Everywhere online now, every movie, every home video, has been passed through so many filters that people don’t look human any more. Nobody has any lines in their face, their teeth are florescent white, their eyes are filled in and have no veins. Nobody ever looks tired, or natural. Add to the mix the fact that everyone is getting lip implants to look like a blowfish, and I’m just tired of it. I miss seeing real human beings.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.works
    672·
    8 months ago

    The lip implants rarely look good.

    Have you considered watching English or Scandinavian shows?

  • seaQueue@lemmy.world
    222·
    8 months ago

    I watch a lot of German and Scandinavian (and other European) TV series, their actors still look like people rather than Hollywood Barbie dolls.

    If you’re looking for recommendations Dark was good, as were Deadwind and Dark Spot.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
      3·
      8 months ago

      Definitely. Outside the US tv or films tend to spend far less effort/budget on effects, and that particularly includes how much “correction” is applied to how the people look. Like people having shiny skin or wrinkles. People look like people.

  • Teon@kbin.social
    192·
    8 months ago

    Duck lips are so disgusting. I just want to shake a bottle of Benadryl at them and ask if they are having an allergic reaction or something.
    “Did you get stung by a bee? You might want to see a doctor about that.”
    Plastic surgery is intended to make you look beautiful, not ugly. Are we in opposite world???

    • Hegar@kbin.social
      101·
      8 months ago

      Plastic surgery is intended to make you look beautiful, not ugly. Are we in opposite world???

      It’s just meant to mark you as high status.

      Being part of that elite group has social and material benefits, so there’s plenty of reason for people employ these kind of identity markers. Elite groups often have onerous behavior or other requirements - body modification like plastic surgery is quite common. Cranial deformation, foot binding, etc.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldOP
      102·
      8 months ago

      There’s an actress in Three Body Problem who is completely distracting because of all her plastic surgery, makeup, and filters. She’s supposed to be a doctorate of physics, but she looks like a TikTok influencer. Every scene with her destroyed any immersion that the scenes without her had established.

    • EssentialCoffee@midwest.social
      3·
      8 months ago

      Well, I wouldn’t say that plastic surgery is intended to make you look beautiful. It’s intended to alter your looks in the way that you prefer. All that matters is that the person getting it done is happy with the result. Not some other random person who isn’t them.

      Also, beauty standards change a lot. Just look at how fashion changed from the middle ages through the Renaissance and after. You can tell what features were important by how garments were designed.

      I’m not a fan of duck lips either, but I also don’t have to get them.

  • pacoboyd@lemm.ee
    15·
    8 months ago

    I’m convinced that part of the reason of this over processing is because of streaming. You can compress a movie or show far FAR more when colors are smooth and uniform (I know this from compressing multiple hundreds of movies and TV shows). So now that everyone is “streaming all the things” they have to look for ways to get 4k out the door and to the normal consumer who might only have 100mb internet.

    Edit: not defending it, just sharing my observations as a media enthusiast.

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
      33·
      8 months ago

      they have to look for ways to get 4k out the door and to the normal consumer who might only have 100mb internet

      They do this like YouTube does by scaling the resolution based on your connection speed.

      Though they do compress all resolutions to a fraction of their full bitrate regardless of the service or speed because ISPs are greedy fucks.

      • pacoboyd@lemm.ee
        2·
        8 months ago

        I’m mean, they are both methods to do the same thing (get smaller sized videos) and it doesn’t have to be one of the other, both can be used. With better compression you can stream higher resolution.

  • Hikermick@lemmy.world
    14·
    8 months ago

    When HD first came out people marveled at how you could see folks pores on TV and every minute flaw became visible. I wonder if they’re connected

    • TheControlled@lemmy.world
      6·
      8 months ago

      I know pornstars and porn makeup and porn production changed. Many women left the industry in response, directly/indirectly. I read it in a really fascinating article from way back, so it’s kinda fuzzy but that was the gist. Then we got Sasha Grey (⁠｡⁠♡⁠‿⁠♡⁠｡⁠) I wonder if those are connected.

      Pornstars are younger and more beautiful than they were in the SD era, but look more “normal” and less like brokendown strippers. But things like lip injections and Botox play well on camera, but look fucking awful in person. I feel like I’m honing in on some thesis statement but I’m on the toilet so whatever.

  • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
    152·
    8 months ago

    I’m more confused to what era of film do you consider ppl looked real. We’ve been touching up actors to look less natural since Shakespeare

    • livus@kbin.social
      94·
      8 months ago

      Yeah but we weren’t very good at it until digital filters. In really old movies they make the close ups of women slightly blurry.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldOP
      97·
      8 months ago

      People still looked human as late as the 90’s, even though they look like extraordinary people. Movies from the 70’s and early 80’s look completely different.

      Edit: I think they didn’t really start with the AI filters until idk, 10 years ago?

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
      1·
      8 months ago

      One example is, look at all the men considered “muscular” they actually had body fat.

            • spez_@lemmy.world
              11·
              7 months ago

              Why would I read a rich man’s book on slavery?

              Working for money is slavery, because if you stop working you’ll die on the street. They use money like a carrot

            • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
              12·
              7 months ago

              Or…read legal definitions instead of some random book.

              Slavery has nothing to do with money, it’s the practice of forced labor and restricted liberty. It is also a regime where one class of people - the slave owners - could force another - the slaves - to work and limit their liberty.

              You can 100% give a pittance to a slave in the form of currency and have it still be considered forced labor. You should block yourself for being so arrogant and short sighted to think that slavery has anything to do with money.

              Slavery is about limited/restricted or no liberty and forced labor.

              Do you seriously think, that is some company forced you at gunpoint to work for them while giving you $0.01 a day means it’s not slavery?

              Get over yourself…

  • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
    9·
    8 months ago

    watch some local theater, although the actors are always done up in stage makeup, it usually is a good down to earth experience

    especially local civic theater, maybe you could volunteer your time with a local theater and then come back and remind yourself why the medium was cherished.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
    8·
    8 months ago

    Movies and television use makeup and special effects to make the actors look exactly how they are supposed to look in the scene. Young and vigorous, old and tired, strung out, beat up, it’s almost never “real” even when it is supposed to look real.

    Home movies, yeah autofilters are weird. I make home movies for future me and people who care about me. Why would I want them to remember someone who doesn’t look like me? But then I’m not the target audience for video filters.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldOP
      83·
      8 months ago

      Why would I want them to remember someone who doesn’t look like me?

      Exactly! It’s even a problem with professional videoconferencing programs like Zoom. When you meet someone on Zoom it’s always somewhat of a shock when you meet them in person.

  • Krudler@lemmy.world
    8·
    8 months ago

    I agree.

    Sometimes I wonder if it’s the modern, absurd extension of the stage makeup concept, taken to the extreme.

    My ex-wife was a professional dancer, and her stage makeup made her look absolutely insane in person. But under stage lighting, it looked amazing.

    Sometimes I wonder if cosmetic surgery was initially incorporated as something that would bring more popularity or work to an actor, because it would make them look more striking under the absurd, unreal lighting conditions of tv and film.

    And that this has gotten completely carried away. Especially now, since nearly all cinema is greenscreen with scenery digitally added later. Which brings a tremendous amount of lighting incongruity, so we end up needing block-like, exaggerated, un-contoured faces, slathered in 42 layers of stage makeup, to look “proper” under these conditions.

    I don’t know if this is totally out to lunch or not.