Big mouth strikes again:

Henry, what an interesting hypothesis.  If it were true, I wonder what
the implications would be...

Leonardo da Vinci, in his Notebooks, says that the human mouth is
equal to "a n o f", which is, as far as I can make out, the distance
from the apex of the eyebrow to the bottom of the eye.  In other
words, it is conceivable that the big mouth thing is working alongside
the idea of "big eyes" - which in itself has various implications,
such as perceived intelligence, etc, etc.

Similarly, mathematicians believe that the perfect mouth size is a
working of the nose size and the golden ratio/Fibonacci
sequence/"phi".  In other words, if the nose is 1, then the perfect
mouth size would equal 1.61803399.  The implication of this is that
these girls have big noses as well...

(Although, according to LdV's Vitruvian Man, the width of the base of
the nose is equal to the width of the eye; eye-nose-mouth seem
interlinked in such a manner that it's not just the mouth...!)

Evidently, in a slightly more lascivious sense, the thoughts that a
male casting director might have about a lady's oral capacities could
well be determined by mouth size (and overlapping vocabulary: labia;
orifice [literally a 'mouth made']; I wonder if there is also a Tricky
Dicky Nixonian/X Files link between truth speakers and mouth sizes,
meaning that those with big mouths are also those with "deep throats";
in addition, one might link "or / os" [Latin for mouth] to the French
"os" [bone].)  It might sound facile, but perhaps such lewdness is
working unconsciously in the (straight) male mind somewhere...

[Is Julia Roberts' joke in Erin Brockovich about having to give blow
jobs to all those people to get them to testify made more memorable
because, well.... Who knows?]

In his paper, "Mouth size and food size in young rainbow trout - salmo
gairdneri," GF Hartman puts forward the hypothesis that "although
mouth size imposes a limit on food swallowed, the structure and
reactions of food organisms may result in a considerable discrepancy
between width of the prey and mouth width of the smallest fish which
can prey upon it."  (Hartman, Copeia, 1958:3, 1958, pp. 33-34).

Karpouzi and Stergiou also put forward a similar argument: "trophic
level... could be expressed as an asymptotic function of mouth area"
(VS Karpouzi & KI Stergiou, "The relationships between mouth size and
shape and body length for 18 species of marine fishes and their
trophic implications," Journal of Fish Biology, 62:6, June 2003, pp.
1353-1365).

Again, these might seem random examples to bring up - in that mouth
size is in fact NOT related to successful trophyism/feeding.  BUT, the
very fact that researchers went out there and looked for such a link
suggests that, even if a large mouth does not in truth say "big
feeder/Big Fish," somewhere in the human psyche, we think that it
does.  In other words: a big mouth tells us "this person is an alpha."
 (Even if this impression is in fact false.)

Hence, perhaps, the formerly popular appeal of phrenology: we like to
read meaning into anatomical features (like big hands and big feet),
when in fact these impressions are meaningless - except that they are
NOT meaningless insofar as people actually believe them to be true...
And perception has often outweighed empiricism...

Of course, Deleuze and Guattari say that a mouth is in turn "an
eating-machine, an anal machine, a talking-machine, or a
breathing-machine (asthma attacks)" (Anti-Oedipus, p. 2 of the Athlone
edition).  I wonder if there is scope for looking at how the mouths of
these actresses work in their movies... Do we have close ups on the
mouth?  What is the mouth doing?  How often do these actresses eat?
Do they smoke?  Vomit? etc etc.

With regard to specific actresses, I think that there are perhaps
exceptions to your rule.  Renée Zellweger has a minute little button
of a mouth, for example, even if she has quite pouty lips.

However, maybe there has been a sea change over time.  Louise Brooks,
for example, had a pretty small mouth, as did Brigittes Helm and
Bardot, whilst the big mouth phenomenon might have started with, say,
Cher and Sally Field in the 1970s and 1980s.  Lindsay Lohan has a
pretty wide orifice, too, as does Cate Blanchett, although Nicole
Kidman does not.  Has anyone, however, noticed how small the mouths
are on anime girls in the manga tradition?  What can we read into that
particular proclivity?

Interestingly, Jolie, Diaz and Roberts are all between 5'8" and 5'9",
whilst Scarlett J is the exception, being a wee 5'4".  Maybe there is,
however, a height correlation?

Also: how does a wide mouth look in Widescreen?  If they still shot on
Academic, might these ladies' mouths be "normal"?  (Somewhere around
1:1.31415927 nose:mouth as opposed to the Golden Ratio.)

All interesting stuff...!

Let me know what your research yields!

Best

William

>  1. Big mouth hypothesis (2)
> Date:    Sun, 10 Jun 2007 21:17:10 +0200
> From:    "Henry M. Taylor" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Big mouth hypothesis
>
> To become a female star in Hollywood these days, it seems to me that
> you have to fulfill one major precondition: you must have, quite
> literally, a big mouth. Among actresses with huge lips and mouths
> just consider the following: Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson,
> Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts...
>
> Or am I only imagining this...? Any comments?
>
> Henry
>

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