I can't seem to find the paper but they did something similar to this but for mouse vision a few years ago... they basically recorded from individual neurons in visual cortex while the played mouse viewed all sorts of combinations of different types of visual stimuli so that they were able to use a computer algorithm to generate a visual stimulus that excited that neuron the most possible. So you wound up with all these really trippy visual images, one for each neuron that represented its most exciting stimuli. A lot of them were kind of scary with face-like aspects. Damn I wish I could find that paper
I don't know if you've ever watched more plates more dates but he does a lot of interesting videos about the steroid cycles that male actors go on, particularly to play superhero movies. Way more male actors are on steroids for way more movies than I would have realized...
Also final thought - the thing about the female villain character having a higher waist to hip ratio reminded me of the concept of 'queer coding villains' in movies.. the bad chicks are always butch, a character like Jafar from Aladdin being kind of effeminate etc
exactly to all of this. a student actually mentioned the queer coding in this same way. it’s def a super important topic especially for young people to realize how these images are so pervasive and shape what we might think is attainable. i really like when media violates this tendency too like in game of thrones where prince charming looking dude attempts to kill a kid by pushing him out the window
