Sunday, July 9, 2023

Women and Weirdos

Beauty and the beast is a kind of trope that refers to a juxtaposed couple: the beautiful, pure, true, good female and the bestial, rough, bad male. Of course the story typically entails her finding the good in him.

But what is the wider trope of the beautiful female juxtaposed against the grotesque, weird, robotic, or monstrous male? Not quite the same as beauty and beast, this wider trope can involve any sort of weirdo being next to the female character. It's a super common thing in fantasy art. You see it all the time with artists like Bode, Azpiri, Corben, Frazetta, etc. It's so common it just kind of hides among all the other art.

Women and weirdos. Hotties and horrors. Chicks and chucks (ok, that's a stretch). Gals and goofballs.

To wit, here's a few examples of what I'm talking about.

Arthur Suydam

 
Blas Gallego

Vaughn Bodè

Me.