In Which A Guy Is Held To A Standard Of Beauty, And Hates It
I was talking with a friend the other day, and she referred to Bradley Cooper as “someone I wouldn’t look at twice on OKCupid.”
I’m on OKCupid, and I don’t look anywhere half as good as Bradley Cooper. Bradley’s a really handsome guy as far as I’m concerned, with craggy looks that aren’t to my tastes – but he has beautiful eyes, a radiant grin, and is fit and young and healthy.
I really don’t want to know what my friend would think if she looked at me on OKCupid. If Bradley Cooper’s looks are a 5 out of 10 to her, then I can only assume that my pudgy ass is probably a 2 or 3 out of 10.
In that brief exchange, I got a clear idea of what she thinks of me physically, and it’s probably not good.
I despaired a little, because hell, if I can’t be Bradley Cooper, what can I be? Even if I worked out all the time and lost forty pounds and got The Hollywood Abs, I’d probably be a 3 on that scale at most… at least physically. I felt trapped at the base of a mountain that I literally could not climb – to my friend, I don’t think there’s a way I can be above-the-curve physically attractive to her.
As a result, I felt strangely like a failure all evening.
It wasn’t until this morning that I realized this is what women go through every day.
And I’m of two minds about that, because on the one hand I felt positively squidgey squeezing my muffintop into my pants that morning. My bald spot felt baldier. My puffy moon of a face, which isn’t actually that bad looking, was something I didn’t wanna look at in the mirror because Jesus, that’s a 3 at best on my friend’s scale of beauty. Maybe a 2. My spiffy hat felt like a sad attempt to distract from the disaster zone of my misaligned features.
On the other hand, who the hell am I to tell my friend what she should be attracted to?
There’s a double-edged sword here, because on the one hand I adore my female buddy’s strong sexuality, the way she owns who she wants to fuck, and the unapologetic way she partners with the people who are going to give her what she wants. That’s awesome. It’s a strength that women are often encouraged not to have, to instead passively accept whoever pays attention to them – so if she can say, “Fuck this guy, he’s not good looking enough for me,” then on one level that’s a total win for civilization.
Yet the other edge of the blade is that this off-handed idea that the Hollywood standard of beauty isn’t good enough is kinda hurtful. It’s what women feel when they get compared casually to airbrushed beauties in Sports Illustrated, as though here’s what you should aspire to be, and you just aren’t. The real you exists on the cover of this magazine, as an archetype, and the only things people like about you are all the ways you overlap with that perfection.
The rest of you is dross.
I stress that my friend did zero wrong. She compared me to no one – she’d never do that – and maybe Bradley Cooper is a little weird-lookin’ for a Hollywood star. (And I was in a peculiarly raw headspace at the time, thanks to bad news from Gini’s family. They’re better now.) And what we’re discussing here is not all of the non-physical ways one can be attracted to each other – just the raw battleground of physical beauty. Which is a pretty narrow space, as I’m pretty sure my friend (who is quite gorgeous herself) has vapid hunky guys hitting on her on a regular basis, and I’m just as sure she discards at least some of them because she needs a partner who can feed that big factory o’luscious brainpower locked inside her skull.
Yet there’s this weird conflict rubbing like sandpaper in my head – it’s good that people should have strong opinions sexually, knowing what they want, and are willing to discard people who don’t appeal to them. Yet it’s also a little bad when you’re held to those high standards and fall short, because you have this feeling like all the other bits of you – the interesting unique bits that make up you – can’t quite fill those gaps.
I’m not Bradley Cooper. I’m me. And I’ve done well, dating-wise. But to someone, if we’re honest, I’m probably a 2 on her personal scale when I’m reduced to a headshot.
The steepness of that scale makes me despair a little. Even as I think she has the absolute right to have it.
(EDIT: And if you’re going to tell me, “Oh, no, Ferrett, everyone finds different people attractive!” then you’ve missed the point I was trying to make. The point is that women are often held to a standard of Hollywood-style beauty and scorned by folks if they don’t match it – vitriolically so, in certain circles – and that’s hard to deal with when those judgments are coming from people you’re trying to impress. Maybe secretly they don’t think you’re that bad, but when a guy you like is saying, “God, Taylor Swift would be attractive if she lost a few pounds” or a woman who you think is gorgeous talks about all the ways her boobs look weird, it has a corrosive effect where you ask, “So what the hell am I?”
(And of course she likes something else aside from looks, a point I tried to make repeatedly in the text. But that “looks alone” experience is an effect that guys do not often experience. So I found it interesting to chronicle my reaction – which is not necessarily a rational one, or even a particularly well-thought-out one, but that’s my whole point. When you get these kinds of emotional reactions, they affect you before you can apply the Reality Shields. And as a guy who got startled by one, I thought it interesting to chronicle that.)
ConFusion: Just Like Starting Over
ConFusion is a weirdly stressful con for me, because my time is split.
See, when Steve Gutterman first invited me to Penguicon back in 2005, I showed up alone. I had a webcomic I’d just started six weeks ago, no stories published, and no real concept of what a con was. So I went not as a Big Writer Guest, but as a scared novice con attendee hoping to find friends.
I found them. Brilliant ones. I remember going on long solitary walks around the loop of the hotel, feeling ridiculously lonely and plucky, enduring my social anxiety bells of “No one wants to talk to you” until I stumbled across a conversation that seemed interesting that I could join in. I made twenty-minute friends – I’d join in a chat about some movie or website, the conversation would go wonderfully, and then people would wander off.
But by the end of the con, I’d go out on what I was already terming my Lonely Patrol – and people started to know me. I’d get hailed by Randy or Kat or Alexa, and we’d go find other people, and then we friended each other on LiveJournal, and by the next con I was still on Lonely Patrol but those patrols were shorter. And as I kept going to Michigan cons, I had tons of buddies to see.
And then I became a Writer person, with short stories and readings and whatnot, and found that the writers are all in the bar – and I want to see them! They’re also wonderful people, all these fellow scribes! They’re troves of Weird Shit, because you don’t become a sci-fi writer without acquiring weird anecdotes that you’ve turned into Story. And when I go to a place like World Fantasy or WorldCon, the only people I’ve ever met at those places are fellow writers, so when I hang at the bar meeting people, that’s the most exciting part of the con.
Except at ConFusion, the writer-buddies are in the bar, and my con-buddies are off at the room parties.
So I gotta split my time, and never quite feel like I get enough time with either. I had real issues with that in the last ConFusion, because I didn’t know which faction to choose, and felt like I was always choosing the wrong one. It stressed me out all weekend.
For this one, though, I decided to be calm; whoever I hang out with, I hang out with. Yes, I’d like to meet Sam Sykes to the point where he’d know who the hell I am, because he’s someone who’s pretty damn amusing on Twitter… but if I get a different dinner invitation, well, I’ll miss out on that.
And that was pleasantly serene, because by chance ConFusion was largely about catching up with all the old con-friends. I sat down for almost two hours with my dear friend Sheryl. I had a lovely evening meeting up with Alexa and her new wife. I caught up with Hope, and Nick and Vascha, and spent less time in the writers’ bar than I’d like to.
Which was fine. Robert Jackson Bennett said the other day that he’s basically given up on going to cons to promote his writing, he’s just going to hang with other writers. And I have other cons for that. WorldCon and World Fantasy are where I can both drink affably and make buddies with writers because hell, that’s pretty much what’s on the menu.
I dunno. Here’s where I maybe get uncomfortably honest, and I’m actually humiliated to admit this, but fuck, that’s pretty much my schtick on this blog, isn’t it?
I have this weird feeling like whenever I do a con, I must emerge with deep friendships with three different writers Or I Have Wasted My Career. Which is just some bullshit feeling placed there from years of How To Do Bizness tutorials… or, now that I reflect upon it, the fact that my highschool-damaged psyche views writers as The Cool Kids, and if enough of them like me then I will be magically healed of all my insecurities.
And that places a pressure on me that’s ludicrous. I’ve thankfully avoided the smarmy tendency to view people as though I were some sort of fucked-up Pokemon trainer and instead forged genuine connections – but there are times I’ve been having a beautiful conversation with friends and had that back-of-the-mind whisper of, you know these people already, you should be getting to know new people, isn’t that the point of coming here?
No. No, it isn’t.
The point is enjoying what I’ve got – which has never been a strength of mine.
Look, as a writer, I’ve never really gotten ahead thanks to connections. Mostly, it’s been, “Did you write a good story this week?” If the shit I write is good enough it’ll haul itself over the transom, and if not, then no amount of networking will save me.
And I have no idea whether this feeling of Go Make Connections is just me, or something that other writers feel. But whether it’s personal or universal, it’s toxic. Toxic personally. I mean, I’ve never friended a writer because he was on some checklist of mine, thank God, but I need to stop feeling like a failure whenever I don’t friend someone in the industry. I’m always at a tug-of-war between my big floppy dog instincts of “I love everyone” and these Borgian undertones of “join my collective,” and it’s time to unleash my inner Picard. I mean, the good Picard. Not that schmuck who got Borgified.
ConFusion was where I left those instincts behind, and just hung with whoever and strangled my inner Middle School Kid. (Which is always a positive experience, really. That kid is needy.) And I did hang with some awesome writers, and had some stellar conversations with them, too… and that’s the way it should be, prioritizing whoever is fun to talk to. But chatting with the people who literally inspired my love of cons reminded me of how awesome it was to let all of those expectations of what I should accomplish go, and just be.
As Myke Cole once put it, there is no amazing writer-party. There is merely an amazing party, with many guests, and you should dance with whoever’s got the best tunes.
Maybe I’d have a couple of new friends on Twitter this morning if I’d done the Networking Thing. Those friendships wouldn’t be half as good as the ones I rekindled this weekend. And the reason they wouldn’t is because the friendships I’ve got are organic creations of pure Love, created out of desire and not obligation, and thank God I’ve always lent my ear to those better instincts.
Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a party on Twitter I need to join.
A Minor Trepidation About ConFusion
As it turns out, ConFusion will be the first convention I’ve appeared at in two years. Didn’t plan it that way; I’d intended to go to ConFusion last year but then medical issues kept me down, and the Geeky Kink Event in New England was shunted by an emergency with our goddaughter Rebecca.
I’m a little nervous.
Which is to say I’m socially anxious at the best of times, and always have a tinge of Impostor Syndrome whenever I show up at a con as A Writer, and this is the last major step in returning to my life after last year’s triple-bypass. After I do this, that’s finalizing the checklist of doing everything I did pre-heart attack (today’s the day after the anniversary of the surgery), and for some reason that makes me tremble. I have the feeling things will go terribly wrong – not because I can think of any reason, but because it feels like the horrid year of 2013 needs to take one final shot.
So if you see me, and you are so inclined, say hi. Don’t assume I’m too cool for school; I am, apparently, quite good at faking looking way social when I’m not. I’m looking forward to seeing you all, even as my brainweasels are telling me that you’ve all forgotten about me entirely. So if you feel kind enough to be kind to a guy who’s a little kinked-up inside, it’d be a goodness in the universe.
I might even buy you a beer. I do that on occasion.
(For the record, I do try to pay it back – if you’re ever at a con where I know people, feel free to follow me about. I’ll introduce you as best I know how.)
A Brief Thought On Monotony
My friend Indigo took offense when I said that “Slavery is monotonous.” So let me clarify:
Poverty is monotonous.
Never being allowed to change is monotonous.
Waiting around for someone else to do something to do you is monotonous.
Doing the same thing over and over when you get no satisfaction from it is monotonous.
The effect of most evil is monotony.
You know what’s not monotonous? Getting to make your own choices, moving up or down in society as you please, deciding on your own reward systems. Those are all awesome.
They’re also the first thing to get taken away when you’re in the underclass. The folks in charge don’t want you to feel like you have power. They don’t want you to feel like your decisions matter. And so they do that thing of removing all the relevant decisions from your hands, endlessly forcing you to ask someone else for permission, making you check in repeatedly for trivial stuff because they want you to feel like your day is nothing but a series of boring decisions.
If you fight back, you get a very exciting and brief period where they beat the shit out of you and maybe kill you and maybe hurt your family to boot. So you opt for the not-so-exciting path, which involves you checking in for a series of humanity-whittling checklists until they decide you’re too much trouble. Sometimes they shovel you and all your kind into an oven. Most of the time they just sort of throw your wrung body out with the trash.
Slavery was all sorts of horrid awfulness, with beatings and rapes and mothers being sold from their children and a million other indignities. But let us not forget that a lot of slavery was labor. Repetitive, unskilled labor. Going out to the fields, coming back again. Putting a thousand nails in wood for a house that won’t benefit you. Sweeping floors and beating rugs and washing nice clothes that you’ll never get to wear.
Their masters got to sip mint juleps and go hunting and choose fancy clothes. The slaves got all the work that nobody else wanted to do.
That is monotonous. It’s hard to tell a story about that soul-eroding sameness without becoming boring, so Hollywood usually doesn’t try. And it’s hard to explain that yeah, the whippings and the lynchings were the epitome of evil, but what was also bad was how millions of obedient slaves did the same thing day in and day out, dying inside because this was the same damn field they were in yesterday, and the same field they’ll be in tomorrow, and they’ll be in this field every year for as long as their legs hold out until they die and get buried twenty yards away from this field. Their future was their today was their yesterday, and if their dreams died enough then that was their best-case scenario.
That’s monotony.
That’s also evil.
Do not discount it.
Why I Don't Think "12 Years A Slave" Will Win Best Picture
I’ll say this with the caveat that I could be wrong, in that anyone who predicts an Oscar win could always be wrong. But 12 Years A Slave is on the rise right now, since it won the Golden Globe and now is officially on the Oscar list.
The problem is, 12 Years A Slave is kind of like Brokeback Mountain in that it’s a movie you feel like you should like. It’s got a great actor, deals with a Very Serious Issue, and is depressing as all hell.
The problem is that it’s depressing as all hell. And honestly, I don’t think it’s that great a movie. The acting is top-notch (which I always give a nod to the director for evoking in his/her actors), but the actual directing itself is kind of like a TV movie – competent, but not compelling. The pacing is endless, and aside from one absolutely brilliant narrative trick (for which I’d give the nod more to the screenplay than the director), the movie drags.
Which, some will argue, is the point. Slavery is monotonous. And I’d agree with you, but so were tours of duty in Vietnam, and most of those films manage to be entertaining regardless.
The thing about 12 Years A Slave is that there’s Oscar-depressing, and there’s depressing depressing. Schindler’s List is Oscar-depressing, in the sense that there’s a lot of misery, but the ending is uplifting. 12 Years A Slave is absolutely and rigidly monotone – there’s no uplifting anywhere to be found, it’s just two solid hours of brief hope and horrible downers and human wreckage. The emotional line of it is “Wow, slavery is terrible.”
Which slavery is, and that’s well-displayed here, and perhaps even the point of the movie… but that doesn’t make this pleasant. I think, like Brokeback, people nominated it for quality, but Oscars win for love. Maybe a misplaced and transitory love, like Crash was. But there needs to be a certain affection to win, and I think 12 Years A Slave is like kale in that you should eat it, and it’s worthy to eat, but nobody’s loving it.
(Cue the kale-lovers. You are legion, my friends.)
And yes, 12 Years A Slave won the Golden Globe for Best Drama, but against some weird competition: Captain Philips, Gravity, Philomena, and Rush. No American Hustle, no Wolf on Wall Street. I think with the vote split Oscar-style, 12 Years will be another upset.
(Cue me saying I wish we knew the votes on Oscar movies so we could see how close Brokeback came to winning. Cue me demanding the usual Best Stunt Work category, which is not at all related to this but dammit the stunt people deserve an Oscar. Cue this fascinating article on 5 reasons stunt work is harder than you’d think.)
Slavery films are tough, man. People have noted that there have been a billion films on the Holocaust, and only a handful of films on slavery (and I’d argue the best is still Roots, flawed though that is). They take this as evidence that Hollywood is pro-Jew and anti-Black. And there may be some truth in that, but I think the core reason is a lot simpler: it’s harder to make a film that people want to watch where the villain is us.
I could be wrong. It’d be nice if it won. But my money would be on Gravity or American Hustle. I’ll let you know when I see American Hustle.