alternative to...what, exactly?

[anotheranon]

Just discovered the Coilhouse blog and it's odd, beautiful, and sometimes thought provoking archives.

One that had me nodding particularly was What does Alt Model Even Mean?. The author rightly points out that even the most "freakish" of alternative models still adheres to at least some mainstream beauty standards: with rare exceptions most are young, thin, and white. IMHO the most obvious exceptions are the "plus size" (I use quotes because a US size 8 is considered heavy in the modeling world) models, who still have thick hair and good skin.

Which makes sense, I suppose: IIRC (can't cite source, regrettably), across all time periods and places, the constants for female beauty are unblemished skin, straight, full set of teeth, clear eyes - humans are animals and it's hard to get outside of that.

Still, I do wonder why Coilhouse's Top 10 Most Preternaturally Beautiful Men still seems to show more variety of facial features, style, and build than their Top 7 Icons of (female) Alien Beauty. To be fair, the uniformity of the latter listing might have a lot to do with styling and photography (the author even notes that #s 3 and 4 look very much alike). Also IMHO most of these women don't look particularly alien, outside the aforementioned styling/photos (except maybe the last, assuming she's not 'shopped).

Comments

So true!

[shemhazai.livejournal.com]

Not a single one of those women really stood out. I was expecting...I don't know...Tilda Swinton, or Sandra Bernhardt, or the Borg Queen. or Grace Jones. Just goes to show how much more conformist pressure there is for women than men, when it comes to beauty...

Re: So true!

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Tilda Swinton and Grace Jones would have made perfect sense - striking, strong, dramatic. The women in the photos given were really kinda milquetoast compared to either of them!

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I dunnow, since I've sort of adored most of the preternaturally beautiful men on the list for a long time, I have to say that the females on the the alien beauty list do not compare at all in uniqueness. I take it as proof that females have much stricter boundaries when it comes to beauty. The closest I can come to think of in alien beauty among females is Rossy De Palma from the Aldomovar movies or perhaps Grace Jones in the US. There must be more charismatic alien looking women around, but I don't think they reach the celebrity world as often as men do.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

That is a fantastic shot of Rossy De Palma! Indeed, for unusual beauties, she qualifies!