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Why do so many fanfilms make the same makeup mistake?

P

Phantom

Captain
I just got done with watching Renegades and the Andorian character made me realize a common fanfilm mistake: red lips on non-human fleshtone characters.

Human lips get naturally redder (and women use lipstick to make them redder still) because it is a sexual signal to human males that mimics the flush of blood into the lips upon arousal.

In women with different "normal" fleshtones (blue, green, etc) the correct makeup for lips would be a darker shade of the base fleshtone. The exception being for some sort of "rebel" character (the equivalent of "goth" or such).

Just something I noticed.
 
Indeed, I call it the Princess Nellifer Effect. It's when darker skin, or lighting, is offset by bright lipstick colors. I named it after Joan Collins, who played Princess Nellifer in Land of the Pharaohs. All throughout that movie, even when you couldn't see Joan, you could see her lips because they were this bright red abomination of contrasts. At some points they seemed like a glowing, disembodied creature of their own. I don't know why productions do this, but yeah, it's very noticeable.
 
Phantom said:
I just got done with watching Renegades and the Andorian character made me realize a common fanfilm mistake: red lips on non-human fleshtone characters.

Human lips get naturally redder (and women use lipstick to make them redder still) because it is a sexual signal to human males that mimics the flush of blood into the lips upon arousal.

In women with different "normal" fleshtones (blue, green, etc) the correct makeup for lips would be a darker shade of the base fleshtone. The exception being for some sort of "rebel" character (the equivalent of "goth" or such).

Just something I noticed.
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It occurs to me that woman of different species (other than human) might be choosing to use human-red lipstick--regardless of how incongruous that color might be with their own natural pigmentation.

There aren't too many examples of women aliens in TOS with non-human pigmentation in order to do much of a study on the matter.

In the case of Star Trek New Voyages/Phase II, we try to take our marching orders from how TOS did their aliens. We don't generally use whatever make-up approaches that were used in TNG, DSG, VOY, and ENT.


20858114655_650edac204_z.jpg
 
^Fair enough point, and it just made me realize that JJ got it wrong as well.

I'm not trying to make a Federal case out of it...it's just a disconcerting little issue that I tend to catch.
 
It really should be based on the blood color, and what it would do to the skin tone.
 
Phantom said:
^Fair enough point, and it just made me realize that JJ got it wrong as well.

I'm not trying to make a Federal case out of it...it's just a disconcerting little issue that I tend to catch.
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Indeed he did. I'm a huge fan of the Abrams films, but when Spock's lip was blood red, I silently cursed at it, if only because Spock's blood would be green, which means his lips shouldn't have been so red. A nerd issue, to be sure, but one I couldn't help having with that moment in the film.
 
Yeah, but really, if Spock's got green blood the inside of this mouth, his gums, and the edges of his eyelids should ben greenish, too, not pink.
 
Maurice said:
Yeah, but really, if Spock's got green blood the inside of this mouth, his gums, and the edges of his eyelids should ben greenish, too, not pink.
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True, and they can only go so far before it becomes too cumbersome an issue to address. Like I said, it's a tiny nerdy nitpick. It's just something I noticed when I saw it in the theater.
 
SuperSpaceMan said:
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She had greenish lips....
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I think Marta's lip color would best be described as "coral:"

20697500409_5fe269748c_z.jpg


In the earlier screen shot, Yvonne Craig was lit with green light in addition to having green make-up. My lips would look green too if I were under a green light. More normal lighting reveals her lip color better I think.
 
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Phantom said:
I just got done with watching Renegades and the Andorian character made me realize a common fanfilm mistake: red lips on non-human fleshtone characters.
Click to expand...
It's not a mistake though if the character (like in Renegades) is clearly wearing lipstick. For whatever reason, she just decided she likes having red lips. Maybe because it's unnatural for her species? Humans sometimes dye their hair blue, after all...
 
Yeah I honestly thought that Shree just wanted to sport a more "alternative" look. Then again, I love it when ladies can pull off bright red lipstick (especially since I'm way too pale to do it)!
 
Tosk said:
Phantom said:
I just got done with watching Renegades and the Andorian character made me realize a common fanfilm mistake: red lips on non-human fleshtone characters.
Click to expand...
It's not a mistake though if the character (like in Renegades) is clearly wearing lipstick. For whatever reason, she just decided she likes having red lips. Maybe because it's unnatural for her species? Humans sometimes dye their hair blue, after all...
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Go back and re-read my OP. I talk about that.

In general, any asynchronous detail like that tends to catch my eye these days.
 
The actors could eat sweets that turn their tongues blue so their gums are not pink. Its weird seeing Bolians with human coloured gums and tongues.
 
Phantom said:
Go back and re-read my OP. I talk about that.
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I did read it. Are you asserting that a character with lips of one color would never wear lipstick of another due to the sexual reasons behind human lip color? Edit: Apart from the goth caveat.
 
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The women of exotic, swarthy, Mongolian-looking alien species like humanish-colored coral lipstick, too:

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