This is a topic I've thought about absently for some time. It first came to mind after the fall of the Iron Curtain when the Eastern block countries opened up and we finally got a look at the people we had been at (cold) war with for decades. We had, up until that time, been fed a line that all of the women were toothless, wretched hags. The only glimpse we would get of them was the occasional still photo of the stereotypical hag standing in rags at the market, waiting for a long-lost, coveted bar of soap. Then, the people started trickling over. I was sort of young and naive at that time, and thought that the supermodels were rare exceptions...."Wow" said I to myself. "She must have been the only good looking woman in Czechoslovakia." Eventually I found out that nearly ALL the women looked like that, overall much much much better looking than the average American. We had been fed a lie. Of course that leads to the question 'why' and alternately, would things have been different if we had known what these women really looked like? Would men have switched politics or perhaps not have protested quite so much? Clearly, there must have been a constructive reason that the Soviets were painted as an ugly race of people when definitely the opposite was true.

So...today we trade with China, but we don't trade with Cuba. We do have lots of little Che Guevera tee shirts that people like to wear (see where I'm going with this?). Could one of the reasons we still don't trade with Cuba be that the men are Godlike hotties? I mean, we let all the Capitalists in (one of them "turned" me ) If Che looked like Bin Laden, he would have probably had no longstanding influence on our population at all, and certainly not in the iconic sense he has today. Have we halted trade for all these years with Cuba, in part, because the men might have an influence on our politics? Could this be one reason why Cuba is about the only country in the entire world that we aren't even permitted to visit?

Questions to be debated:

-Do looks influence politics? (forgone conclusion, but please offer examples if you can think of any)
-Do the looks of indigenous populations influence international politics and how? (I'm thinking of historical acts too, such as the Viking raids on England, taking all of the best looking women...ect)
-If the Taliban looked like Che, would that change anything?
-other thoughts?

-Do looks influence politics? (forgone conclusion, but please offer examples if you can think of any)

Isn't it accepted wisdom that this is the case? That charismatic leaders get elected over ugly ones?


-Do the looks of indigenous populations influence international politics and how? (I'm thinking of historical acts too, such as the Viking raids on England, taking all of the best looking women...ect)

...er thats a myth I think. Most of the Vikings settled in Britain. I'm sure some brought good looking women back to Scandinavia also, but I don't know of anything which says looks had anything to do with that. Consider that Scandinavian women are already the most beautiful women on the planet, why would any one want to abduct a scrawny dark haired Briton?

Maybe I should ask my Dad...

Actually I think one of the reasons why Arabs are so distrusted in the west is exactly because they look so 'shifty', and all those huge beards and hiding women with facial hair under layers of cloth doesn't help them much either. On the other hand young Arab men have such beautiful big brown eyes (or so I keep reading) and the Ayatollah Khomeni looked like Sean Connery only sterner and more commanding so perhaps amongst Arabs, Bin Laden does look like Che!



-If the Taliban looked like Che, would that change anything?

Yes. You wouldn't be able to stop the socialists from attacking the 'decadent west' from within. If Bin Laden had Che's looks (to the western mind) I bet we'd have half our political youth movements openly (as opposed to clandestinely as we currently have) supporting him. After all, since he 'bombed America', to the average socialist he must be good!

It doesn't take much for left wing activists to get the hots for tyrants. Note this observation I came across earlier today as a case in point:


-other thoughts?

My brain hurts.

I offer this nugget from bizarro-land... forget that it's posted on DailyKOS. This is just insane on a level that has to make the Kossacks slap their heads:

QUOTE

I know I’m a Jewish lesbian and he’d probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon...

Okay, I admit it. Part of it is that he just looks cuddly. Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight. I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog. Sort of. With smaller eyes. But that’s not all...

Looks influence Politics and have forever, but far more since TV. Is Che attractive?

I guess you didn't read my post then BA.

Anyway, another thought occured to me just now as I was perusing the news at the BBC. This article came to my attention and it broadened the scope of my musing. The article indicates that it is immoral for a media personality, in this case a famous Bollywood star called Shahrukh Khan (whom I have never even heard of) to endorse a skin lightening product on the basis that he is promoting a 'condescending attitude that many Indians have towards dark-coloured skin'.

It strikes me that there is a parrellel here with the topic at hand and it has as much to do with race as perception. Consider Barak Obama. Is he popular because he is a decent politician? Or is he popular because he is person of colour, and yet still light enough to be considered attractive?

Interesting, moif. I think that Obama's looks have something to do with his popularity. He's definitely better looking than the other candidates...I'm not sure that skin hue, though (since the "others" are fully caucasian). I have to admit I found Kofi Annan very attractive (knew I'd fess up to that one day ) but I don't agree with his politics. Overall, I think it's hard to distain anyone whom you find visually appealing....unless they are absolutely evil. I might argue with Kofi's opinions, but I find him rather likeable in general. If he were ugly I might not feel the same.

Edited to add:

Just thinking further...I think that there is a generally regarded best "range of hues of beauty" for lack of a better term. That's why I get my spray on tan before I go to the beach, or when I am going to an occasion and wish to look especially nice. Few people can pull off the lily-white skin that Kate has in my avatar, and few people are so gorgeous they can pull off skin that is so dark it's blue and still be breathtakingly attractive (though I've seen some of those people). It goes both ways, IMO.

Do looks influence politics? (forgone conclusion, but please offer examples if you can think of any)

Yes - examples? In an era where male attractiveness in the West generally highest among tall slim/muscular men with a neutral (or at least, gently regional accent) around six feet tall or above, how many US Presidents since the advent of colour television have been remotely fat, bald or bearded men with strong regional accents, under 5'10" tall? Not many, if any. They would struggle to get elected so much it's doubtful they would even get a nomination.

In Britain, the last short-to-average height bald man to lead a major political party was Neil Kinnock, who lost the elections following a campaign in which the press (though not his opponents, at least not publicly) mostly concentrated on the fact that he was Welsh (he had an strong Welsh accent - though Scottish ones seem no bar to popularity today), bald, and had freckles and ginger hair. He might not have made a very good Prime Minister, but those are not really the best reasons for believing so.

Do the looks of indigenous populations influence international politics and how? (I'm thinking of historical acts too, such as the Viking raids on England, taking all of the best looking women...ect)

Harder to say, because invariably we still have to look at stereotypes of what populations look like. Even here, your Eastern European example is flawed. Yes, the Slavic bone structure (and the lack of a fast food diet or 60+ hour working weeks to keep peope fat and sedentary) does appear attractive to most Westerners, but it only really works on the young (and for the middle aged or old, for the wealthy). Middle aged or elderly Slavic women tend to look just like the rounded, grumpy-looking scruff-bags that we used to see in those old Cold War news reels of potato queues, but they are not the ones working in Western coffee bars, pubs, nightclubs, catwalks (and - speak it soft - in the "glamour" industry most of us call pornography and/or prostitution).

If you find this unlikely or hard to grasp - what does the average French person look like? Sarkozy? Gerard Depardieu? The average Brazilian? Pele? A dusky lithe beach bunny? Or the skinny freckled gawky-looking white girl who burns on a dull day and drives the sandwich van the calls on my office (she's from Recife).

If the Taliban looked like Che, would that change anything?

Hard to say. It would certainly change their marketing and their media coverage, which would in turn change public perceptions.

Other thoughts

I'd say cultural perceptions are at least as likely to shape our collective mental image of what a particular population looks like (especially if the only contact we've ever had with them is through the media) as their appearance is likely to shape our perception (which is what I think the thread is getting at, i.e. it's not a one-way street).

Thought experiment to illustrate. Imagine you could get a time machine and (assuming they were indeed all real historical figures) go back in time and bring back Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, as they were on their 30th birthday, and bring them to the present day. What do they all look like? Chances are that Moses looks a bit like Charlton Heston, Jesus looks like whatever your church told you he looks like (varying, according to denomination and the race of the majority worshippers there, from a blue-eyed blond Aryan to a black sub-Saharan African), and Mohammed looks like - well, probably like a younger bin Laden to most of us Westerners. Who's the best-looking? Er... Well, it depends on what you find attractive, doesn't it?

I've never subscribed to this idea. I've always imagined that, allowing for differences in fashions of the times they lived, they probably all looked more or less the same to the casual viewer. (I'm not trying to suggest all <insert racial minority here> look the same, by the way).

For example, let's go back to our time-machine derived line-up of prophets and deities, and shave off any beards they may have. Dress them in green camouflaged battle trousers & tunic, with black leather boots. Don't they ALL look just like Klinger from *M*A*S*H* in a particularly intense mood?

Do looks influence politics? (forgone conclusion, but please offer examples if you can think of any)

Obviously they play a role but oratory skills and charisma or lack thereof can put the kabosh on even a cutie like Belinda Stronach. This failed Canadian MP had gone through so many relationships that it affected her work. Wiki proves she's got dependance issues! Maybe this explains why Condi's political life hasn't been as meterioric as Barack's?

Vanity is the curse of the masses on the nobility. I wonder if people have an aversion to be lead by an old dodgy curmudeon-like person like Fred Thompson? I wonder if Perot had to overcome this stigma as well? You are making a hell of a case for misanthropy if placing American Idol-like personalities are the criteria by which people are judged! Reality tv bleh!

Do the looks of indigenous populations influence international politics and how? (I'm thinking of historical acts too, such as the Viking raids on England, taking all of the best looking women...ect)

I'm not sure how to answer this question. For every example I can provide a counter. Does John Howard look like the aboriginees? Does Harper have Buffy-St. Marie features? My perception is that vanity in a society kicked into overdrive with the advent of television and we have suffered for it ever since. We need more Al Bundys!

If the Taliban looked like Che, would that change anything? other thoughts?

The question is do muslim nations have an attraction to Che? I've never considered Che attractive, but then he's got the wrong chromosomes He did have the power of persuasion. So does Gaddafi. So did Lydon Johnson despite his hick drawl. Old Muammar was the only time I ever pondered on looks and leadership. Ugly! Obviously figures like Cleopatra, make a case for competance over looks or a different interpretation of beauty.

You do bring to light an important part of demonizing political opponents which involves the villification of race as your Czech example illustrates. Division is necessary to prevent the public from expressing kinship or sympathy to those affected.