A judgment of Paris

[imomus]

Today I want to bring together, here on Click Opera, an entry in which you the readers do most of the work, and in which images take the place of text. I'm also interested in how predictable my aesthetics have become. So what I'm proposing is a judgment of Paris; a beauty contest which is also a sifting of values (visual, aesthetic, political, semantic, sexual).

I want to see images of females, girls, women you think are totally my type. They should be wearing clothes, that's important. People without clothes are stripped of cultural referents, and we want those. They should be people who style themselves rather than have professional stylists, and they should be ordinary people, not celebrities. Street style sites like Facehunter might be a good place to source the images, or Flickr feeds. They shouldn't be people I know in real life. Be nice to me in your comments (yes, I am very old, and a bit funny looking) and be nice to the women.

At midnight CET I'll select a winning image -- the person I find most appealing, according to my own personal aesthetic code. I hope I won't have to exclaim "You never knew me!" I think by now you probably do.

Update (midnight CET): What an exciting finish! With about twenty minutes to go before the non-sexist gong sounded, this very beautiful image arrived:



While it looked for a while as if this indie musician would win, the judges -- all right, judge -- decided that she must be excluded as, possibly, a "celebrity", and, possibly, styled (though these things aren't really provable, and we don't know who the woman is).

And so this woman was chosen instead:



The judges (all right, judge) particularly liked the elegant hooded white garment, the expression of intent concentration, and the evidence of creative endeavour (carving) in the picture. Thanks to all who submitted pictures.

Comments

[pulled-up.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I think the way you could have avoided a venomous uprising from the resident feminists is if you had asked for some stylish pictures of people that we like. It is not just the fact that you asked for pictures of women, it's the fact that they are for you that people are annoyed, I think.

Same way that I was peturbed when that female blogger made Joe her Number One Cute Boy or whatever it was. We don't like the thought of people being held up for some kind of consumption without their explicit will to be objectified like that.

Anyway, I personally am not that annoyed. I did just post my latest crush on my Tumblr (http://pulled-up.tumblr.com), after all. But it does make you look a bit old/letchy Nick! (Sorry!)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am old / letchy, Emma! No use pretending otherwise.

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

okay - "pictures of female beauty" or "what female beauty means to you" - i might have been a bit "hmm", but i wouldn't have felt any need to comment.

it's the call for "images of females, girls, women you think are totally my type" that i am angry with. and the fact that these are to be judged as a competition, rendering one woman a "winner" and the others "losers". how can this not be anything other than hugely self-entitled and repugnant?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think it's better to see it in the context of internet taste filters. I'm always fascinated by how Web 2.0 has got people's taste-signatures down pat, via algorighms used by Amazon, YouTube, LastFM etc. I'm interested, as Click Opera sails towards its seventh year and its end, whether the human readers can do the same thing as those algorithms with something as "personal" as my taste in attractive women.

This also relates to the idea of free will, which has been bouncing about this week. Are consumers exercising free will when they choose products? Are individuals exercising free will when they find themselves attracted to one person and not another? And does one, as the desired party, have the free will to shrug off that desire when it arrives, possibly from all sides? Can you effectlvely, perhaps, shun, shame and discredit the desiring party, while continuing to benefit from the power that being desired undoubtedly confers? I know some women -- and some men -- who have become absolute masters at the latter. They do it by a kind of judo or surfing technique: harnessing the energy, changing its course slightly, turning it into something that works for them rather than against them. I find this fascinating.

[(Anonymous)]

didn't get at first why anybody could be offended, but bird gehrl writes sensibly...

I don't see a problem with you calling for girls that we think you'd find appealing, but the editorial decision to turn this game into a contest seems unecessary. it suggests a simplistic "aesthetic code" that I doubt you possess. your judging would be based mostly on whim, and mood for the day, and essentially pointless. (it adds nothing to our understanding, and considering the typical click opera-reader, a contest probably don't up our enjoyment... we might want your attention, but I'm not sure we need your approval)

like most clever editorial decisions, the decision to make this a contest makes the post provocative and easier to sell (100+ comments) but less sharp. I hope there will be more picture presenting games though!