Beautiful science
The men in white-coats, kind discoverers of hidden beauty, claim: “The ‘key to the ideal arrangement of female facial features is the measurements between the eyes, mouth and ears.”
In 1971 Pakistan had its ideal geographical features re-arranged. Just next doors in Afghanistan, the American and Allied make-up artists remain busy in yet another ‘war theatre’ of their own making.
Given that advertisers never tire of propping up before eager male eyes one beautiful face after another, the ‘scientific’ discovery mentioned above will bring good business to the beauty industry. As a bonus, such diversions will make the wretched masses forget about the G-WOE (global war of error) for brief moments.
Resistance is useless. Men are advised to put that silly measuring tape down and stop chasing after their spouses to note why that ‘other woman’ looks dimensionally perfect.
In the East we neither measure a man by his worth in Dollars nor a woman by her bodily and facial measurements which the researchers say are important. When Eastern men fall in love, they do so with their heart and soul and not, as most Western men do, through the love muscle.
Shania who?
Back to the story now. The men in white coats applied their results to the Canadian pop singer, Shania Twain, and rated her as having the perfect visage.
It is sad that Shania’s husband—Robert John “Mutt” Lange, the legendary rock music producer for rock bands AC/DC and Def Leppard—heard about this ‘scientific discovery’ a bit too late. The couple separated and then divorced.
Mutt, seventeen years older to Shania, will continue his ‘affair’ with their friend and house manager Marie-Anne Thiébaud. Mutt means a dog that has characteristics of two or more breeds, a mongrel.
A Canadian conspiracy
The study, led by the University of Toronto, appears in the journal Vision Research. Please bear in mind that Shania Twain (born as Eilleen Regina Edwards on 28 August, 1965) also hails from Canada. That alone explains why droves of hot-blooded Pakistanis are settling in frozen-hell Canada.
The researchers asked students to rate the attractiveness of colour photographs of the same woman's face, laid out side by side. Using Photoshop, they altered the vertical distance between the eyes and mouth, and the horizontal distance between the eyes in each image.
The features themselves never changed, just the distance between them did, while they compared the woman's face to herself. Following a series of experiments, the researchers came up with the most attractive length and width ratios between features.
On length, the distance between a woman's eyes and mouth should be just over a third or 36%, of the overall length of her face, from hairline to chin.
For width, they calculated that the space between a woman's pupils should be just under half, or 46%, of the width of her face from ear to ear.
Fortunately, the researchers calculated that these ratios corresponded to an average face and that the women who did not fit the ‘perfect dimensions’ had no need to resort to fashionable plastic surgery, although hairstyles could be used in effect to create an optical illusion.
Other runner-ups
Lead researcher Professor Kang Lee said the face of actress and renowned beauty Angelina Jolie did not fit the golden ratio for either length or width. I offer my condolences to Pakistan’s ex-president Musharraf who shook Angelina’s hand like a true commando while Brad Pitt conveniently looked out of the presidency’s window.
British actress Elizabeth Hurley scored well on the golden ratio for length, and just missed out the width measurement. Nevertheless, divorcee Shania Twain, 44, whose hits include ‘Man, I feel like a woman!’ eclipsed both the women. The results suggest her face has a perfect set of geometric measurements.
The not-so-pretty others
The study looked only at white women, and the researchers admit their findings were inapplicable to other groups such as the Chinese and the Africans.
Professor David Perrett, of the perception lab at St Andrew's University, said, “The physical dimensions of a face provide many clues about the health and fertility of the owner. Men tend to be attracted to female faces that are young and feminine probably because they suggest heightened fertility.”
When was the last time you looked at the other sex or someone’s ex keeping fertility in mind?
The professor also said, “The distance between features was probably less important than the appearance of the features themselves. For instance, a man is likely to be attracted by big eyes, rather than by the fact that they were a certain distance apart.”
Enough of this geometry
Forget for a moment what the good professor said and allow me to recall where I first saw Shania’s ‘perfect face’.
I was in Paris on a business trip. Bored and alone one afternoon (yes one can feel like that in the ‘city of lovers’) I started to switch television channels looking for something English. I suddenly stopped at the MTV channel because Shania Twain’s song, ‘This Moment On’, was on air.
When it finished, I took a cold shower and quickly left the hotel room for a brisk walk on Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Not a single damsel possessed the fire power of Shania Twain. I was afraid to return to the hotel room lest Shania leapt at me through the television screen. From that moment on, she was not Shania but affectionate Shunno to me.
Salient features
Monsieurs and Mademoiselles, Shunno’s video bowled me clean for a duck; the following were some of the salient features:
1) The modesty of her ‘hijab’ and ‘abaya’ had the potential of attracting hordes of very religious-minded women.
2) The dress was flashy yet revealed only a sample pack of her flesh.
3) She was bare-footed, which meant she could outpace the fastest male cheetah.
4) The colour of her eyes—assuming she wore no coloured contact lenses—was almost the same as that of my eyes; this common something meant a great deal to me.
5) The lyrics were as good as my 'Bollywood Song Parodies'.
6) The melody flowed beautifully just like her dress’s tail did.
7) She used her eyebrows to great effect, and which affected me permanently once I returned to the country of my origin.
There was more that I noticed but I think it will be fair if I allowed you to see the video of the song to judge for yourselves what I mean.
©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2009 (re-edited 15 September 2019)
Video of unplugged version of (with Alison Krauss and Union Station):
‘From This Moment’
Original video
The original song (not downloadable)
The same song: 'HD' version
The researchers asked students to rate the attractiveness of colour photographs of the same woman's face, laid out side by side. Using Photoshop, they altered the vertical distance between the eyes and mouth, and the horizontal distance between the eyes in each image.
The features themselves never changed, just the distance between them did, while they compared the woman's face to herself. Following a series of experiments, the researchers came up with the most attractive length and width ratios between features.
On length, the distance between a woman's eyes and mouth should be just over a third or 36%, of the overall length of her face, from hairline to chin.
For width, they calculated that the space between a woman's pupils should be just under half, or 46%, of the width of her face from ear to ear.
Fortunately, the researchers calculated that these ratios corresponded to an average face and that the women who did not fit the ‘perfect dimensions’ had no need to resort to fashionable plastic surgery, although hairstyles could be used in effect to create an optical illusion.Other runner-ups
Lead researcher Professor Kang Lee said the face of actress and renowned beauty Angelina Jolie did not fit the golden ratio for either length or width. I offer my condolences to Pakistan’s ex-president Musharraf who shook Angelina’s hand like a true commando while Brad Pitt conveniently looked out of the presidency’s window.
British actress Elizabeth Hurley scored well on the golden ratio for length, and just missed out the width measurement. Nevertheless, divorcee Shania Twain, 44, whose hits include ‘Man, I feel like a woman!’ eclipsed both the women. The results suggest her face has a perfect set of geometric measurements.
The not-so-pretty others
The study looked only at white women, and the researchers admit their findings were inapplicable to other groups such as the Chinese and the Africans.
Professor David Perrett, of the perception lab at St Andrew's University, said, “The physical dimensions of a face provide many clues about the health and fertility of the owner. Men tend to be attracted to female faces that are young and feminine probably because they suggest heightened fertility.”When was the last time you looked at the other sex or someone’s ex keeping fertility in mind?
The professor also said, “The distance between features was probably less important than the appearance of the features themselves. For instance, a man is likely to be attracted by big eyes, rather than by the fact that they were a certain distance apart.”
Enough of this geometry
Forget for a moment what the good professor said and allow me to recall where I first saw Shania’s ‘perfect face’.
I was in Paris on a business trip. Bored and alone one afternoon (yes one can feel like that in the ‘city of lovers’) I started to switch television channels looking for something English. I suddenly stopped at the MTV channel because Shania Twain’s song, ‘This Moment On’, was on air.
When it finished, I took a cold shower and quickly left the hotel room for a brisk walk on Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Not a single damsel possessed the fire power of Shania Twain. I was afraid to return to the hotel room lest Shania leapt at me through the television screen. From that moment on, she was not Shania but affectionate Shunno to me.
Salient features
Monsieurs and Mademoiselles, Shunno’s video bowled me clean for a duck; the following were some of the salient features:
1) The modesty of her ‘hijab’ and ‘abaya’ had the potential of attracting hordes of very religious-minded women.2) The dress was flashy yet revealed only a sample pack of her flesh.
3) She was bare-footed, which meant she could outpace the fastest male cheetah.
4) The colour of her eyes—assuming she wore no coloured contact lenses—was almost the same as that of my eyes; this common something meant a great deal to me.
5) The lyrics were as good as my 'Bollywood Song Parodies'.
6) The melody flowed beautifully just like her dress’s tail did.
7) She used her eyebrows to great effect, and which affected me permanently once I returned to the country of my origin.
There was more that I noticed but I think it will be fair if I allowed you to see the video of the song to judge for yourselves what I mean.
©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2009 (re-edited 15 September 2019)
Video of unplugged version of (with Alison Krauss and Union Station):
‘From This Moment’
Original video
The original song (not downloadable)
The same song: 'HD' version
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