First, let me explain the title. In college, I recently took a class on the brain. In this class we read a book by Dr. Ramachandran called "Phantoms in the Mind". After reading his book, I realized what an impressive thinker and detective this man Ramachandran was. People came to him with kooky problems that come from damage to the brain, and this guy uses his knowledge to explain what is going on, even if the cases are as strange as extreme cases of Freudian defenses, or sensations from missing limbs, or "God modules" that allow people to experience religious experiences. (Shameless plug for a great book.)
Anyway, on the last lecture of the class Dr. Ramachandran appeared as a surprise guest speaker. The most fascinating part of the experience was that he only spoke about the brain for less than half the lecture. He spent the other half talking about art. But what may have appeared silly and off topic turned out to be a really fascinating explanation on how humans have evolved what "beauty" is and why humans like art.
First, Ramachandran showed us a slide of an Indian statue of a goddess that he had and told us a story where when the British first came, an art critic might have critiqued the art. "The body is ludicrously out of proportion. She is too tall, the bust and thighs are too large, the waist is too small. It's ugly!" But then Ramachandran points out that the point of art isn't necessarily to imitate reality (for instance, most photos are not art necessarily). The point of art is to enhance reality (do you see where I'm going to go with this) (Side note: Ramachandran also pointed out that the art critic is a hypocrite, since the Englishman's wife used to wear those corsets that made waists small, those dresses that increased the waist, etc.)
But you may argue that stuff deviating from what is real or natural is ugly. (Example: modern art. Hey, my article, my opinions. My friend is like this, he doesn't like CGI because "It doesn't look real". Hmm, that's interesting to know since he watches anime too...) Or maybe you'll say that it's a matter of taste, everyone has different tastes in art. While that may be true, I think that on the most part, science can offer a partial explanation to how humans perceive beauty.
Ok, evolution, that's the key to the how. Most humans find feces, methane, etc disgusting and revolting because that's how we evolved, eating the parasites in feces or inhaling unhealthy gas is bad, so let's have a reaction to that. So the things that we perceive as beautiful must be that way because it was benficial to humans.
The sea gull is an excellent example of evolution. Baby sea gulls, when they see their mother's red dot on the beak will peck it to tell their mom that they are hungry. One scientist realized that nature is lazy and that it will oversimplify when necessary. He fooled the babies into thinking that a beak was their mother. For the babies, the only beak that they have ever seen is their mother, so that's all they needed to remember. Later he found out all he needs was the red dot on a stick to fool them, then a red line on a stick, finally when he had 3 lines on a stick, the babies reacted like crazy. For he had found the most eccential part of the sea gull's mother, and then made it more beautiful to the babies my taking advantage of how the babies have developed reactions. The 3 red lines was a better looking sea gull mom to them than a real one.
And now to the anime part of this analysis. Anime characters, they're funny looking aren't they. Perfect skin, colorful hair, large heads, beautiful eyes, they don't look anything like real people. Why are they so attractive? Ah, yes, they are more beautiful than real people because all the best qualities of human beings are in them, and they are made super cute or super beautiful.
First, back to Ramachandran's woman. What I saw was a super deformed woman, and my reaction, "weird!". But that is because all I saw was a woman, stretched out, totally out of balance because of her large bust and waist, with some fat hanging from her belly. But to Indians (By which I mean Asian Indian), this statue is a representation of the goddess of feminine beauty. Society was a factor in how humans perceived beauty too. For instance, the fat was beautiful because in Indian society famine and anorexia are major problems, so just a little fat might be beautiful to them. Intersting isn't it?
Let's analyze the typical anime girl. Look how large her head is, that's cool, you can fit in bigger eyes and a larger mouth for more facial expression. But why large eyes? A cultural explanation could be that large eyes are beautiful to a culture where the eyes are small. (The same explanation works for the multi-colored hair) Another could be that all humans like large eyed women, large eyes can be interpreted as innocence.
The average male has an unusually large chest and hands and arms. Do I really need to explain why that may be?
I mean, it's simple to say that exagerrations are beautiful, but how often do we analyze ourself and to try answer, "why do I find this beautiful?". Using science, we can analyze how our perceptions of beauty come from society, who we are (maybe you grew up only around white people, consequently you find only Asian women attractive), and from evolution. (You guys should read Ramachandran's theory on why guys prefer blondes. He wrote it to mock evolutionist's {Thinkers are often antagonistic of rigid thought, I admire that} and they took it and ate it up, hahahahaha)
So, in conclusion, real people are ugly, you're ugly, I'm ugly, anime characters rule!!! hahahahahahahahaha... Anyway, hope you guys learned something about yourselves and enjoyed my theories on why anime is beautiful. Anyway, I enjoyed writing this, so feel free to respond to it if you want. Hopefully you guys won't quit watching anime out of some paranoid fear that it comes from maladaption of the function of beauty in the brain. (For instance, the sea gulls that try getting food from the sticks with red dots instead of their mom probably aren't ok.)
Last Edited: NEW Created: 5-20-00
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