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284 HEROES, BEAUTY, STARS AND GARBO
the manifestations of the primeval desire for improvement. In this age of film culture, when man has again become visible, he has again been awakened to consciousness of beauty, and the visual propaganda of beauty is again an expression of deep-seated biological and social urges.
The physical incarnation of the hero or heroine is beauty of a kind which exactly expresses the ideologies and aspirations of those who admire it. We must learn to read beauty, as we have learned to read the face. A scientific analysis of what we now call sex appeal, for instance, would greatly enrich our knowledge of social psychology.
Periods and classes which had no epics, and no ideal of beauty, were ever decadent periods or classes. A society which loudly proclaims the idea of a new humanity will always seek for the ideal physical type of this new man as well as other qualities. And what is meant by this are not some profound beauties of the soul which show in the face, nor that other 'beauty' which is merely an inexact term for the expressive power of a work of art. What is meant by beauty in the following is simply and literally the natural beauty of the body which plays so great a part in film art.
Art snobs often affect to despise the beauty of film stars and tend to regard beauty as a disturbing secondary effect which rouses base instincts and has nothing to do with 'real art'. But such a universal cultural phenomenon as the film must not be measured solely by the standards of a purely artistic production. For beyond this the vital instincts and social tendencies of mankind manifest themselves in so significant a form in the film that they cannot be disregarded.
The film stars who have been most successful did not owe their popularity to their histrionic gifts, even if they happened to be excellent actors. The most popular of them did not act at all, or rather acted only themselves. Not only Charlie Chaplin remained always the same Charlie in every film, without changing mask, costume or manner. Douglas Fairbanks, Asta Nielsen, Lilian Gish, Rudolph Valentino and others of the greatest also remained the same. They were no creators of characters. Their names, costumes, social positions could be changed in their various parts, but they always showed the