The Essence of Beauty Ideals

Victoria Beckham: an emblem of beauty diversity!

In general, I rather like Linda Wells and what she's done with Allure--it's not my favorite magazine but I also think that they give interesting treatment to topics that I'm interested in. That said, I'm not sure what to think of this interview with her about the shifting beauty ideal. It's hard to tell how much is her and how much is the reporter, but there seems to be a self-congratulatory tone here--not exactly self-congratulatory of Allure, but of Americans for having come so far, baby. Call the press: Americans are capable of finding women who aren't blond-haired, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned beautiful! (Is this news to anyone?)

Wells takes the route of acknowledging that a broader range of beauty ideals doesn't mean that we actually find more women beautiful, but rather that people who embody any particular beauty ideal are indeed "younger, thinner, and prettier" than the average woman. By its nature, a beauty ideal is exclusionary. But what gets lost here is that the reason we look at certain people as beauty ideals is that they possess a quality that appears to be both wholly natural yet simultaneously unattainable by the majority of us, no matter what artificial routes we take. She has that star quality that we often translate to mean beautiful; it's that quality that makes her special, not the idea that she's something that the rest of us need to strive for. Hell, if we're going to insist upon looking at any woman first for her appearance, we may as well appreciate those looks in their own merit instead of as a template for the rest of us.

The beauty ideal is not the same thing as the essence of beauty. I'm not even saying this in a you-go-girl way; I'm saying it in a practical way. I don't think for two seconds that the fact that America has apparently opened its mind to different beauty ideals means that we've actually shifted what we think of as beautiful. (I'd argue that most people detect and react to beauty based on their own internal meters, not on something based on what's essentially in fashion, but that's a different post.) I suspect what it's done is simply created more "categories" of women, taking what could ostensibly be a simple appreciation of beauty and forcing it to the top of a pyramid, with, say, Penelope Cruz at the top of one, Christina Hendricks  atop another, and Gwyneth Paltrow reigning over her own raw, vegan perch.

I remember what Rosie Molinary said about Latina stereotypes: That for Latina women there's one sort of representative from each country, so if you're Mexican but don't look like Salma Hayek, it's like you're not the "best" Mexican. (Which is funny, because her father is Lebanese.) I think that's particularly true for women of color, but I think it applies across the board too, which is why we're so fascinated with celebrity lookalikes. Kate Winslet—yes, I'm trotting her out, despite my wish not to Kate-Winslet-as-verb anybody—was such a breath of fresh air for women because she looked a little bit more like the average woman than other celebrities (except, of course, she doesn't; Kate Winslet is as ordinary as I am Portuguese). But it's not like I really felt better about my body once she came on the scene; it was more like, Oh, great, now I need to be a fucking Kate Winslet type? (Honestly, this is part of what irks me about "real women have curves": Besides implying that thin women are impostors, there's also a particular way in which it's acceptable to be curvy. Why else did that false meme about Marilyn Monroe being a size 16 circulate for years? My body will never resemble hers any more than it would resemble Gwyneth Paltrow's.)

I don't have a problem with us as a culture looking toward beautiful women and appreciating them as just that. (I remember once realizing that I'd spent 20 minutes doing nothing other than looking at photographs of Lindsay Lohan.) But I'm wary of saying that we've somehow made progress simply because beauty ideals other than Linda Evangelista exist.

Duh, Lara Logan's Looks Are Irrelevant (Mostly)

I just wanted to call out an aspect of the Egypt rape case (you know, "the" Egypt rape case!) that is pertinent to my topic here: It is surprisingly rare to hear someone say in a public forum that's not explicitly feminist that harassment is about the harasser, not about the harassee. Responsible news outlets might focus on harassment with a sympathetic eye, but it's often left unsaid or unthought that women who are literally covered from head to toe can be victims of harassment just as easily as the woman dolled up in a miniskirt. So, as a white middle-class urban left-winger, I'm proud to point you toward this NPR story that does just that!

There's also lots to be said about the attention given to Lara Logan's looks, but to be honest I've only read criticism of just that, not the attention itself, so I'll just point you toward Jezebel and Mary Elizabeth Williams's take on it.

It's also interesting to read this 2005 New York Times article (yes, I've name-checked both NPR and the Times, in the same story!) in that light. In addition to some bits that now read tragically ironic ("her knack for getting access to dangerous to dangerous places is reminiscent of a young Dan Rather"—well, sort of, except when Dan Rather was attacked nobody talked about his looks or his right to be walking down the street, though the bizarre circumstances may have aided that, and it wasn't in the line of duty), the piece focuses largely on her personal appearance and its possible role in her career. Overall I think it's an engaging piece that at least touches on issues pertinent to women in public roles and how their looks might intersect with their work. We even get to hear from Logan herself (though I wish that the story about her dogging the editor of her local paper at age 12 for a job had appeared above the fact that she was briefly a swimsuit model, but whatevs). Logan's looks here are not the issue—her attack is—but since some people insist on making it a part of the conversation, we may as well have it.

Rosie Molinary, Author, Charlotte, NC

I came across the book Beautiful You serendipitously, one of a few stray review copies at a magazine where I worked at the time. I’ve read plenty of “you go, girl!” works designed to increase self-acceptance, but what sets Beautiful You apart is its day-by-day actionability. Day 50: “Ask others to define beauty.” Day 192: “Lift weights.” Day 268: “Give flowers.” Some exercises launch enormous mental projects, of course (Day 114: “Let go”), but the book is a concrete, meditative guide to getting at the root of what makes so many women feel not-so-great about their appearance. 

Its author, Rosie Molinary, also penned Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina; in addition, she’s a speaker, teacher, activist, and mother. Her own stories shine through in Beautiful You; by the time we actually spoke, I felt as though I were hearing a familiar, generous voice, one as mellifluous as her words (but with the faintest Carolina twang). We talked about the beauty of the unattainable, the reason Latinas get a disproportionate amount of plastic surgery, and why to get a professional bra fitting. In her own words:   

On the “Latina Mystique”

One of the things that has been emphasized over the years with beauty is searching for the unattainable. When I was growing up, there weren’t any Latinas in the media, so there wasn’t something anybody could consider to search for. The unattainable we were searching for was being tall, thin, and blonde. But in the last 10 years, there have been Latinas more prominently in the media—which, for those who aren’t tan or dark or what’s often called “exotic,” has created a craving for that. We covet beauty as what we literally can’t attain. 

I wrote Hijas in my early 30s, and I was talking to women in their late teens and early to mid-20s about Latinas in the media. When I was 18, if I said to someone I was Puerto Rican, they’d say, “Puerto what?” I grew up in South Carolina, and there weren’t other Latinas around. So I thought these women were going to say that it was so much easier to come of age now when there were Latinas in the media—and that ended up not being the reaction at all. Instead, they talked about how it created a really hard standard for them. I was getting “Puerto what?”, but fast-forward to young women now, and if they say they’re Puerto Rican and happen to be Afro-Latina, so they’re black Puerto Rican, people are like, “Why don’t you look like Jennifer Lopez?” Because in the media there’s a bit of a poster girl for each country. You’re Mexican, it’s Salma Hayek; you’ve got Jennifer Lopez for Puerto Rico, Eva Mendes for Cuba. If you’re African American, there’s not just one African American actress to compare you to; if you’re white, there’s not just one white woman to be compared to. 

On the Pain and Effort of Beauty

Something I didn’t know before researching Hijas was that Latinas get the most plastic surgery of any subgroup in the U.S., which is interesting because Latinas are not the wealthiest minority in the U.S. There’s a lot of discretionary dollars being spent on something that seems optional for someone who doesn’t have a lot of discretionary dollars. I talked about this with the head of plastic surgery at the University of Kentucky, who happens to be Latin American. And he said—I’m paraphrasing—that Latina women are aware that beauty takes effort, and that it’s not painless. He said something along the lines of: When I have a client come in from any background that’s not Latina, it’s 50/50 as to whether they’re going to get the surgery. But if I have somebody who’s Latina who’s already made this appointment with me for a consultation, there is nothing I’m going to tell them about the pain or recovery that will talk them out of it. Latina women are ultimately always aware that beauty is a sacrifice.

The other interesting thing he said was that he felt Latina women were more willing to own up to the effort. You might run into a woman of a non-Latina background and say she looks great, and she’ll say, “Oh, I just threw myself together this morning,” like it’s this effortless perfection. But if you run into a Latina woman and say, “You look really nice,” her reaction will be, “Oh, thanks! I worked overtime to buy this dress, I’ve got on this girdle, it took me three hours to get my hair like this.” She’ll own up to the effort, because part of it is wanting people to know they thought this event warranted that effort and respect. I see some truth in that. 

On Knowing But Not Believing

When I interviewed women for Hijas, I asked what they thought was beautiful. And to a person, they would say: confidence, being kind, helping others, loving others. In general, no one said anything physical in their definition of beauty! Then I would ask, “Do you consider yourself beautiful?” and they would say, “Who, me? Oh, no, no, I’m not beautiful.” Now, 30 minutes earlier, they were talking to me about how passionate they were as a schoolteacher, or how much they championed their younger sister. There were all these earlier references that indicated to me they matched their definition of beauty. I would lay this out to them, and I had several women after our conversations—I probably interviewed 100 women and 12 to 15 e-mailed me later about this—say, “It was significant to me that you pointed out the inconsistency in how I view myself and how I view others.” 

Women are raised to be demure and to deflect. And we aren’t really allowed to be gracious about ourselves. Often we’re raised not to just be good girls; we translate that into being perfect girls. So it’s not okay for us to judge ourselves on these gracious standards that we give others—we need to be higher than that standard. And it’s paralyzing, because what can happen is that we believe that if some aspect of our physicality changes, then we’ll finally be happy. And the truth is, a negative body image isn’t only about how you feel about your body. It’s rooted in so much more, and unless you deal with those things, you’re going to be unhappy no matter how long your hair or how much you weigh. 

But there’s a comfortable storyline in existing in what you’ve always believed. You know how it’s going to play out, you know what it means you can do, what you can’t do. All the choices are clear. So what happens when someone says—and this isn’t exactly what I’m saying, but it’s a part of it—if you feel bad about yourself, you’re making a choice to feel bad about yourself. What I’m inviting you to do is not make that choice anymore. Then all of the answers can be different, and how do those things play out? And that’s hard, because it’s the unknown. But it’s also ultimately the most satisfying place you can land.

On the “Beautiful You” Exercises

There aren’t that many appearance-oriented things that are important to me. But I do have some exercises in Beautiful You that are appearance-oriented. [Examples: Visit a makeup artist, get a professional bra fitting, get a haircut.] For some women those things reflect self-care, and that’s been part of the volition of some women—increased disposable income and what to do with that. I didn’t want to leave out those women from the Beautiful You journey. And I have my moments too—I had my first professional adult bra fitting a few years ago, and it made a significant difference in how my clothes felt. It had a really positive effect on me, and I hadn’t expected that; I just needed a bra and this woman came in and was like, “You need to try this,” and I was like, “Oh my god, that is what I need to try!” There are areas where we could use somebody who knows a little bit more than we do.  

That said, I don’t think that every single day is a fit for every single woman. I think it’s okay to make the book a choose-your-own-adventure book. But I think it’s important that if you’re particularly resistant to something that you do it, because there’s a reason you’re resistant to it, and you can get a bit of insight. 

On Day 73: “Use Something You’ve Been Saving for a Special Occasion”

I have this beautiful, expensive purse. I didn’t feel my behaviors warranted such a beautiful or expensive piece in my life—I’d literally used it twice. And finally one day I looked at it in this little bag gathering dust, and was like, “This is the most absurd thing. I have this beautiful thing...in my closet.” What’s the point of having a nice thing if you’re not going to enjoy it? Too often we deny ourselves pleasure. And part of recognizing beauty is experiencing pleasure. Sometimes pleasure is as simple as taking something out to enjoy that you don’t typically let yourself enjoy. What was that about, with my purse? Why was I punishing myself? Why wasn’t I worth it? Now I don’t take it out if it’s raining, but if I’m wearing certain outfits I am rocking that bag. 

On Her Definition of Beauty in 25 Words or Less

Giving and experiencing love. I think I have 21 words left? But that's it for me.

"Playing Ugly" for Oscar Nods

With Oscar noms coming out, it's time to look at what role beauty plays in which women—rather, which women's roles—are selected for top honors. I find this take at the Allure blog interesting; it asks if in order to be given the legitimacy of an Oscar nod, an actress has to "temper her beauty."

It's a good question and one I'll look at later, but for now I'm interested in the upside-notion presented here: Annette Bening and Michelle Williams are singled out here for their "makeunders." And it's true that neither actress was at her most glamorous in their nominated roles—but does that mean their beauty was being tempered? I see it instead as us as the audience being so used to the glamour element that's the norm in films that when an actress plays a role that isn't a glamourpuss, we  legitimately use the shorthand "playing ugly" to describe what's actually a perfectly normal look, in which one's beauty is either a relative non-factor, or is assessed by different means than we'd assess a traditional starlet role. Michelle Williams has the same face she did in Synecdoche, New York, and though she wasn't singled out for her beauty in that role, neither was anyone commenting on her downplaying her beauty. She was wearing standard leading-lady makeup and hair there; ergo, no comment.

Charlize Theron in Monster certainly "tempered" her appearance, to the point of utter transformation, but that's in a different league. The actresses mentioned here weren't onscreen looking disheveled and unkempt as Theron as Aileen Wuornos did—because their characters lived in secure shelters, not at road stops, and could do the things most women do to look standard: comb their hair, apply moisturizer, etc. They looked like normal people—beautiful normal people, to be sure—but normal people. Maybe normal people's looks are tempered by some definitions, but isn't is that what we're used to seeing is so exaggerated that we notice it when it's not there?

Anne Hathaway: "I'm Not Very Pretty"

Anne Hathaway thinks she has weird features. And, you know, she’s kind of right. Not that I’m critiquing her looks, but she has large eyes with wide brows and generous lips. Without putting her features on a grid or something I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing she falls pretty high on the features-to-face-space ratio.

But what I take from this is not that Anne Hathaway is a googly-eyed freak any more than that she’s a doe-eyed beauty. It’s a case of two things: 1) Someone not valuing in themselves what other people single them out for, and 2) the beauty standards for actresses being different than the rest of the population.

The latter gets attention on an evaluative scale: Oh, these professional beauties, we see them everywhere and it’s hard to live up to it. (Well, sure, but there are lots of actresses who are actually not so much beautiful as they are symmetrical and slender, which, when toyed with by a small army of makeup artists and hairstylists, is handily transformed into what we think of as beauty. My interview with Sarah gets into this, in the last section.) But on a different level: Large features invoke a child-like vibe, and on an adult woman that can communicate a lot of what we associate with femininity. As an audience, we simply see Anne Hathaway’s face and maybe feel protective, or sympathetic, more so than we might with performers with subtler features. Is it any surprise that the fine-featured January Jones was cast as a largely unsympathetic character on Mad Men? We’re supposed to find her beautiful but aren’t necessarily supposed to like her.

In a world of shifting astrology, it's good to know that face reading remains reliable.

I don’t believe in physiognomy (though I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to find a practicing phrenologist, out of sheer curiosity) but we are prone to associating certain physical traits with certain personality traits, or at least recognizing that to some degree you’re “supposed” to. (When was the last time you read  a book and the protagonist instead of the villain was described as thin-lipped?) And casting agents are fantastic at this. Certainly delicate-featured actresses aren’t left scaring up work, but a good look at Hollywood will show a lot of people who might look a bit weird on the street because of their face-to-feature proportion. (This is in addition to the lollipop-head phenomenon, which somehow made news in 2005 with the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie. Their exaggerated thinness was what was “newsworthy” at the time but performers frequently have somewhat large heads—they telegraph better both onstage and on film.)

But Hathaway follows up her statement about her “weird features” with this: “I’m not very pretty.” And this is such a weird paradox. The very thing that makes her watchable, the very thing that announces her beauty to her audience, is what she winds up being self-conscious of. Is that true for all of us?

Baby's in the Corner

Am I the only one who's sort of sour about Jennifer Grey winning Dancing With the Stars? I mean, I don't know who Kyle is (should I?) and, well, there are other "teen activists" I'd rather see be crowned than Bristol Palin. But I still feel like Ms. Grey betrayed all the goofy-looking girls in the world when she got her nose job, after becoming a national heroine simply for being, as Patrick Swayze put it, "the cool, funky Jewish girl who gets the guy."

I'm aware of the hypocrisy that comes for judging someone on their looks when that's supposedly all I'm against. And Jennifer Grey has a right to do whatever she damn well wants to do with her body and face. That doesn't mean that I wasn't cringing as I watched her paso doble. Her technical proficiency was remarkable, certainly. But the paso doble, as any good teenaged drama geek circa 1992 knows from Strictly Ballroom, is a dance of passion. It's meant to mimic the bullfighter entering the ring; the lead is the matador, the follow, the cape, swirling around the matador in a tight but fluid dare. It's a dance that requires skill, yes, but also: bravado, courage—hell, it requires chutzpah.

And sure, one's bravado, courage, and chutzpah isn't necessarily reflected in one's features. But it speaks volumes to me when I see a face that once had courage—the courage to be a teen dance queen despite nontraditional looks; the bravado to play Baby (Baby! Baby who nobody could put in the corner! Baby who always made the right choice, even when the right choice was the wrong choice! Baby whose courage inspired Johnny Freakin' Castle to be a better man! Baby who carried the watermelon!) ; the chutzpah to live her ethnicity—do her damndest to mimic the intensity that appeared to come so naturally more than 20 years prior. Jennifer Grey's new face, courtesy of a nose job she's publicly regretted, showed little of that character. I take comfort in her public regret, much as I wish I didn't care, much as I wish I could take a more libertarian attitude toward the whole thing. I wish that I could have received her triumph on Dancing With the Stars in the way I received Baby's so long ago—as a woman claiming what she felt was rightfully hers, the perception of others be damned.

I can't, though. I wanted Baby to stand for something I wanted at the age I first met her; I didn't want my proxy to womanhood to have the human foibles I had. As long as I'm stuck with those foibles I want my messengers to be purer than myself. Jennifer, your dance was perfect. Baby, your dance was brilliant.

Why the Long Face?: Justin Long on Looks-Based Criticism

It's rare that you see men acknowledge their own doubts about their appearance--publicly, at least. If they do, it's often in this sort of self-deprecating yet self-aggrandizing way (I'm picturing Jack Nicholson chomping on a cigar while patting his swollen belly). So I found Justin Long's candid, heartfelt comment (as in log-in-and-register comment) to a critic who panned his looks--instead of merely panning his performance--engaging.

Background: Film writer Michelle Orange penned a review of Going the Distance in which she wrote of Long: "How a milky, affectless mook with half-formed features and a first day of kindergarten haircut might punch several classes above his weight [he plays opposite Drew Barrymore] is a mystery...we are increasingly asked to accept on screen." Then Long, on the Jimmy Fallon show, spoke about how he internalized Orange's words, prompting her thoughtful essay on the nature of critique, which is certainly worth a read. Mr. Long himself commented on the article (scroll down to comments to read).

I didn't know what a mook was either, Justin.

The real story here is the nature of the critic, and Orange's excellent points about "relatability" and how it's become "a cultural phenomenon and evaluative rubric"--a stand-in for, say, quality. But it's also a rare moment in which a man publicly acknowledges that he's not invulnerable in regards to his looks. Long writes: "I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d get to be in one movie, let alone several ... never had any delusions of grandeur. I always wanted to be a theatre actor...always assuming the movie roles were relegated to the good looking people. ... Then I started idolizing guys like Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Sam Rockwell, Woody Allen, and Philip Seymour Hoffman ... if guys that looked like that could do it, I thought, maybe this milky mook could role the dice."

He continues: "I’m surprised by the amount of stock you seem to invest in my looks. I absolutely agree with you too, I’d be hard-pressed to hold a candle to even a fraction of Drew’s beauty... Is that a message you want to proliferate though? That people of higher aesthetic echelons should stick to their own? Maybe you’re frustrated because it so rarely works the other way – I don’t remember the last time I was asked to accept a female romantic lead who was “punching above her weight class” – though it does happen .... I suppose if it were more commonplace though you, as a woman, wouldn’t be so offended and might have taken it a bit easier in pointing out the disparity of our looks in 'Going the Distance.'"

The turn-the-tables approach here works (often it doesn't, because its users miss that sexism is an institution, not isolated incidents) because we simply don't hear a lot of men discussing their own thoughts and feelings on their personal appearance. Beauty, we think, is the women's realm, and public responses to criticism of women's looks vary from the pile-on ("Worst Swimsuit Bodies!") to the outraged (the collective Internet WTF about Jessica Simpson's supposed weight gain). I've heard women rightfully complain that it's unfair that not-devastatingly-attractive men get to play romantic leads while actresses are held to a different standard; I'd never stopped to think of what it might mean for an aspiring actor to look at a screen and see that he might be able to make it despite being average-looking. I assumed--mistakenly, it seemed--that men just didn't think much about it or took those actors' presence for granted. To hear Long's point of view, though, can be more conscious--more inspirational--and it only strengthens my resolve that the solution to the beauty myth is not to make men our miserable company, but to demolish the myth itself.

Still, it's not all about men. Justin Long has pretty much made a career out of being a stand-in for the everyday, kinda cute guy, one who might be inclined to buy a Mac. He's no George Clooney, yet when he came on the scene women and girls were swooning (I remember a former tech-trainer colleague who'd use his name for her SEO classes because it gave her an excuse to investigate him on the clock). I don't think women are any less petty than men in regards to looks, but can you imagine the reverse happening? Long himself points out that it "rarely works the other way"--a not-stunningly-beautiful woman being paired with a prototypically handsome man. Part of this is the dearth of the working actresses who could fit the bill; part of it is that women are frequently written so one-dimensionally that it's hard to imagine such small niches being carved ("We need a Mac girl! Quick, slap a pair of glasses on Katie Holmes!"); part of it is that the rough equivalent of the girl-next-door is still inevitably filled by actresses who are also conventional beauties. (There's better ink out there than mine on why leading men can be out of shape, balding, and liver-spotted and still play romantic leads, while the world shuts down when Kathy Bates does a nude scene, though, so I'll leave it be for now.)

It's also interesting to note that while Long left the comment early in the thread's life, none of the comments before it commented on his actual looks--but once he piped up, people started saying, "Oh, and yeah, you're actually pretty attractive, bro." Nobody wants to hurt anyone's feelings, and I think by acknowledging that Orange's comments did actually hurt, people had a knee-jerk reaction to rush to the defense of his looks. Which sort of misses the point, but if it helps people think twice before panning someone's looks simply because he's a man and couldn't possibly care, then grand.

Celebrity Lookalikes

At a party I attended several years ago, someone told me I looked like Drew Barrymore. I thanked her, instinctively, despite it being a mere statement instead of a forthright compliment. As the night went on and she drank more, she kept telling everyone else how much I looked like Drew Barrymore, and people would look at me, cock their heads, squint, and agree or disagree. The party eventually dwindled down to five people surrounding the kitchen sink, gulping water out of plastic cups, talking about ways in which I looked like Drew Barrymore. I was being studied by these strangers, who were talking about the size of my eyes and the shape of my upper lip, in this sort of detached but warmly appraising way. Is it terrible to say I loved it?

Since then I’ve been told I resemble various others, all of whom look so different from one another that the comparisons become void. What I realized somewhere between Jeanne Tripplehorn and Kirsten Dunst was that it didn’t matter who the comparison was; I was being complimented. I took an inordinate pleasure in being told I looked like these women, even if I didn't agree--it meant someone was taking notice of how I looked and drawing an association with someone more familiar, if less intimate, to them. Actresses and the like have been given a sort of official stamp of cultural approval: Nicole Kidman may not be your cup of tea, but she’s certainly someone’s; ergo, to be told you resemble Nicole Kidman is an endorsement of your looks, a way of saying that you’ve been sanctioned as pretty, without the speaker having to risk saying something inappropriate. It can be awkward to tell a woman straight-up that she’s beautiful--if you’re a man, it’s assumed you’re hitting on them (which you might be, but you might not be); if you’re a woman, there’s this unspoken sort of question left hanging in the air (“you’re lovely, now what about me?”), an awkwardness resulting from having testified to someone else’s beauty.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been with a group of people and someone will point out someone else’s resemblance to a celebrity, and suddenly the room is taken over by Julia Roberts and Bridget Fonda look-alikes. To report to others whom you’ve been compared to is a chance to talk about our striking features without appearing as though we’re bragging; hey, I didn’t come up with this comparison myself, you came up with it (or a stranger on the street, or a woman at a party, or a lookalike generator program), so it’s not like I’m saying I’m all that, right? To say forthrightly, I am beautiful is taboo. But remove it a bit—Yes, as a matter of fact, I have been told I resemble Charlize Theron—and you’re just stating a bare fact, reporting an incident, most likely with a mildly self-deprecating eye roll. Best yet, there’s a safety involved: If someone retorts that no, you do not indeed look like Charlize Theron, you’ve risked nothing. You laugh it off, saying you didn’t think so either. You haven’t risked actually saying, You know, lots of people think I’m beautiful; you’ve said something smaller, more innocuous.

It’s notable that this happens to women much more often than it happens to men. Men might be told that they look like a celebrity if they genuinely do (one sharp-featured man I know was eminently thankful when the Pulp Fiction era passed so that he wouldn’t have to hear anymore how much he looked like Quentin Tarantino), but a quick survey of some male friends told me that most of them had been told one or two celebrity look-alikes, if any, and only rarely.

The biggest, and most obvious reason, for this is that we’re all simply more used to assessing women’s looks. But another reason comes to mind, one involving a man: Several years ago, I was walking with a white man in a predominantly black neighborhood. We passed a black man a bit older than us who turned to my companion and said, “Hey, it’s Ben Affleck!” We didn’t get that he was talking to us and kept walking. He shouted it louder this time: “Hey, Ben Affleck! Check it out! It’s Ben Affleck!” he called out to nobody in particular. Now, my companion looked like Ben Affleck only in the most cursory sense: a lean-jawed white man with dark hair. He didn’t look like Ben Affleck; he looked like a generic white guy who was momentarily in this fellow’s consciousness, a stand-in for every lean-jawed white man with dark hair on the planet. In other words, he was a type.

I don’t actually look much like Drew Barrymore, but I do give off a candid warmth. I’ve heard Jeanne Tripplehorn--rather, “the other chick from Basic Instinct”--twice now from strangers while wearing a red trench coat; it’s not my face, it’s the femme fatale signifier. A cynical, wisecracking, bespectacled friend of mine used to be told she looked like Daria, as in Daria the cartoon character. It’s not about what we actually look like; it’s about what we stand for, what vibe we put out into the world--or rather, what vibe is received from the viewer. There was an edge to the stranger’s voice as he walked alongside us, urging other passersby to come check out “Ben Affleck.” In a country as racially divided as America, it’s not hard to imagine that my companion became, for a moment, the embodiment of the establishment that kept this neighborhood in poverty; by singling out the only white man on the street as being one of the most successful people in Hollywood, a division between the haves and the have-nots was clearly drawn.

Of course, since I don’t actually have a striking resemblance to any celebrity in particular*, it’s easier for me to pick up on the meta-message being sent by these comparisons. I wonder what it’s like to actually resemble someone--my best friend from high school actually is a dead ringer for Nicole Kidman, and has been compared to her ever since Days of Thunder, even winning a local lookalike contest as an adult. We’re not in touch anymore, but I wonder: Does she take this in and feel good (“Hey, I’m constantly compared with a woman who’s been on People’s Most Beautiful list eight times!”) or resentful (“Can anyone ever just tell me I look good and be done with it, without this Australian chick coming into the picture?”)? Does it ever backfire--does she wonder on off-days if there’s a constant …except not as pretty lurking in the air, given the much-recorded beauty of her famous counterpart? Or is her self-image intact enough to simply take it for what it is: a statement of fact, a reportage from others—you have red hair, you have fine features, you are tall and slender—and not much else?

*Except for Laura Kightlinger, whose brief reign on taxi-topper ads for The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman assured that for a period of four months I was told biweekly, by strangers, that I resembled “that comedian who’s on the taxis,” only to have disappeared from the public eye, ending my single bona fide celebrity resemblance.