thefourthvine | Show Me, Show You

Last night, I was talking to

frostfire_17, and she described someone as "classically gorgeous."

I pointed out that I had no idea what that meant. I wasn't kidding. I really don't. Best Beloved has given up on me on this score; she has instituted a series of rules to keep me from getting attacked by a mob because I accidentally describe a celebrity as, for example, "oddly stretched" when that person is, in fact, the apex of beautiful perfection. (Sample rule: If I think a man looks like any member of the rodent family, he is in fact exceedingly attractive, and I should not share my opinion with others until I am sure they don't have pitchforks.) But I have always had the belief that if I simply looked at enough pictures, I wouldn't have this problem. (I have no problem, for the record, knowing what I mean by gorgeous. But I want to know what other people mean, too.)

Since I had a willing victim right there, last night I asked Frost to name some classically gorgeous people. It went sort of like this (names redacted for reasons that will become clear):

Frostfire: There's always [name of person].
Me, studying the results of a google search: He looks like a man who really wants to sell you expensive real estate, even though he was up all night doing lines off Aaron Sorkin's ass.
Frost: But when he was younger - okay. Never mind. How about [name of other person]?
Me: Seriously? Look at his Wikipedia photo!
Frost: Oh my GOD. Don't use the Wikipedia photos. Go to Google Image search like a normal person.
Me, managing to whine in text: But then there's too many pictures.
Frost, patiently: But I am going to tell you which pictures to look at. Okay, got it? First one, last one on the first row.
Me: ...How can those possibly be the same person?

At that point, I decided to call the experiment on the grounds of keeping Frost from hating me. But I still want to know what other people mean by gorgeous. I've just learned that what I need is for people with functioning Gorgeousness Determination Circuits to let me borrow their brains.

So, this is where you come in! If you have a functioning GDC and some time on your hands, that is. What I want - what I very very much want oh please oh please - is for you to pick out a specific photo of a famous person, one that you think embodies the term "classically gorgeous." (I am avoiding all other kinds of hotness for the moment, on the grounds that I am very easily confused, especially when looking at pictures.) Then post it here, so I do not get distracted by the plethora of images of that person on the internet. (One thing I learned last night: the more famous you are, the more truly awful photos of you there are in the world.)

And please remember to include the name of the person, because it's not like I will ever have a clue otherwise. (This is why I give up on "Post hot pictures!" threads. For one thing, I am never sure what kind of hot the posters mean. For another thing, I never have any idea who the people are, which makes it - confusing. Am I looking at the same person over and over? Or are these all different people? What is going on? Why do the pixels mock me? And then I have to close the tab or start ranting on street corners.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

marina already elaborated on this idea: The "classical" reminds me of figures seen in paintings and sculptures from Ancient Greece to Old Hollywood -- Western world ideas and ideals of the male. I don't personally respond to most of them, but of course the cultural connotation is still present.

If we read "classically gorgeous", however, as "people with sufficient vision should immediately group this man as almost universally appealing", then I'd go with these:

Seth Gabel

Sendhil Ramamurthy

Matt Bomer

Idris Elba

Rupert Penry-Jones

(Apparently I lack sufficient vision! Though honestly, I'm just turned off by clean-cut guys in suits.)

I confess, I love both suits and guys in them.

(Also out of them, though!)

Yeah, I'm stuck with the middle-school self-preservation radar that says, "This person is preppy and will mock you. Stay away!"

That's a good point: not just art and media consumed colour our impressions; it's also personal experiences.

I commented with Idris Elba as well. He has the most perfect head shape.

I know, right? Hmm, need a Luther icon...

Sendhil and Idris from these pictures to me strike me as more classical than the others. Sendhil especially.

Richard Burgi

Ack, forbidden! But I googled him: lots of people would say he's classically gorgeous, agreed.

I don't find any of these men particularly appealing. So, should I assume there is something wrong with my vision?

Absolutely! I can recommend you a good optician?

...no, for reals, I'd thought the tongue-in-cheek nature came through in my overblown long definion: all subjective.

Wow, people keep mentioning Matt Bomer, but to me he looks like a used car salesman!

Stasia

You are clearly used to a better type of used car salesmen. ;)

To the best of our knowledge, Matt Bomer is a sweetie: friendly and professional and a good daddy to his partner's and his kids, does the NYC AIDS walk and so on. I think that catapults him far out of the UCS range for me.

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