Ol’ Blue Eyes, Indeed!!!!

Fact:  87.5% of all statistics are made up (just so you know).

Fact:  Most people in the world (95%) have brown eyes.

Fact:  Most of the actors you see close-ups of in movies (95%) have blue eyes, even if they are supposed to be Arab, African, or Asian.

Question:  What’s up with this??

Answer:  Hollywood (and everyone else) seems to have an unspoken but obvious standard of beauty.

LOL:  "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick light brown hair, deep-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth, and a small straight nose, she had a beauty that defied description."   Hunh?

So I guess blue eyes are part of an unspoken standard of beauty??  Is beauty an idealized form of the characteristics of the general population… something everyone can relate to?  I don’t think so…  Do blue eyes show something other eyes don’t?  Or is it that unusual eyes are interesting and beautiful?  And what happens when the usual becomes unusual?  Or vice-versa…?????

Beauty

 

Is beauty culturally determined??  To some extent, for sure.  For example, Leslie Caron was considered a great beauty, but to me she looked exactly like a Frog, especially when she smiled.  (Oh, boy!  I can’t believe I said that out loud…  Me is gonna hafta get some Freedom Fries to compensate…)   But cultural relativism means that impressions of beauty are solely acquired over many years of socialization.

In reality, there is a growing body of evidence that infants are happier with more attractive caregivers than they are with those who have unattractive qualities.  This is true with infants as young as one or two months.  And it’s not attributable to scent, or whatever.  In one study of one-year-olds, caregivers wearing attractive/unattractive masks produced the same result:  the more attractive masks elicited a favorable response; the less attractive ones, crying.   These findings are consistent with the personal experiences and observations of many parents of small children, who find that their children are much better behaved when their babysitters are physically attractive than when they are not.   So, babies are born with an eye for beauty. Infants only hours old will choose to stare at an attractive face rather than an unattractive one - and they also prefer to listen to Vivaldi straight, rather than Vivaldi backwards.

So there is some innate cross-cultural biologically ingrained preference for  beauty.  Or maybe it comes from prenatal exposure.

But what is attractive?  Features that seem to represent physically attractive faces are symmetry, average appearance, and secondary sexual characteristics. So, a stereotypical human face?  Also, attractive people seem healthier with greater physical fitness, and prove to live longer.  Good news for millions:  average is pretty.  The downer: you must be physically fit.

I will stick with facial features…  I refuse to get into waist-hip ratios, and all that.

Wait…  What about blue eyes?

The ideal of female beauty seems to be blonde hair and blue eyes. Women have been dying their  fair hair blonde as far back as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This means that women were dying their hair blonde long before peroxide was even discovered. Why is blonde hair seen as attractive?  It seems then that men have innate psychological mechanisms that predispose them to prefer women with blonde hair. Ideas seem to be shaped and then hard-wired, making it no coincidence that men (gentle or not) prefer blondes.

The ideal image of beauty whether socialized or innately acquired does impact how society reacts to us as humans, and how we perceive these reactions as well.  For most people, concepts of the body and beauty come to the fore in early adolescence. By the end of teenage years, these notions have developed into a self-image, right along with all of the stereotypes.

Apart from innate influences, preference for blue eyes seems to be accepted as an ideal in the west. Blue eyes are not just considered to be attractive for women but for men as well.  Going by Hollywood movies, that is totally the case.  Or is it??

As I said, 95% of movie stars seem to be blue-eyed…  and if you look closely, this was also true before color filming became preponderant.

However, brown eyes are considered dominant.  So perhaps relatively colorless eyes lend themselves more to character development by other means.  And certainly excitement in those eyes (as evidenced in pupil dilation) is easier to observe…  assuming actors are able to produce the appropriate physiological effects on call.

Whence Blue Eyes?

 

A Danish researcher theorizes that all blue-eyed people have a common ancestor (prolly a Dane :=P) who, about 10,000 years ago, began to spread a mutant gene throughout Europe and the Middle East.  This resulted in what I like to call the European “Blue-Belt.” 

Why Blue Eyes? 

The Czechs did a study, and the Czech Republic is “sort of” in the Blue Belt…  maybe the second string Blue Belt…  not that they aren’t as pretty as anyone else :=P

Brown-eyed men were ranked as more dominant than blue eyed men by both men and women. And the same men were rated as most dominant even when they got blue eyes courtesy of Photoshop.  The blue-eyed guys, however, were still ranked lower in dominance, even after receiving their brown eye makeovers. So there was more than eye-color involved in the male rankings.  The female rankings, on the other hand, showed no difference on the basis of eye color.

One theory is that something in the facial structure of brown-eyed men makes them appear more dominant.  In general, the brown-eyed men in the above study had wider jaws and bigger noses than the blue-eyed men.

Another possible explanation is that brown-eyed men may actually have higher testosterone levels. This is gene-related, as of course, is appearance itself, but social factors could also impact appearance.  Blue-eyed boys are more inhibited as preschoolers, although they quickly overcome this social deficit.  Conceivably, early social standing could alter hormonal balance, which could alter face shape.

Several studies have shown that women prefer to mate with high-dominance males, but they prefer low-dominance males as life partners.  Hmmm….  Maybe Czech ladies just like Turks as lovers…

No, not just Czechs.    Men often seek women with blue eyes, but women often do not (seek  blue-eyed men that is, or women vs. men, or whatever).  Not only do women have different selection criteria (social status, wealth, and, of course, testosterone), blue-eyed men also tend to look more feminine.   This means that men will often select for blue eyes and women will often select against them, not because they find blue eyes unattractive, but because blue-eyed men tend to look boyish and gender-ambiguous.  Or because the brown eyed guy is richer.

So why the Hollywood propensity for blue eyes in males as well as females?  Bright, colorful, unusual, and exotic eye colors are always considered intriguing (or scary, LOL). Once common in the boy and girl next door, blue eyes have become increasingly rare among Americans. Immigration patterns, intermarriage, and genetics have all played a part in the steady reduction of their numbers. While the drop-off has been a century in the making, the decline in the past few decades has taken place at a remarkable rate.

About half of Americans born circa 1900 had blue eyes.   By the 1950s that proportion had dropped to a third.  Today only about one 1 of every 6 Americans has blue eyes.  Much of this change has to do with changes in marriage patterns.

One hundred years ago - because of language, ethnocentricity, religion - 80 percent of people married within their ethnic groups. Blue eyes -- a genetically recessive trait -- were nevertheless consistently inherited, especially among people of English, Irish, and Northern European ancestry.

By mid-century, one’s education and prospects became the primary factors in obtaining a spouse.  We all know how many 1950s coeds went to college seeking their MRS.  As intermarriage among ethnic groups became the norm, blue eyes began to disappear, replaced by the more prevalent brown.

The influx of nonwhites into the United States, especially from Latin America and Asia, accelerated the disappearance of blue. Between 1900 and 1950, only about 1 in 10 Americans was nonwhite. Today that ratio is more like 1 in 3.

However, the preferences for fair skin and blue eyes stretch back in Europe to at least the Middle Ages.  For women in particular, especially those of European descent, fair skin and light eyes have long been seen as a measure of fertility and beauty.  We need only check out Renaissance, and earlier, paintings to verify this assertion.  (Or check out Jesus’ mom at your nearest Catholic Church.)

America adopted these European biases as immigrants poured in, and Hollywood reinforced them by providing endless blue-eyed blondes as national (and international) sex symbols.

Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to an ideal.  In the 1930s, eugenicists used the apparent disappearance of blue eyes as a rallying cry to support immigration restrictions in the United States.  But oddly the eugenicists themselves rarely conformed to the ideal.    On the world stage, Hitler himself didn’t have blue eyes.  Nor did Mussolini.  Or Tojo.  :=P

Nevertheless, Americans were consumed with the blue-eyed, fair-haired ideal.  In the '70s and '80s most fashion models were typically Scandinavian. But in the past decade those standards have begun to change.  People now, as then, want a look they can relate to, and trend-makers  have noticed. The look today favors honey-colored skin, brown hair, and green or brown eyes, and the most successful models seem to be coming from Brazil.  (I heard Angelina Jolie used brown contacts in a recent film.)

But even as blue eyes give way to brown, lighter eyes will maintain a certain allure. When people see something pleasurable, their eyes dilate. Dilated pupils signal happiness and are, in turn, considered attractive.  Since they are easier to see in lighter eyes, especially on film, they have a natural appeal.  Once again, this all goes back to acting ability.  (I’m talking to YOU, Frank.)

Second Life Eyes

Of course things are somewhat different in SL. Not only can SL residents alter their physical traits at will, we also have a lot more eye colors to choose from. "Exotic and unusual" takes on a whole new meaning in this environment.  The most important thing is to look different than any other woman in the room. 

But how different can you be and still be desirable in a normal sense.  This takes skill.

Anyway, blue is less common than brown.  What are the Real Life eye possibilities????

Black - Intuitive, sensual, and secretive.

Blue -  Direct and vital with a gift for insight (possibly psychic), and observation.

Brown -  Earth-energized, creative, simple, humble, with strength, endurance, and fertility.

Gray -  Connotations of water, weather, changeability, mysticism, and wisdom.

Green  -.  Connotations of life-force, vegetation, rejuvenation, youthfulness, and health.
 Hazel -  Hazel is an exciting combination of the inner strength and independence of brown, the compassion and healing qualities of green, the fluidity and sensitivity of gray, and the intense vitality of blue. 

Violet - An exquisite and sophisticated color that has connotations of spirituality, nobility, psychic energy, and purity.

Colors available in Second Life?  Duhhh… You can do any color you want.  You can make your eyes as luminous or as weird as you want.  You can be the one alluring Asian or African in a room full of blue eyes.  But I’m betting the most used color is still blue.  And your Second life popularity will be directly related to your fashion and color sense, and, most of all, your conscious or subliminal acting ability.

But wait…  When will SL incorporate Blue Eyes technology????  This means computers with sensory abilities like those of human beings.  Imagine a computer that can listen to you, feel your emotions, and evaluate your moods through special technologies.  That’s what Blue Eyes is supposed to be.  (“Blue” is for Bluetooth wireless; “eyes” is for eye movement providing the most important information.)  Okay…  I guess that’s the next release…

(This article also appears in the June edition of Rez magazine.)

Sources:

Belkin, Douglas.  2006, October 19.  “Blue Eyes Are Increasingly Rare in America” - International Herald Tribune - Retrieved May 17, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/world/americas/18iht-web.1018eyes.3199975.html

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Bloch, Konrad. 1994. Blondes in Venetian Paintings, the Nine-Banded Armadillo, and Other Essays in Biochemistry. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Feinman, Saul and Gill, George W. 1978. “Sex Differences in Physical Attractiveness Preferences.” Journal of Social Psychology 105:43-52.

Kleisner, K.; Kocnar, T.; Rubesova,  A. & Fleger, J. (2010). “Eye color predicts but does not directly influence perceived dominance in men.” Personality and Individual Differences, 49: 59-64.

Knight, Meredith. 2008. “All in Favour: The Gentleman’s Friends Prefer Blondes.” Psychology Today. April 15, 26.

Krazytech (2011, April 24)  – “Blue Eyes Technology” Retrieved May 17, 2012, from http://www.krazytech.com/technical-papers/blue-eyes-technology

Little, Anthony C., Penton-Voak, Ian S., Burt, Michael D., and Perrett, David I. 2002. Evolution and Individual Differences in the Perception of Attractiveness: How Cyclic Hormonal Changes and Self-Perceived Attractiveness Influence Female Preferences for Male Faces. Wesport, ON: Ablex.

Miller, Alan S., and Kanazawa, Satoshi. 2007. Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. New York: Peguin Group.

Somes, Liz. 2008. “A Lock on Love: The Lustre of Long Hair.” Psychology Today 22: 30.

Urban Dictionary – “ Blue Eyes”  Retrieved May 17, 2012, from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blue+eyes

University of Copenhagen (2008, January 30). “Blue-eyed Humans Have A Single, Common Ancestor.”  ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 17, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/01/080130170343.htm

Wikipedia - “Eye Color” Retrieved May 17, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color