Black Beauty

(NOTE from duende: I accidentally published this beneath Razib’s “black chix” post. Sorry if it’s taking up too much space. )

Recently, in Razib’s “Jungle Fever” post, an acolyte posted the following phrase, “black = ugly”. In a rare burst of sensitivity, Razib gently chided him, and the debate focused more in sexual attractiveness than aesthetics.

However, I think this is a great opportunity to consider one of the most important factors of globalism and biodiversity: the exportation of Western aesthetics around the world. Western standards for beauty of the person have, for the most part, persisted since antiquity. Here’s a fairly good example. There are a few variations, but the standard is pretty basic: high forehead, straight nose, large wide-set eyes, small but full mouth, and a small rounded chin like an egg. As the picture shows, this was also the ideal for children and adolescent boys. Certain characteristics here also apply to adult men, such as wide-set eyes, but features like a strong chin are also prized, so the aesthetic usually isn’t so readily applied to adult, masculine men. Also since beauty standards always weigh more heavily on women than men, I’ll focus on women in this essay.

Now deviating slightly from this motif doesn’t mean you’re condemned to ugliness. Sweeping your hair off your face can make a low forehead look higher. If your eyes are too close together, you may be saved by a particularly small mouth. Here’s a test: place your index fingers on the outer corners of your eyes. Move them down your face until you touch the corners of your mouth. Ideally, the motion should form something of an inverted triangle. Proportion is the key.

Razib has noted that the beauty standard prized by African Americans is not very African. However, comparing these two photos, who looks more like the aforementioned Madonna? As far as African-looking women go, a big problem with their facial features is that their mouths and noses are too wide. Personally, I think that Miss Barbados is quite lovely. But she is not the Western archetype.

A wide mouth can make a woman’s face quite awkward by throwing off its symmetry. Mojo from Joe Millionaire (see the pop-up photo gallery) had this problem, as does Monica Lewinsky. Wide, ungainly mouths aren’t limited to any race, however black people on average tend to have wider mouths.

Orientals tend to have smaller eyes than European whites, but their mouths also tend to be a bit smaller. In the Oriental women I’ve seen, mouths as wide as their eyes are slightly less common than in white women. The application of Western beauty standards in Oriental cultures is clear by the prominence of stars like Gong Li and Kyoko Fukada. Both have the specific facial symmetry admired in the West. The latter would probably have had no suitors during the Meiji Restoration , so clearly the standards have Westernized. However, I disagree with Maxine Hong Kingston that Orientals who get eyelid surgery are “trying to look white”. I think that people who get that surgery want their eyes to be larger than the mean for their races, but to them eyes as round as white ideal would look strange. I went to high school near a military base, so I knew a lot of mixed Oriental/white kids. I remember one girl who was half-white and half-Chinese. She looked very Chinese, short and slim with long black hair and a delicate face. However, her eyes were as large and round as mine, sans any hint of epicanthic fold. It’s hard to describe how unsettling this looked. I felt uncomfortable around her because this girl always looked as though she’d just suffered a terrible shock.

Perhaps Orientals without the epicanthic fold are so rare that they are shocking. However, I wonder if large, round eyes require the support of a certain type of facial structure that is simply uncommon in Orientals. Maybe a less rounded face, sans the layer of subcutaneous fat is necessary to make round eyes the centerpiece of a face instead of a pop-up ad. Even though traditional Western aesthetics don’t cotton round faces, they frequently make Oriental women look young, which can make up for the difference. I think the biggest problem that Orientals have in conforming to the Western facial aesthetic is the higher tendency toward flat noses. I seem to remember somewhere reading that nose jobs are very popular in China.

Unfortunately, although one can get a nose job quite easily, narrowing your mouth is a bit more difficult. To my knowledge there is no operation that can give you a cupid’s bow if you were born grinning from ear to ear. However the, uh, success story of Michael Jackson suggests that it might be possible if you have the money and the free time. But unfortunately, at least as far as African features go when judged by Western aesthetics, black=ugly is more accurate than not. However, there is a lot to be gained by slightly altering your perspective to view different cultures through their own standards of beauty.