OK, another vague thread starter (or thread killer) here....
Now theoretically if you're a postmodernist, beauty"”like everything else"”is completely relative, subjective. Or even irrelevant, something to be avoided. And ideas about beauty are definitely affected by culture, no doubt. But I tend to think that even if you're a humanist, secularist, relativist or whatever, it's possible to acknowledge that humans may in fact have some universal ideas about natural beauty. There's the physical beauty of our fellow humans, in terms of physical fitness, symmetry in the shape of a face, etc. Seems to relate to basic biological realities: sexual attraction, competition. You can see beauty in the rest of nature: flowers, beautiful birds, etc. Again, it seems to relate to sexual competition, procreation.
Here's a sort of depressing study:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ID/7721095/
How did Joss, Buffy/Angel approach the idea of beauty, aesthetics? Was it important? Most of the good guys were beautiful, or at least attractive. That seems to be a theme in mythology: the beautiful hero or heroine. Beauty is associated with goodness, truth. Ugliness with evil. Although, sometimes evil is seductively beautiful. Glory, most vamps (in human form) were attractive. Clem was kind of counter-intuitive: a hideous "good guy". Jasmine is another interesting case. It often seems to relate to ideas of truth, deception. I wonder, which is more common in mythology: evil as beautiful or evil as ugly?
We have beautiful TV actors, attractive news anchors....is it just an acknowledgement that we like to look at beautiful people? How does beauty, morality, good/evil fit in the "˜verse? Does the theme of prejudice fit in here somewhere?
Now theoretically if you're a postmodernist, beauty"”like everything else"”is completely relative, subjective. Or even irrelevant, something to be avoided. And ideas about beauty are definitely affected by culture, no doubt. But I tend to think that even if you're a humanist, secularist, relativist or whatever, it's possible to acknowledge that humans may in fact have some universal ideas about natural beauty. There's the physical beauty of our fellow humans, in terms of physical fitness, symmetry in the shape of a face, etc. Seems to relate to basic biological realities: sexual attraction, competition. You can see beauty in the rest of nature: flowers, beautiful birds, etc. Again, it seems to relate to sexual competition, procreation.
Here's a sort of depressing study:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ID/7721095/
How did Joss, Buffy/Angel approach the idea of beauty, aesthetics? Was it important? Most of the good guys were beautiful, or at least attractive. That seems to be a theme in mythology: the beautiful hero or heroine. Beauty is associated with goodness, truth. Ugliness with evil. Although, sometimes evil is seductively beautiful. Glory, most vamps (in human form) were attractive. Clem was kind of counter-intuitive: a hideous "good guy". Jasmine is another interesting case. It often seems to relate to ideas of truth, deception. I wonder, which is more common in mythology: evil as beautiful or evil as ugly?
We have beautiful TV actors, attractive news anchors....is it just an acknowledgement that we like to look at beautiful people? How does beauty, morality, good/evil fit in the "˜verse? Does the theme of prejudice fit in here somewhere?