Speaker A
today on the channel we're going to be taking a look at Monica Bellucci. As per popular request, you see, Monica is what's considered the prime example of a face that fits nearly almost all Western beauty standards, and it's not surprising that she's renowned as having been one of the most classically beautiful faces ever. Monica began her modeling career quite young, at 13, and by her mid-20s had already strung up an impressive modeling resume. She signed with Elite Model Management, which is still quite a popular modeling agency even to this day, and she has also done work for Dolce & Gabbana and French Vogue. In that sense, the Italian native had a generic road into the modeling and acting space. She soon after began acting and has received multiple awards and nominations, winning the European Golden Globe as one of them. Her looks clearly play a large part in her career success, especially with her roots in modeling. She soon after would be seen in Men's Health rankings of some of the most attractive women of all time and other lists of desirable women, and not much has changed in that respect, where she even claims the title of the oldest Bond girl, starring in the role at 50. Whereas some actors and actresses have a lot more subjectivity revolving around their attractiveness, I don't think there is a whole lot of debate as to whether Monica is attractive by Western beauty standards. She clearly fits the mold of a Western beauty icon, and even by today's standards her facial features and dental facial morphology, basically the bone structure, is not something that would be unexpected. Monica has a high degree of facial dimorphism, meaning she looks traditionally feminine. A combination of facial proportions and features give her that traditionally feminine appearance, and the most glaring ones are full lips and a small nose. An exceptionally small nose is considered a neotenous or juvenile facial feature, and Monica's is quite slender and small in the frontal profile. In the side profile it is harmoniously projected and would not be classified as too large or too small of a nose. As a whole, her nose is one of the definingly feminine facial characteristics. The golden ratio of 1.618 is commonly used in defining facial beauty, and unsuitably so in some contexts. On the channel we've made many videos as to why the golden ratio is a poor indicator of how attractive someone is, and this ratio simply doesn't apply to every facial feature. However, in Monica's case, the mouth width is just about 1.61 times wider than her nose width, which does seem to align with the theory of the golden ratio. Even though we don't really agree with that on the channel, in this specific instance the golden ratio has some merit to it, but the idea is that the mouth width and nose harmonize well with one another, where an overly small mouth or an overly thin nose is not aesthetically pleasing. A study by Broadbent and Leftdag notes the classical proportions of the mouth being 1.5 times wider than the nose as a comparison point in their research. A plastic surgeon would consider these types of proportional relationships, as well as ethnic variation of typical and harmonious nose shapes, where viewing the nose in isolation would be a big mistake. Being male also throws this golden ratio idea out of the window, because men just have a lot of wider noses on average that can still look good. For those reasons, we don't really agree with the golden ratio being used in beauty research, like a lot of other channels talk about. Another neotenous trait is having a smaller, narrower mouth. Despite Monica having a narrower mouth, her mouth is still considerably wider than her nose, which shows just how slim her nose is. Her nose bridge sits between the inner canthi, or the inner corners of the eyes. These are not hard and fast rules for beauty, but a lot of attractive faces do fit into this standard, and the idea here is that Monica has a feminine nose and mouth that still harmonize well with her other facial features, like her eye spacing. As we can see, there is some order to the arrangement of things on her face. The really obvious facial feature that contributes to her modeling and acting success is basically her high cheekbones and strong jawline. The selection bias of high cheekbones in models and actresses has remained for decades, and probably even longer. Monica has exceptionally high zygomatic bones, which really give her midface an uplifted, youthful appearance. We can see that her cheekbones pop out really close to the eyes, in both the front view and the three-quarter profile. The midface region, especially the tissue and bone surrounding the eyes, begins to typically sag with age. This is another reason why high cheekbones are attractive, because they are a strong youth indicator. We've already touched on high cheekbones being a feminine characteristic that typically develops under higher estrogen levels in women. For this video, here's the secret to modeling cheekbones: facial aesthetics 101, the O-G curve. There is a trend here, where Monica has an unmistakable combination of youthful and feminine features, and these are always going to be part of the recipe that traditionally makes an attractive feminine face, by both Western and Eastern beauty standards, because there is agreement between the two cultures as to what makes a face attractive. We can all agree that youthfulness is something that applies to both men and women with age. We can also see Monica develop some fine lines and other totally normal signs of the aging process, but the severity of these symptoms of aging do not tie into the underlying bone structure. Since Monica has that strong foundation of high cheekbones, her face doesn't seem to be melting with age, and this is one of the core benefits of having stronger facial features. Just look at Math Mikkelsen, who is much older but also has very sharp facial features that don't sink like fat and soft tissue do. The first area to notice loss of facial volume is the under-eye region, as we start to lose fat deposits and volume here. Even though we don't see that in Monica as she progressively ages, the zygomatic bones and the maxillary bones, so the cheekbones and the upper jaw bones comprising her midface, still give her a youthful appearance even as she approaches 60. All of that is because of strong bone structure. The important thing to note is that Monica had, and still has to a degree, useful facial features, because the dental facial growth, or the way that her face developed, still lends itself to looking more youthful than somebody who doesn't have those features, and the face really tends to sag, playing into her midface bones. Her prominent facial growth also extends to her lower jaw. Her jaw structure is aesthetically attractive by both cephalometric and orthodontic standards. In other words, we can measure and point out exactly why the jaw is attractive. First, it's lean. She has a defined jawline, and that's step one for most faces. In biology, this is called facial robusticity. As for the actual shape, it's forward grown and not overly projected. Her jaw angle is around 123 degrees, which is in the aesthetically desirable range for women, but it is more on the masculine side. We've already touched on Monica's facial femininity and youthfulness, but she also has some mature characteristics to her bone structure as well. The base is defined with a sharp jawline, a visible O-G curve, and angular bone structure. These are not juvenile traits, not something you would see on a young infant, but rather ontogenous traits that make her look more matured, more like a woman. In fact, some facial maturity, especially in the facial angularity department, is attractive for both men and women. After all, neither women nor men want to be judged as having childlike traits like naivety or physical weakness for the rest of their life. Most attractive faces have both youthful and matured facial features as an indicator. An excerpt from the book Love, Romance, Sexual Interaction by Nathanie
