appealing"

Perfection is nothing more than an illusion

Would she qualify as an anime tsundere?

Just askin'...