Divided by a Common Grimace

[steepholm]

Quite an interesting segment on smiles on today's Fry's English Delight (it starts 20 minutes in), claiming that English and American smiles are different. The exemplar of the English smile (mouth "pulled back and almost down") is apparently Prince Charles:



Whereas Tom Cruise is the prototypical American, showing only the upper teeth:



Quoth the talking head: Americans tend to misinterpret the English smile as a grimace, indicating "submission but without joy". This might explain much about the special relationship if it were true, but is it? Charles looks to be in anguish to me, as he usually does (Google "Prince Charles smile" if you don't believe me). Actually, though, I don't think either of the above smiles is real, although Cruise is certainly better at faking it.

But what do I know, prosopagnosiac as I am? On which note I have to say that the McGurk Effect, which they went on to discuss, passed me by entirely. Try it yourself:

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I have long been puzzled by the US fixation with teeth! :o)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Possibly PC and other practioners of submission without joy are just as obsessed, which is why they keep them well hidden.

Coincidentally, in Woman's Hour afterwards they went on to praise the artist Frida Kahlo for always painting herself with a monobrow and a hairy upper lip (the idea being "This is who I am - take me or leave me!"), but noted that she never showed her mouth open because she was ashamed of her bad teeth...

[jadelennox]

I have, too, and I was born and raised in the US. I am totally sick of people telling me "smile" in photographs where I feel like I am smiling, but my mouth is entirely closed.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I'm smiling in this pic as I was much amused by something my other half did when he took it- but do you see great acres of toothiness?

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Oh! And fwiw, I'm a Brit! :o)

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it goes along with our general "If you've got it, flaunt it!" mindset?

[jadelennox]

Huh. I only heard Ba Ba.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Me too. I guess that proves we're not sheep?

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Charles looks deeply uncomfortable: I'm not sure I'd see that as a smile at all; Tom Cruise's smile isn't one of happiness, just the film-star's public mask. So I'm not really sure what that's suppose to indicate about transatlantic difference, except that the two of them do represent extreme caricatures of their nationality...

I heard Ba both times with sound, though in the silent one I could see that he was saying Ga.

I'm not- uite prosopagnosiac but my facial recognition abilities are pretty poor, about as bad as you can get and still be thought human-normal. Don't know if that makes a difference.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Charles looks deeply uncomfortable: I'm not sure I'd see that as a smile at all

I agree, but that is normal for him.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Agreed - I would not classify either of those expressions as a smile! I must show my teeth because my physics teacher used to call me "Steinway". I hope he was only referring to the white keys.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Oh dear! At least you didn't have to make do with a Bechstein.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

With vision, the first time through I heard aa, aa, aa. With eyes closed, I heard Ba, ba. Now I can't hear anything but Ba, ba. No way could I make it Da, da.

However, I have known since I was young that I hear a lot better when wearing my glasses and eventually deduced that there was an element of lip reading going on, so there is probably something in it, even if that wasn't a very good example.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I heard it that way too.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

US teeth scare me. At least, the ones on film/tv do.

I heard a sound somewhere between gaa & baa - like a ventriloquist trying to say 'baa'. There was no 'd' effect at all.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I heard "ba ba" both times, but then a) I am not a visually-oriented person, and b) I was expecting the surprise to be the mouth and the eyes not actually being from the same face, or something like that.

I wouldn't have thought Prince Charles's personal characteristics to be a typical example of British people in anything. Certainly his dialect isn't. Or his ears.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have thought Prince Charles's personal characteristics to be a typical example of British people in anything.

Agreed - a bizarre choice.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

First time I heard "aa, aa" and second time "ba ba". Am I weird?

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Another person who heard "ah ah" the first time round and "ah (aha!) ba" the second. Maybe my brain kept its options open. I'd be a terrible lipreader.

Nine

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

First time, I heard ba ba and saw that the lips were doing something else.

[aryky.livejournal.com]

I also heard "ah ah" the first time round. I also don't actually think he is really saying "ba ba ba," or at least not the way the annoying presenter is saying it. The initial sound doesn't sound voiced to me, eyes open or closed, and I strongly suspect it of being an unaspirated /p/. Which can certainly be spelled as "ba" - it is in pinyin! - but it isn't what the annoying presenter says - his /b/ is very clearly voiced and a /b/.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

That peculiar grimace of Charles' is caricatured as 'British' in the Asterix drawings, and some other places. Maybe it's a learned grin, like at boarding schools or something?

Submission without joy...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a learned grin, like at boarding schools or something?

I'm not sure how I feel about the picture that conjures up...

Re: Submission without joy...

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

You know what I mean, similar gestures and body language, right? (Or am I not making sense, it's too hot to think.)

I just know that I've seen that same grin caricatured in many places as typically British, esp. at the posh end.

Re: Submission without joy...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I do think it's a bit of posh look, yes. At the opposite end of the spectrum from the slack-jawed yokel.

Re: Submission without joy...

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yes, that, exactly.