The Face

[dreamer_easy]

I've often wondered why women wearing makeup - I mean in the media - look pretty much identical. A titbit in New Scientist suggests the answer: "The preference for pretty faces might arise because attractive people have the prototype human face. If hundreds of faces are merged, the resulting 'average face' is very appealing." So the makeup could literally be trying to create a generic face - like that faintly creepy bit in Understanding Comics about the Smiley.

(The brief news item is about a study of babies' apparent innate preference for attractive faces, but neglects to tell us how "attractive" was defined. I have a sneaking suspicion that, say, baby!Jeff Goldblum's physiog doesn't come any where near the human average. And yet, flange.)

Rock on, Kay Howard.

Comments

[erinbow.livejournal.com]

There's an interesting, slightly creepy sight devoted to the idea of average faces, symmetry, and attractiveness, here:

http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/durchschnittsgesichter/durchschnittsgesichter.htm

You can waste a lot of time....

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

They do have fantastic skin, don't they...

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

The demand for attractiveness is sexual harassment.

(BTW, I've seen that "fe-muh-nist" icon elsewhere before, so it was a bit of cognitive displacement to see the username below it.)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

The demand for attractiveness is sexual harassment.

Right on!

The ikon shows Hothead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, explaining her politics in words of one syllable. :-)

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

hothead, named after the character, is on my Flist. I think others than her have used the image, though.

[drox.livejournal.com]

If hundreds of faces are merged, the resulting 'average face' is very appealing.

I wonder if this applies to mood. Is an "average" mood more attractive than a non-average one? An otherwise attractive face, when distorted by anger, fear, or even bliss, might not look as attractive. (Dissertation idea here, people. Someone take this and run with it!) I think of these things when I look at the models in magazines and on TV. They're not happy, or sad, or angry; they're just *there*. No emotions showing at all. Does this make them somehow prettier?.

Botox(tm) would seem to indicate that it does. Here's a toxin that paralyses the facial muscles, making it impossible to use them to express emotion (no more furrowed brows or "laugh lines"). And people actually pay good money to have it injected into themselves, because they think it will make them more beautiful.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

That is a BRILLIANT point. Either you or I should write a letter to New Scientist! Isn't it a horrible idea that a dead face is somehow beautiful?

[gdwessel.livejournal.com]

"If everybody looked the same / Would we get tired of looking at each other?" - Groove Armada

To put it another way :-P

[dark-pheonix.livejournal.com]

He he. Flange.