I think faces have a power that the rest of the human body doesn't, because so much in communicated through them. They are the center of what makes a person "who they are". With their head they think, observe the world around them with four of the five senses (and to a lesser extent the fifth), indicate emotion (smiles, frowns, tears, etc) and communicate through words. The head is where everything from images to food enters the body. The head is our basic "portal" both out of our own minds *and* into the mind of another person. It's the most basic way we identify someone--through their face, hair color, or voice--and most important way we have of perceiving this identification. The face is the first thing you look at when you meet someone. When you're paying attention to someone, you look at their face. And without a face (or at least head), someone dies. You can cut off their arms or legs without killing them. Cutting off the torso would also cut off the head, but even if it didn't, it's usually covered by clothes and doesn't have the same potential for expression and observation.
When someone's face is deformed somehow, that's your initial impression of them. If someone's head is deformed, that could (potentially) affect their ability to world around them (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, brain). If their brain was damaged, who knows what's going on with them? Intellectually, you know that if their brain *was* affected, it probably didn't turn them into a psychotic killer. On a gut level, you don't know that. Their ability to communicate--verbally and through facial expression could easily be impaired. If you can't communicate properly with them, again, how do you judge them? How do you know what they're thinking? Again, intellectually you'd guess that they're probably thinking "Meep, everyone is scared of me ;__; *lonely and depressed*", but on a gut level, you're not so sure. You look at them and, instead of seeing a familiar facial structure that you can recognize and read, you see a distortion of that, which you instinctively interpret as a distortion of all things associated with their face, like thought or perception.
Furthermore, you can't just look away if you want to interact with them. You can avoid looking at a deformed limb by looking at someone's face because that's where you *should* be looking anyways. If it's their face that's deformed, where do you look? If someone's limb is messed up, you can identify them by their face instead of their deformity. When the face is deformed, there's nothing left.
"The brown haired man who has a face like this and is tall and thin and happens to be missing his right arm." That can only one person (assuming he doesn't have an identical twin). "The brown haired man who's tall and thin." There are numerous people who fit that descriptions. "The brown haired man who has a (deformed) face like this who's tall and thin." That's only one person, but now you're remembering them by their deformity.
Faces have the power to make someone a monster because faces are so important to human interaction. Everything to do with basic interaction revolves around faces. At least in our culture, paying attention so someone's face is a sign of respect and an acknowledgement of them as an actual person. Looking at someone's face means your paying attention to what they're communicating, both verbally and through expression. If someone's hiding something, they avoid looking at you directly because you might see it in their face. Teachers want students to look at their faces, not out the window. Girls want boys to look at their faces, not their chests. (If breasts could talk/smile/cry/see/etc, girls would be perfectly happy to have guys focusing on them.) So if someone's face is deformed, your basic means of interacting with that person is "deformed", and that's a scary thing. Without a face, they cease to be properly human, and if a person isn't "human", they're dangerous.
Not that it's right that people perceive others that way, but it's natural and something that takes a lot of awareness and effort to overcome.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 07:33 pm (UTC)I think faces have a power that the rest of the human body doesn't, because so much in communicated through them. They are the center of what makes a person "who they are". With their head they think, observe the world around them with four of the five senses (and to a lesser extent the fifth), indicate emotion (smiles, frowns, tears, etc) and communicate through words. The head is where everything from images to food enters the body. The head is our basic "portal" both out of our own minds *and* into the mind of another person. It's the most basic way we identify someone--through their face, hair color, or voice--and most important way we have of perceiving this identification. The face is the first thing you look at when you meet someone. When you're paying attention to someone, you look at their face. And without a face (or at least head), someone dies. You can cut off their arms or legs without killing them. Cutting off the torso would also cut off the head, but even if it didn't, it's usually covered by clothes and doesn't have the same potential for expression and observation.
When someone's face is deformed somehow, that's your initial impression of them. If someone's head is deformed, that could (potentially) affect their ability to world around them (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, brain). If their brain was damaged, who knows what's going on with them? Intellectually, you know that if their brain *was* affected, it probably didn't turn them into a psychotic killer. On a gut level, you don't know that. Their ability to communicate--verbally and through facial expression could easily be impaired. If you can't communicate properly with them, again, how do you judge them? How do you know what they're thinking? Again, intellectually you'd guess that they're probably thinking "Meep, everyone is scared of me ;__; *lonely and depressed*", but on a gut level, you're not so sure. You look at them and, instead of seeing a familiar facial structure that you can recognize and read, you see a distortion of that, which you instinctively interpret as a distortion of all things associated with their face, like thought or perception.
Furthermore, you can't just look away if you want to interact with them. You can avoid looking at a deformed limb by looking at someone's face because that's where you *should* be looking anyways. If it's their face that's deformed, where do you look? If someone's limb is messed up, you can identify them by their face instead of their deformity. When the face is deformed, there's nothing left.
"The brown haired man who has a face like this and is tall and thin and happens to be missing his right arm." That can only one person (assuming he doesn't have an identical twin).
"The brown haired man who's tall and thin." There are numerous people who fit that descriptions.
"The brown haired man who has a (deformed) face like this who's tall and thin." That's only one person, but now you're remembering them by their deformity.
Faces have the power to make someone a monster because faces are so important to human interaction. Everything to do with basic interaction revolves around faces. At least in our culture, paying attention so someone's face is a sign of respect and an acknowledgement of them as an actual person. Looking at someone's face means your paying attention to what they're communicating, both verbally and through expression. If someone's hiding something, they avoid looking at you directly because you might see it in their face. Teachers want students to look at their faces, not out the window. Girls want boys to look at their faces, not their chests. (If breasts could talk/smile/cry/see/etc, girls would be perfectly happy to have guys focusing on them.) So if someone's face is deformed, your basic means of interacting with that person is "deformed", and that's a scary thing. Without a face, they cease to be properly human, and if a person isn't "human", they're dangerous.
Not that it's right that people perceive others that way, but it's natural and something that takes a lot of awareness and effort to overcome.