Politics and good looks: Scott Brown and his predecessors
It has not escaped my attention that Scott Brown is a very good-looking man.
Now, I know that’s not the only reason, or even the primary reason, that people voted for him. He has other tremendous assets that are far more important. He projects a strong sense of reliability, honesty, intelligence, fairness, and common sense, along with fiscal restraint and an assertive attitude towards terrorism.
But even the gals on “The View” couldn’t help but drool over Scott:
As Whoopi said, “Ding dong!”
Scott Brown is not just good-looking; he may just be the best-looking male politician ever to come down the pike on the national level. I would say the same for Sarah Palin on the distaff side.
In Palin’s case, I believe her beauty both helped and hurt her, since it attracted some but gave special ammunition to those inclined to call her a bimbo. As for Scott Brown, although a few on the left tried to use the fact that he had once posed revealingly (although not nude, as some tried to say) for Cosmo against him, that charge gained no traction. On the whole, I think Brown’s looks were a tremendous asset, if only to get people’s attention long enough for them to listen to him speak and display his other stellar attributes.
It’s interesting that in the last two years we’ve seen two of the most physically attractive people ever to come onto the political scene on the national level, and that both are straight-shooting Republicans of a populist nature. Before that, Romney was considered handsome, but too perfect and almost Ken-doll-like. As Joy Behar notes in the above video, John Edwards (who never rang my chimes) was considered too pretty-boy, a category into which Dan Quayle also fell so long ago, a fact that caused people to treat him as much dumber than he was.
When I think back on the presidents in my lifetime, it strikes me that a great many of them were relatively good-looking. JFK certainly was, although he was hardly in the Scott Brown class in that respect (but then, who is? Brown is one of those people for whom Hollywood would be challenged to find an actor handsome enough to play him in the biopic). LBJ, who followed JFK, was a strange hybrid, because people considered him an impressively good-looking man in person but he came across as a big-eared bumpkin on TV.
Although not ugly, Nixon was not a physically attractive man, nor did he seem comfortable in his own skin. Ford and Carter were both meh.
And then we come to Reagan. Because Reagan was elderly when elected, his looks were more avuncular than hot. But after all, the guy had been a real movie star, and rugged good looks of the very mature variety were part of his appeal—to those inclined to like him anyway. To those who were not, his handsomeness was just another thing to mock.
Say what you will about Reagan’s successor George Bush senior, but come to think of it (and I never really did think about it at the time), he was a good-looking man too, in a patrician grandfatherly way. And then when Bill Clinton came to town, I remember hearing that hordes of liberal women were reporting having erotic dreams about him. I seem to recall that, a few years later, one very young woman had those dreams come true.
Successor George Bush junior was an odd case. Not a bad-looking man, to his enemies he seemed ugly and ape-like, probably not only because they hated him, but because his close-set eyes did give him an unfortunately shifty look. And we all know that many consider his successor Barack Obama to be both a handsome guy and a sex symbol. There’s little doubt that, as with Brown and Palin and Reagan, that was at least part of his appeal, especially initially.
It’s hard to escape the idea that the days when someone who looked like Abraham Lincoln could get elected are over. Television was a factor in their demise. But I think attractiveness was always a plus in politics—consider FDR, for example. It’s just that it’s become more important over time, and unattractiveness more difficult to transcend.
But I wonder if those who voted for Obama and have become disillusioned with him still find him as physically attractive as before. After all, handsome is as handsome does.
From certain angles, Brown reminds me a bit of Richard Gere. Yeah, good lookin’, all right!
Speaking of close-set eyes: JFK’s were closer and shiftier. I said it before: I never found JFK attractive.
Nor I think Brown deserves the epithets you showered on him, Neo. He’s not an ugly man, and certainly keeps an athletic figure, but I wouldn’t look at him twice at a party.
But then, my tastes don’t run the popular route. In the manner of Agafya Tikhonovna, I could muse “if we add the nose of [Mr.X] to face of [Mr. Y], and [Mr.B] shoulders to [Mr. A] torso, and kindness of [Mr.Z] to the amusing nature of [Mr.W]….then maybe…
Tatyana: You wouldn’t look at him twice at a party??? I don’t know what kind of parties you’re going to, but if the competition’s better than Brown, I’d sure like an invite.
Brown has a beautiful wife and beautiful daughters too. Very good looking family.
I think it is funny that liberals tried to use that against him. Backfire!
“Beautiful people’ parties”, Neo!
[don’t forget, I’m in Architecture-n-Design community, as they say in the invites…next time you’re in NY, I’ll certainly take you with me!]
OK, I’ll look at him twice, for your sake. But no more. Something with his eyes…Actually, *betsybound is right. He does look like Gere, from afar – but then you compare their close-up side to side: no, certain something is missing from Mr. Brown.
I think he is of physical type that would benefit from aging. Just like G.W. did. Bush Jr. now looks much more distinguished and attractive, I think, than 10 years ago. Eye lines becomes him.
Oh, I found an image to illustrate ‘my’ type. Although I like Mr. Eads better when his hair is close-cropped, Marine style. Yes, shaven skulls are my weakness.
Tatyana: I may take you up on those parties.
Funny thing, though—I’ve never cared for Gere at all. And what I see in Brown’s eyes is something very good, especially when he’s about to crack a joke.
Gere improved tremendously when his hair turned white. In my eyes.
Let me know when you plan to visit. I’ll take you to the Crazy Eco Liberal Reservation party (i.e. Metropolis magazine). It’s fun.
There is a picture of Palin in, her book, where she is standing outside with her son, Track, that causes me to think she is not just the best looking female politician but possibly best looking female in the history of the world.
Slight exaggeration but you get the point.
Similar phenom in business. My first job out of college was with IBM. I remember my manager, a woman, noted when John Akers was named Chairman of the Board how important it was for him to have the “look” of Chairman. Fresh out of college and naive, I believed climbing the corporate ladder was based purely on merit, so her comment was a bit shocking at the time (shocking enough that I still remember it 20 years later).
There are exceptions, for sure, but I think you can say most Chairman and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are above average looking. Not semi-nude model good looking, but above average. Looks matter.
Ladies..Ladies..LADIES ! Focus, Focus, Focus…
Soooooo, like shallow. So, like visual. So, like shocked is what’i’yam.
he was a good-looking man too, in a patrician grandfatherly way
Bush senior was very good-looking when he was in his 20s. It never surprised me that his wife says even now that he was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen.
Love this entire discussion You go, girls!
I mean, if we have to look at someone, he might as well look good . . . very good, right?
At least one good-looking former president was at best mediocre and some think a disaster: Franklin Pierce (14th president, 1853-57) was even nicknamed “Handsome Frank,” but he helped to make the Civil War inevitable.
Portrait of “Handsome Frank” here:
http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/hall2/piers.htm
There are exceptions, for sure, but I think you can say most Chairman and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are above average looking.
Good hair and shiny shoes are the key. If there’s anything going on underneath that good hair, well, there’s no penalty for that, unless other people become aware of it.
I think it’s time for the guys to withdraw discreetly to a drawing room for brandy and cigars before we start questioning the wisdom of the 19th amendment.
Btw, my wife agrees that Brown is good-looking, and her standards are very high. But then, she’s spoilt, of course. /g
As to Lincoln, people seem to like tall. It might even be more important than good looks (unconsiously to people).
>b>The Warren Harding Error is in honor of our best-looking president ever — a man so handsome and distinguished and with such a barrel chest and broad shoulders and commanding voice that people would just look at him and be convinced that that he would make a wonderful leader. Unfortunately, Harding turned out to be our stupidest and most incompetent president ever. (And there is some stiff competition for that title). The Warren Harding Error is what happens when our first impressions are so powerful that they cloud our better judgment.
— Malcom Gladwell, from “Blink”
http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/brandautopsy/on_malcolm_gladwell/
As to Lincoln, people seem to like tall. It might even be more important than good looks (unconsiously to people).
Thomass: Gladwell covers tallness too:
In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or over. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent. Even more strikingly….
f the tens of millions of American men below 5’6″, a grand total of ten–in my sample–have reached the level of CEO
http://www.gladwell.com/blink/blink_excerpt2.html
Yeah, he is good looking. But he is not a pretty guy, he actually looks like a man, a real man. No pencil neck geek, no beta male, no metrosexual speciman. He is the real deal, a rarity in this day and age.
hmmmm, *huxley.
Something tells me that Mr. Gladwell is short and not at all impresive-looking…
I think this observation by commenter “CV” from a previous thread deserves to be reproduced here:
As the Hillbuzz guys like to say, “Great Merciful Zeus that is one fine looking man!”
😉
Terrye,
And don’t forget the appeal of the pickup truck. They barely exist in my neck of the woods, but oh do they come in handy. The effortless transport of bookshelves and bags of potting soil, followed by an “All done” has great appeal. It’s just so masculine.
NeoConScum: we are focusing.
On Scott.
PA Cat: Hmm, Franklin Pierce, not half bad.
I think that the handsomest US national historical figure was John Wilkes Booth, although he was a villain rather than a hero. But a matinee idol in his time.
OK, ladies. I grant his handsomeness, though it does nothing for me. But I think there are additional appearance attributes of the man’s face that are equally important. He looks open, honest, and kind. Even guileless. When he’s speaking with someone, a reporter say, he looks them directly in the eye, and gives the appearance of being totally focused on and interested in them.
I’d say the same sort of thing for Sarah Palin. She’s a beautiful woman. But there’s also a twinkle in her eye, and joy in her face. These things count as much for me as her beauty.
I find both of them almost mesmerizing.
As I said above, Brown reminds me of Gere, and I think both are fine-looking men. However, when it comes to picking a man (in the public eye) I actually find attractive, I’ve always thought I’d like to get a-hold of Paul Scofield, as he was in about 1965, when he played Thomas More in A Man for all Seasons. In my mother’s memorable formulation, he could have parked his shoes under my bed any night!
And of course there’s my husband of 36 years, who does just that. 🙂
fmt,
Agree with you.
Remember when Palin winked at America during the VP debate? Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.
I agree with fmt; Sarah Palin is a beautiful woman, but would rate no more than a second look without the sparkle and verve.
I don’t pretend to know what attracts women to certain men–the ones they don’t really know. I think, as said above, that an open manner along with a simple sense of chivalry would count for a lot.
This illustration of George Washington is quite striking and to my male eye handsome.
The drawing was made from life, so this image is likely one of the most authentic and accurate renditions of the President and Father of the Country available.
I think, as said above, that an open manner along with a simple sense of chivalry would count for a lot.
I think this is why a lot of women find David Petraeus attractive even though he’s not handsome in the strict sense.
Since Neo mentioned Mr. Rielle Hunter (aka Silky Pony) earlier, I’m posting this link to an old video of his primping before a campaign appearance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kCAFkfFLQQ
It certainly is pleasing to look at a good-looking President or Senator who is at the same time intelligent, sensible, and with all the other good qualities that make an effective leader. The quote: “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” is true. We judge someone to be beautiful or handsome based on our perception especially if we like the inward qualities of the person. So, even if someone is not that good-looking yet we find that person beautiful or handsome because of his positive characteristics. In the case of Brown, he becomes more good-looking in our eyes because he has the qualities we’re looking for in a leader.
Follow-up to my earlier post about Barbara Bush’s husband: here he is in his uniform as captain of the Yale baseball team of 1948. (He was already married to Barbara and the father of George W. when this photo was taken).
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/image.php?id=2279
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I think it’s less about how good looking they are, and more the fact that they are men.
No offense ladies, but men tend to age better in general, so it’s hard for a man who is in reasonable fitness and health to be “ugly.” If a man has a coarse face it is allowed that he shows manly physical attributes. If a man has a little extra weight it is because of the fruits of a life’s effort. If a man is short it is seen as a dignity carried in small stature to attain accomplishments denied larger men. ETC ETC.
People in general are more willing to give men the benefit that I have always believed about women.
I’ve known some hideous looking women, but I never treated them that way, I think it was my great uncle peg who said it, “Every woman deserves to feel beautiful, so just look for at least one thing that is beautiful about her, no matter what other think.” Or something like that. I took that to heart and I try to practice it whenever I interact with women directly (though I slip sometimes cuz I’m also remarkably sarcastic)
So, is it really that the presidents are so attractive? Or is it that you took the time to look at them because they were male and of a position to find something attractive in them?
(as an aside, I met dan quayle in ’91, I’m from indiana and he came by my area and did one of those student outreach doohickeys, I was one of those students, and he got and still gets a completely unfair shake from the entire nation of idiotic democratic sycophants. Very bright, very engaging and extraordinarily nice to a bunch of kids, all of us were AP type students, but he was stimulating not patronizing. Obama patronizes adults who are his intellectual superiors, but quayle was able to make us want to DO MORE with what we had. A very nice man, and I will never forgive the media for how they treated him.)
Wow – this is like wandering into a “Sex in the City for Cons & Neocons” discussion.
My $.02: Unlike most on this board, I think Brown is nice-looking, but he’s not really attractive to me. I disagree with Terrye – to me, Brown looks a bit too “pretty” but maybe I didn’t see enough of the pickup truck ads.
I always liked W’s looks – not necessarily handsome, but cute – I think I liked the mischief in them. And, a nice physique.
I never saw the appeal of Bill Clinton, but I do think that Obama is an uncommonly handsome man. If only he’d taken the male model route instead of politics…
men tend to age better in general
Barney Frank?
Ted Kennedy?
Harry Reid?
Jimmy Carter?
‘Nuff said.
Brown has a face in good proportions and a strong jawline.He’s fortunate that his nose isn’t perfect or he’d be pretty like an 80’s fashion model, rather than handsome.I can see some of the Gere resemblance but that’s from the American Gigolo era circa 1979 and Brown looks nothing like that today.His physical attractiveness will engender goodwill and trust and it’s an asset to be utilized while the going is good.John Kerry has made a career out of his voice and aquiline profile,so why not Brown?
Oldflyer Says:
“I agree with fmt; Sarah Palin is a beautiful woman, but would rate no more than a second look without the sparkle and verve.”
I didn’t see it until I saw a picture of her without the glasses and with the hair down… then I got it.
Same with Tina Fey too (she had a magazine cover without them).
The glasses and hair up / back thing is ‘cute’ but hides people’s features.
Over the past fifty years or so, looks have become more important for men. Some say the turning point in politics was the 1960 presidential debates when JFK looked so much better on TV than Nixon.
In an earlier day women looked for a man who was clean, hard working, honest, and sober. Because women had very limited economic opportunities, those qualities were essential to a woman and her children. Character mattered. It’s hard to imagine a man who looked like Humphrey Bogart being a film star today. His characters had character.
With both Brown and Palin, their perceived “good looks” has just as much to do with their manner and way of speaking as their physical appearance. They are indeed both “good looking”, but without the graciousness, openness, “sparkle” and that generally pleasant feeling you get from them, their physical attractiveness would soon grate.
As an example, can you imagine either Brown OR Palin endlessly primping the way Silky Pony did in that video posted above by PA Cat? No way. It’s not in their personality — they’re just not that hung up on themselves. It always grated on me the way Edwards turned on his cover-girl smile like a light switch. “Here I am; you may now be charmed by me!”
I just watched the interview over at Greta’s on Fox. Brown has a twinkle in his eye. That is very appealing. He seems like the kind of person who enjoys teasing and expects to get as good as he gives. I also need some smart in the mixture of desirable attributes. The newer breed of Hollywood types fail this standard; they are more like dogs trained to make celebrity news, and they rarely stray from the PC script. Boring!
Brown and Palin are “Happy Warriors.”
expat: that’s what I mean; the twinkle in the eye. I’ve watched quite few Brown interviews where he shows that, and it’s very attractive.
Douglas: thanks for sharing that story about Quayle. I initially shared the MSM opinion about Quayle. What changed it for me was his takedown on Murphy Brown. While there was an initial firestorm against Quayle, soon cooler heads prevailed. Articles appeared which collated research about children raised in single parent households. The numbers from the research proved Quayle to be correct. While a child raised in a single parent household can turn our well, the odds are against it. Dan Quayle nailed it.
I once had a sister-in-law (she was fired) that was the very epitome of cosmetic beauty – long flowing blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, curves that a Corvette would fail to navigate. To boot, she was a doctoral candidate in…
Astrophysics.
True story.
Except when this young woman opened her mouth, she transmogrified, Ally McBeal style, into Helen Thomas. I, along with my brother-in-law, had to extract her from a swarm of drunken frat boys one night. Not fun, not fun at all. Because of that night, I have the curious ability to forecast weather now.
I will take you ladies at your word as to the attractiveness of Mr. Brown; I can attest to the hypnotic beauty of his daughters, along with Mrs. Palin.
The common thread, to me at least, is an abundance of the joy of life.
Eh – Brown does look very nice now, and in the Cosmo pics, very nice indeed. But agree – that perhaps it is conventionally nice looks, combined with the animation and charm that carry all, especially if it comes over well in photographic or broadcast media.
Some men do age rather well – for instance, have you ever seen any pictures of Richard Nixon, in his early 20’s? OMG – talk about dark, brooding and handsome. Alas, he did not age well – and I was not at all confident in his skin. LBJ was not (shudder) particularly good looking – but he seems to have been comfortable and confident in his skin, so yes, I believe that he often came off as quite charming.
I’ll always remember a bit from a novel about Elizabeth I, where she asked a character who recollected her mother, “Was she beautiful?” and that character answered, “No, but she was clever enough to make people think she was.”
Speaking of Texas politicians, at the 4th of July Tea Party event, my daughter and I actually met Governor Perry – we were in a pretty big crowd in the backstage room, trying to eat our dinner, and he came and chatted us up. We actually had quite a good time, talking with him – There is a gift which some people have, of being able to make anyone they are with feel that they are the most interesting person in the world, and they can’t just get enough of your company.
Sometime that comes across in pictures and on TV, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Uhhh, Neo, do I recall you finding Geitner handsome? Seems I do.
But Brown seems the real thing. That worries me because I fear I’ll be disappointed, as I am with Palin recently endorsing McCain. She could’ve kept quiet.
Brown’s a good looking guy, but he also seems decent and seems like he likes people and enjoys life. Frankly he seems like a pretty positive and normal person. Good looking folks who also are the kind of people you want to be around are pretty irresistable.
People who have the ability to be themselves are attractive without trying. Sincerity and self-acceptance have real allure. Phonies are ugly, no matter how they dress themselves up.
I recognize that lots of women find Obama attractive – he wears his clothes nicely and he’s lean and tall – but I can’t get over the way he talks down to people – with that off-putting chin lift – and the fact that he always looks to me like he’s wearing purple lipstick. I feel bad mentioning the last, because I know he can’t help it, but it’s weird.
Tom: actually, I said Geithner was good-looking. That’s a much less demanding category.
Also, it was a somewhat humorous post. But I stand by my words: Geithner is a good-looking man.
But he sure ain’t Scott Brown.
Well, we should also remember that handsome is as handsome does. So–we shall see.
As for the advantages of good looks. I happen to be an example.
I’m not a beautiful man, but I’m good looking enough (no, I’m not good at modesty, in fact I’m not good at caring about pretty much anything) I’m tall, I’m White (and yes that makes a difference, even though if I ever father a child it will be black, and I know the mother) and I’m slim and I’m fit. How many 6’1″ men who weigh 220 lb’s do you know with a 32″ waiste? I’m slim and I’m fit.
Anyways, the fact that I had all of these aspects about myself as I grew up, I didn’t HAVE to worry about dressing properly, I wore sweatpants until they were banned in my sophomore year of highschool. I didn’t have to buy pretty clothes because I myself was pretty, sorta.
I never had to worry about it.
I never had to practice excess effort to be tough, I was tough, sorta, so I didn’t have to prove it out.
I didn’t need to strut like a cock before hens to get attention I got it for the above 2 reasons, sorta.
So all of the time that ugly people (I’m sorry there are ugly people, but they don’t realize that it’s mostly their attitudes rather than their looks that make them so ugly) use to build themselves up with fashion or poorly applied exercise or lifts in shoes or in lies about their own histories (I never depict myself as anything other than from a poor family and living poor now) I was able to focus on education.
It’s an irony in my opinion.
Good looking people from good families (even if they are poor) embrace education.
example, if we had a platoon picture of the men and women I served with while I was in the Marine Corps, ANY platoon, in fact the entire effing Company.
You would see a lot of very fit, and very good looking people.
The benefits of knowing you are good looking, allows you to dedicate more time towards learning.
The social paradigm says otherwise, but it’s wrong. People who ARE attractive rarely ever think about it, so they can think about other things. People who are ugly think about how they can be attractive, and that steals moments from their ability to truly improve themselves.
E,
First time I saw Obama take the “Casesar pose” I wanted to punch him in his upraised chin.
Oldflyer:
I work in a store where Tina Fey often shops. I’ve seen her standing 10 inches in front of my nose on multiple times. She is not that beautiful. You walk past 100 women per day every bit as good looking.
Douglas: what you say is no doubt true of some good-looking people.
But there are others who feel the world owes them everything, and who therefore feel they never have to work at much of anything.
And there are others who, although very good-looking, are obsessed with looks and think of little else, including having many cosmetic surgeries to take care of imagined imperfections, and who feel rather bad about themselves despite their good looks.
Good looking folks who also are the kind of people you want to be around are pretty irresistable.
I don’t know if it’s an original of my father, but when I signed the papers and raised my hand to join the Marines, my father had one of “those talks.”
Dad was also a Marine, Vietnam Era. He asked me why I joined, and I told the truth. “I’m good, I’m smart, and I’m educated, I can go to college, and we are kinda poor. Not many can do that, only in America. I think before I take something from her I should give something” (that quote is almost exact, yes I was that noble of a kid.)
After the normal parent son stuff, he asked me “come back kind.”
My pops is a very bright guy who makes a LOT of bad decisions, but I found that profound.
Yes Neo, I thought I isolated those good looking people who don’t care about it, and I included the fact of not being brought up (poor) with any sense of entitlement.
The valedictorian of my highschool was from a rather well off family (actually a political one) she was already pregnant but noone knew at the time, though everyone DID know that she didn’t deserve valedictorian.
We had a modified rating structure, and even in the modified method, she didn’t best . . .well, my best friend who graduated with the same GPA (modified) a year before as a junior.
Frankly he seems like a pretty positive and normal person.
Todd Palin is another one of the good guys.
Neo: Oh I know, I’ve been around so many good looking people who are just ghastly, and no one likes them, and they can’t figure out why. They walk around like “why doesn’t anyone like me? I’m so goodlooking!” And you just want to say, this may have worked for you when you were in highschool, but by now nobody cares. But I tell ya, the good looking ones who also have a lot of character, are kind and fun to be around, and are good at their jobs…oh to be them! It must be heaven!!!
Yes again neo. But I noticed that attractive people are the good humored intellects. The Ugly people tend to be vengeful holding their intellect and education over others.
I have a cousin, VERY awkward girl, tall (almost as tall as me) skinny and not very attractive as a highschool student. And she went to college (and post grad) on grants.
In her second year she met a man who thought she was beautiful, she ended up marrying him, but her ENTIRE ATTITUDE CHANGED!
She realized she was a pretty girl, because this (in her mind) beautiful man told her she was, and this tiny little stick of a girl with bland hair, and no makeup blossomed into a beautiful woman.
As time went on, I would keep doing what I always do, making crude jokes, and she was able to appreciate them rather than correcting me., and she’s my cousin, and I swear, each day she grew more beutiful than the day she realized she COULD be.
Her husband was a good looking guy, not far from harry hamilin, and he breaths only because the settlement of the divorce hasn’t been set straight.
This little twig of a girl, a frightened girl from a poor family who “needed” grants to go to school is now a VERY well established engineer (won’t mention industry) and MUCH more beautiful in her 40’s than she ever was as a girl, and It was all brought about by attitude.
She was no longer shy, because she was a skinny awkward girl (her build is much the same) she was no longer a humble supplicant (she was raised much more poor than I was, and I wasn’t even close to middle class most of my life) She Had a strength that came with her education and the fact that she had seen more of the world than EVEN me (I’ve been around the world twice, and I think I left my keys on another continent)
But somehow, this woman, my cousin, grew from a gawky goofy little girl into a woman full and a mommy and a very scary person (noone pisses off a mommy, I don’t know about chicks, but guys do NOT piss off mommies) and she never has to raise her voice.
So it works the OTHER way as well neo.
BTW anyone in cambodia seen my keys?
I would really like to ride my bike one day.
rsb Says:
“I work in a store where Tina Fey often shops. I’ve seen her standing 10 inches in front of my nose on multiple times. She is not that beautiful. You walk past 100 women per day every bit as good looking.
rsb Says:
I worked in Hollywood for a few years and noticed a pattern regarding this kind of thing. A lot of people look good in pictures, on video, and on film that don’t look good directly to the eye… something about pictures makes certain features look great that don’t necessarily look good up close and personal. The differences were so striking (i.e., so many were so butt ugly) that I don’t believe makeup accounted for it.
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MikeLL Says:
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:04 pm
I’ve wondered about that. She wrote about the debate in her book but didn’t mention the winking. I’ve often thought that it was a signal, like POWs sometimes use. Maybe she winked every time Biden told a whopper.
Thomass Says:
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:02 pm
I like the glasses and hair up look!
Slightly off topic, but one thing I noticed about the 2008 election was that for the first time there were were candidates who were younger than I was, specifically, Obama and Palin.
Kurt Vonnegut said a long time ago that you know you’re getting older when you find that you are being governed by people you knew in high school. That’s not an exact quote, but I’m too lazy to look it up.
Strikes me the common theme here is that good conduct enhances looks. Works for me.
And that serves to make Baraq and his belle quite ugly.
It is said the camera is kind to some people.
In some cases, kinder than they deserve.
In some snapshots, we accidentally look like a million dollars. That’s about one in a thousand.
The pros have other pros to run the cameras, the lighting, and to throw away the pix that don’t work.
I’m married to the absolute Cutest Lil’Minx I’ve ever, everrrrr seen. And she’s got the sparkling personality to go with her 95-lb, 4’11” Sicilian Bod. She seems to run on a metabolism akin to a mosquito or firefly. Her candle power lights up whole large meeting rooms and in more awe of her than the day I married her 15-fast years ago.
After 35+years in film/TV working with many knockouts, NONE hold a candle to her. Nice place to be. So, I oughtta be the last to criticize you Girls for panting over Scott. I’m one of those lucky ol’T-Rex males who is blessed by being married to his own breathtaking Lamb Chop.
President Reagan knew who he was; what he believed in; and was very comfortable in his own skin. I think Senator Brown shares those same qualities. And that is a very attractive quality in it’s own right.
The old saying that “Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses.” certainly doesn’t apply to me. I’ve always been attracted to the flirty librarian type. Palin certainly makes the grade there!
Gee….is this neo-neo or “Letters to Penthouse”?
Kaba, it was Dorothy Parker who wrote the quip about men never making passes at girls who wear glasses. It was either Dear Abby or Ann Landers who wrote in response, “Contact lenses/Catch more men-zes.” I always thought both were clever. What I really wanted to say, though, is this: on behalf of all librarians, thanks for the compliment to flirty ones! 🙂
Huxley, the George Washington drawing is fascinating. I had never seen it before and really appreciate your posting the link. So much dignity, character, and integrity in that face.
rickl Says:
“I like the glasses and hair up look!”
Sure, but it hides what people actually look like. Example: tons of people who don’t ‘look’ like Palin could look like Palin for a costume party by doing the hair the same and wearing the glasses.
“pretty-boy, a category into which Dan Quayle also fell so long ago, a fact that caused people to treat him as much dumber than he was.”
yes, I think that was a lot of it with Quayle. Compare him with Joe Biden. Biden says one dumb thing after another yet gets away with it. The reason is that he sounds like a professor and looks serious. That half of what he says is wrong and the other half doesn’t make any sense seems not to matter.
If you get a chance, check out his autobiography, Standing Firm. Its the most honest political autobiography I’ve ever read. He pulls no punches on himself. The media treated him terribly, but he’s not bitter about it at all. What a guy, I always liked him.
I remember seeing the photogaphs of two young men from the late 1930s/early 1940s. Both men had mustaches and were wearing military uniforms; both were physically handsome and could have been brothers. Both had that certain twinkle in the eye that told you that these guys were not average.
One of the photos was of a young Wehrmacht soldier who would have been sent to Russia had his superiors not recognized that he was perfectly fluent in English. The man’s name was Hans Scharff, and he became the Luftwaffe’s chief interrogator of downed Allied fliers.
Scharff’s record was unblemished, and it was so with a degree of Allied collusion. Scharff was a personably affable and friendly man who greeted his prisoners by saying. “Hello. I’m Hans Scharff. I’m your interrogator.” No Allied airman interrogated by Scharff failed to give him some information.
Some years after the war it was revealed that the Allies knew about Scharff from escaped POWs They understood that he extracted information from soht-down airmen and passed it on to German commanders who later used that information. What was not so well-known was that Scharff frequently defied the SS and the GESTAPO in order to defend his interrogees. He was more of an asset to us than he was to his erstwhile masters, and throughout the whole dirty business he maintained his humanity.
The other young smiling man with a cheerful mustache was Josef Mengele. Looks mean nothing. The Bible is correct when it says by the fruits of a man you will know him….
neo: “But I wonder if those who voted for Obama and have become disillusioned with him still find him as physically attractive as before. After all, handsome is as handsome does.”
My personal opinion is that a lot of people found The Won physically attractive because they were told so often by the MSM that he was physically attractive.
And of course proper marketing can sell ice to an eskimo.
Combine that with a deep smoker’s voice that the population has been socialized into thinking is a mark of leadership and you have a lot of people convincing themselves this guy was handsome on an entirely different level.
Such sensibilities are rather shallow, as real leaders don’t always have that deep tone in their voice.
Patton, for instance, was reported to have had a high pitched voice, and I think Washington was likewise noted at least once to have a higher pitched voice when angered (along with a pale complexion that flushed red), and even FDR (of whom I am not a fan) didn’t really have a deep voice either to judge from the recordings I’ve heard.
I’m happy to report however that da wifey always considered Nobama to be skinny, gangly, and big eared.
😀
On the other hand, regarding Scott Brown’s appearance, I’d like to think anyone who carries any derivative of the name Scott is generally a good looking fella…..lol.
(at least the wife keeps humoring me on that probably mistaken belief – and yes she did make some odd sounds and had a strange smile when she first saw the Cosmo pics on the news!)
I’m from Massachusetts. 52 years old. Voted for over 30 years.
Brown won because the majority are fed up with ALL incumbents.
Remember that. When both party’s shed their scum.
> In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or over. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent. Even more strikingly….
Hmm. Funny. I’m 6’1 give or take a fraction of an inch (depends on the time of day you measure it).
I live in a college town, and I really, really don’t think of myself as “tall”. But I go to another town and look around at the local supermarket, I realize just how short the rest of the people out there are. The collegiate sample that is my usual experience of “average height” is a skewed sample.
There’s an interesting correlation/causation to be investigated there — Are CEOs more likely to be tall because college graduates tend to be tall (and clearly, in this day and age, a CEO is almost always going to be a college graduate)?
Or are the heights of CEOs independent of the college matter?
And there’s another interesting question — what about female CEOs? How likely are they to be above average in height?
> The quote: “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” is true.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. While there are individual variances, there is a detectable and consistent set of rules which are applicable not only across racial lines but also cultural ones.
Show women from just about any culture in the world a picture of Denzel Washington (IIRC), and there is a detectable flutter of interest. The pupils dilate, the breath intakes, the face flushes lightly… There was an article or two about this a couple years back.
One of the key things is symmetry. Humans have an innate mechanism to value symmetry in human appearance. One of the first “cheap” ways to “uglify” a villain is to make one side notably different from the other — Two-Face, The Hunchback, etc., all inherently repulsive on a deep-seated level.
I haven’t bothered to check, but I’ll bet Brown’s face, on examination, is very symmetrical.
> I have a cousin, VERY awkward girl, tall (almost as tall as me) skinny and not very attractive as a highschool student.
Douglas, with women, being overtall (>5’9) is tough.I think female culture doesn’t overly encourage “stickouts”, and, by their height, tall women always do. This can lead to a host of bad behaviors — slouching, creeping movement patterns, and so forth — which are designed to reduce the notability of their height.
I speak as a man who has always found tall women attractive, and, if someone in their lives (father, significant other, husband) doesn’t act to make them realize it, I think tall women often believe it to be substantially detractive of their looks.
My HS sweetheart was 5’11, basically the same height I was at the time (I grew two more inches), and she was always ultra conscious of it. It took a good while of me building up her ego to get her to realize that, yeah, there WERE guys who wouldn’t like her for her height, but there were others, not just me but other guys, too, who thought she was attractive because of it. I think the thing that did it was one time, we were in the local Mall, and she was wearing shorts, which, with her long legs was getting her lots of wolf-whistles.
She never admitted to being 5’11, though — her DL said she was 5’10, and she insisted that was how tall she was… lol.
Luckily, the men’s clothing styles of the time allowed me to wear dress boots, which meant she could wear heels and not worry that she was taller than me. Since I liked dress boots back then, anyway, that was A Good Thing.
And women don’t have a clue as to why they are seen as superficial.
John Bales: Ah yes, this blog is so superficial.
Every now and then there’s something lighter here amidst the almost unrelieved heaviness of politics, psychology, philosophy, and discourse on the state of the arts.
And of course, men as so un-superficial that they never discuss the looks of women in politics.
One of the features the camera is kind to is wide-set eyes. Check the magazine covers at the supermarket checkout and you will notice that some of those people might not be called good-looking without it.
Douglas, you are extrapolating from personal anecdotes the psychology of the entire culture. Let me predict that you will always find evidence to prove whatever theory you come up with.