Judging a Book

THE CRUMBCAST 5

49 comments

  1. Comments on the Crumbcast:
    Sorry, I didn’t listen to it before. Anyways, I would like to throw some thoughts on this.
    From my point of view, ugliness and beauty are exterior features and good and evil are interior. So people can be good looking but with a horrible personality, or ugly but kind.
    Also, beauty and ugliness in the extreme cases are related to harmony but there’s a wide grey area were culture, fashion trends and personal preferences come to play. Examples: Is it a skinny woman prettier? Is it black hair or dark skin uglier? Big eyes or small eyes? Etc.
    Also, some people are more focused on exterior features (e.g. “I love this man, his tall, and has green eyes, I love green eyes”), but other people are more focused on personality/internal features (e.g. “I love this woman, she’s smart and funny, I really like that”).
    I think that tying beauty with moral comes from the fairy tales we got when we were children. Disney movies (the classic ones, at least) and most of the classic children tales pull this string. The good prince is tall and handsome, while the treacherous character is ugly and creepy. The good princess is blonde and blue eyed, the evil witch is black haired and eyed. And so on. The concepts of what is pretty and what is ugly, and how this somehow reflects our inner feelings and ethics gets so deeply rooted in our minds, that some people stop seeing it as a prejudice or a cliche, it becomes an obvious fact to them.
    About taking photos… it’s interesting what you say, I’m the other way around. I don’t mind people taking a picture of myself although I’ll probably won’t like how do I look. Group pictures are my favourites because usually I don’t look that bad in them. But I seldom take selfies. I don’t like them. I find 1000 more interesting things to shoot at.
    About the big breasts… I don’t know others, but I’m not concerned about them. I spent my life been told I was too ugly and fat because of them, so if a man fancies looking at them or anything else in my body, just go ahead, I’m not going to complain. I really don’t understand that part. I mean, why would anyone be worried about someone paying attention to them because they’re pretty/attractive/sexy ?
    About people not saying what they think if they’re talking to an ugly person… well, that little girl in the bus needs better parents. For sure. Aside of that, it’s true that a friend or close acquaintance won’t say in your face that you’re ugly. Not directly, at least.
    On the other hand, we often change the meaning of words or gestures because we’re so convinced about something (like “I’m ugly” or “People think I’m dumb, but I’m not”) that we react according to that conviction and we assume that *everyone else* think the same when maybe it’s not the case.
    Well, I think that’s all, and sorry for the lengthy text.

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    1. We think similarly on this, and you’ve articulated it all so much better than I ever could! Tying beauty with morality is something that I’ve noticed lots of people doing ever since I was old enough to notice such things too. And I think you’re right in that it’s so ingrained within our culture that people probably don’t even realise that they’re going through life conflating the two things.
      And I’m surprised that anyone would be called fat and ugly because of having big breasts. So, yes, I suppose having people pay attention to them or anything else about one’s body in a positive (instead of negative) way would certainly be a good thing. Different people find different physical traits pretty/attractive/sexy, I guess!
      As for the lengthy text, lengthy is good around here. Your thoughts are most welcome!

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      1. Well, I’ve been, but it’s partially because I had the bad luck to be teenager in a moment when skinny or lolita-like girls were the trend and paramount of beauty.
        But this brings an interesting subject, nothing original but still… how we see ourselves through others words and how fashion and trends push you to believe that something is pretty or ugly, even if that look is actually unrealistic, unnatural, unachievable or even sick.
        How often someone won’t give in and accept he or she is ugly, unattractive or plain stupid because everyone is telling them so? Or feel ashamed because they can’t fit in the standard of beauty?
        And how many people push others or make them feel left out because they don’t fit or they’re not what he or she expects them to be or look?
        Most of them, from both sides, won’t stop and think that beauty standards and trends change all the time and even from one place to another. They assume that if *everyone* say something (“this is pretty”, “this nasty”, “this is success”, “this is dumb”), it must be true. A permanent, engraved in stone, truth to last forever after and applicable everywhere and every time. Five minutes of Google search will tear that idea down, but does anyone actually does this research?
        And BTW, thanks for your kind words and replies. I’m glad that my comments are welcome :3

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        1. I would say that no one does that kind of honest research. At best, they’ll look for something that confirms their own bias. Nothing more. It’s a shame because I think many of us could stand to open our eyes and minds a little more than we usually do. (I include myself in this. I’m hardly a paragon of enlightenment.)
          As for your comments, I look forward to them!

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  2. Loved listening to this one. I´ve come to find that there are plenty of people who just love my physical traits, like how I really like a man to have a ´strong´, big and pointy nose… Matter of taste ♥

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    1. I think you have it in a nutshell there, Elly. It’s a matter of taste. As I get older, I find myself enjoying women of all shapes and sizes. As such, I’ve concluded that there truly is no such thing as an ugly woman. There’s an endless variety of people to interact with out there in the world, and we’re lucky enough to get to do so. 🙂

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  6. I grew up in an era of so many men with puppets… Mister Rogers (US), Mister Dressup (in Canada), The Friendly Giant (in Canada), Captain Kangaroo (US) and I still love Pee Wee Herman. I know that Gacey the pedophilic serial killer dressed up as a clown but Mister Rogers was a minister, I think… I can’t stand how this sort of entertainment for children has been totally trashed by people who assume they are all perverts. No one criticizes Shari Lewis and Lambchop. OK, Paul Rubens (Pee Wee) was found in a theater but he wasn’t hurting anyone. The thing that really pisses me off (as a puppet lover) is that while it is politically incorrect to say anything about a (sometime only ) connection between pedophilia and homosexuality and also politically incorrect to judge transexuals, it is fine to trash puppeteers. Let’s set things straight. There are a lot of entertainers who have been revealed as perverts or pedophiles (Jimmy Saville, who was straight), Michael Jackson who was gay, Bill Cosby who was straight, none of whom use puppets! Leave the puppeteers alone!!!

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    1. I really could not have put this better, Kinneret. It’s strange how people get certain hang ups about certain kinds of men and their imagined personal traits. I’m reminded of all the male nurses I’ve known that’ve been viewed with undue suspicion (and even cynicism). I still wonder why.

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          1. I think it’s also…look for an easy target, someone who doesn’t have the power or is marginalized and can’t fight back. Then again. it’s strange, so now there is this politically correct overdrive in favor of gays and transsexuals, but what about overweight people? (and I am not at all but have a friend who is). They are mercilessly abused and blamed. I guess many of them do overeat, but I realize that that too is a compulsive behavior (as my friend told me…she has a child with severe autism and she eats with abandonment because of depression and anxiety. She says her weight problem is really in her head.) So those we can make fun of, whom we can laugh at without any consequence and without someone calling us homophobic, racist, fascist, whatever it is, we will castigate. On the other hand, I am against that sort of whitewashing of all freedom of speech as is currently trending in universities. But I think people are just hypocritical and senseless. They target groups for no reasons or bad reasons. I got fed up at my old job when people would say stupid things like, “All Republicans are evil.” or “People who don’t celebrate Halloween are extremists and are abusing their children.” and so on…

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            1. I have to agree with you on this, and I think you have it in a nutshell when you say that people are just hypocritical and senseless. Even the most renowned scientists of our day, lauded for their impressive reasoning minds, can completely screw up when it comes to dealing with other people in the social arena. Dawkins occurs here. He’s quite simply a brilliant scientist but doesn’t seem to have it all together when it comes to his diatribes against religion (though religion rightly deserves it). He comes across as more fanatic than morally concerned citizen. Hell, I don’t think any of us get this balance right.

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          2. I also had a neighbor who told me she had a clown phobia. And I was like, really? Do you REALLY have a clown phobia or did you just her about someone on the media who didn’t like clowns and know it
            s trendy not to like clowns and so you decided you would hate clowns, too! Now, in reality, I dated a clown once (a performer formerly in the Mexican Circus although he was a New Yorker). OK, he was a rather mean man even if a funny clown. But I don’t hold it against the clowns.

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  7. Another great crumbcast! And the comic is great! I just listened now, but so weird because I was talking about physical attractiveness and prejudices associated with it in my last Conceited Crusade post. This is a tough issue, as you demonstrated by jumping right out of the conversation you were having with yourself. That was hilarious when you said, “Rihannon, who’s music I don’t follow and probably can’t stand.”

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    1. Ha ha ha! I’m well pleased that someone is getting some kind of something from my recorded ramblings! Yeah, the whole physical attractiveness is something I’ve had to face ever since I was old enough to realise that I looked different from everybody else. It’s a them I’ll probably come back to at some point because it’s something I still very much think about. 😛

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      1. When I wrote my entry called Abused children, peers and experiences I thought about you and one of your readers who said he had been bullied in school. When I wrote that after being bullied I became one, I cringed. I thought of people who have been bullied and thought of all the names they were calling me, maybe even hating me.

        Almost daily I’d vomit before going to school in the 4th grade. I’ beg he not to send me. I asked her to come up to the school and talk to the teacher. Nothing, not a thing. I went to school looking like the black version of Forest Gump. I wore leg braces and torkheels then just the shoes. I will never forget the chanting of “Baby shoes. Baby shoes.” I was battered daily until I stared smacking people around. I did not continue that behavior after that grade and school.

        I remember the names of the three students I targeted. I remember their names and think of the harm I caused them. I was able to see two of them and apologize but there’s one left. I wish I knew where to find the person to tell them I’m really, really sorry.

        As a child I didn’t think of the long term effects it would have. I don’t think kids back then were armed the way they are now. I don’t think kids back then were in a position to understand that they were affecting lives or changing them by being a bully. Also, kids back then weren’t given excuses for being a bully, they were simply a bully and they were a problem. Now bullies get excuses. I offer no excuses, just apologies for not choosing a better way to cope.

        Faith

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        1. I have been a bully myself, Faith, but perhaps of the passive-aggressive stripe. It’s for that reason that I cannot point the finger and judge you. Certainly, bullying needs to be called out for what it is and dealt with accordingly, but it behooves us to check ourselves to ensure we’re not becoming the thing we despise. It sounds like you’ve gone through a lot of personal growth in this area, and it’s my hope that I have as well. Time will tell. I must say, you always bring with you a level of humaneness that’s palpable in your comments, and that’s to be commended. 🙂

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