Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Who’s Afraid of Megan Fox?

For reasons not entirely clear to me, Megan Fox has in the last several years ascended to “it girl” status.

MeganFox

I don’t get it.  I mean, yeah, she’s beautiful, but beauty isn’t exactly hard to find among working actresses.  Yet somehow, Megan Fox has become our blogring’s reigning standard of female pulchritude.

Why?  By what standard is Megan Fox really more beautiful than this woman:

bettydraperinrome

This isn’t even my favorite shot from Betty Draper’s visit to Rome.  My favorite shot is when she smiles, and her sparkling countenance lights up the . . . well, sound stage, probably, but the point is, I would pick January Jones over Megan Fox every day of the week and twice on Sunday, yet she never gets the buzz that Fox gets.

This isn’t just a face vs. body issue, BTW.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a racial difference, or perhaps a sub-racial one. The blonde tends more strongly toward the dolichocephalic, Nordic pole, where the brunette has an intermediate, rounder face with fewer planes.

Of the two specimens under consideration, I find the blonde more attractive, but this is the reverse of my usual predilection for round-skulled brunettes of the Celtic and (light-skinned) mediterranean types.

Anonymous said...

With the odd rare exception, most actresses in Hollywood are attractive by nearly any standard. I find it interesting which actresses are considered particularly comely and which ones are just run-of-the-mill gorgeous.

I know that it's unpopular to say so in a lot of HBD circles, but I do think that some of it simply comes down to subjective beauty. A collective, subjective decision to pick someone out of the crowd and then the rest of guys (and ladies) to "follow the leader" in validating someone's relatively arbitrary decision.

I mean, I know that there are a lot of objective standards which determined the aggregate response, but I think that when it comes to Hollywood actresses, we really start picking nits, making decisions on subjective preferences, and being told to find especially attractive.

Justin said...

Cricky, Phi, this one is pretty obvious, boiling down to the sluttiness factor. We live in the Glorified Slut Epoch, and Megan Fox is exhibit A. Why are sluts more popular than the demure beauties?

Something to do with shiskas, no?

Dr. Φ said...

Justin: I think you're on to something, but I suspect that Trumwill is right that the difference between "slut" and "demure" is mainly a difference in marketing. For instance, according to Wikipedia, Fox's breakout role was the Transformers, in which I do not recall thinking that her role was especially slutty by Hollywood standards.

Since Transformers, Fox has played to the Maxim audience more successfully than Jones has, and she has helped circulate more salacious details of personal life in the media. All of this adds up to more opportunities to market herself as a slut, as in her Superbowl commercial.

She may have some built in advantage by appearing to be racially exotic, but I suspect that plays a relatively minor role in this instance.

Thursday said...

This one is simple: Fox is just plain hotter. The two are only comparable by choosing one of Jones's best photos with one of Fox's worst.

Dr. Φ said...

Well . . . I think this is only half true. Jones as Betts never looked so stirring as she did in the Rome episode with her hair done that way. But Jones in other pictures looks pretty hot even by Maxim standards. And while Fox was unlucky in my choice of photograph, I haven't seen any pictures of her that justify Roissy's designation of "one of the hottest girls on the planet" (or something).

Anonymous said...

I just GoogleImaged her... while the picture presented is unflattering, I still agree with Phi in that there's nothing utterly remarkable about her by hot celebrity standards. She reminds me a bit of Jennifer Connally, but not quite as fetching.

knightblaster said...

Fox has more the porn/slut/sex-hot look. It's not really about "who is more beautiful", but, as Thursday says, who is "hotter" in a strictly sexual sense. By that standard, Fox wins -- she exudes sex.

I also think that Transformers thrust her onto the scene, before many male eyes, in a way that Mad Men has not done for Jones, and in a very different light. I remember very well sitting in the theater with my young son watching Transformers when Fox was first "displayed" on the screen -- it was an extremely sexualized pose and so on, and that is the way they played with her character in the film. It was, for lack of a better word, "hot".

Anonymous said...

My standard of feminine beauty is of course a bit, ahem, unorthodox (and you can be 100% sure that both these ladies do not meet that standard), but the fact remains that Megan Fox looks quite a bit older than her actual age of 24 or 25. You can see that not just in this picture but in many others. It's not an issue now, but you have to wonder how well she'll age as she gets into her 30's and beyond.

Peter

knightblaster said...

Just a bit more on this one.

Jones is a very attractive woman, no doubt, yet she seems more “normal attractive” than Fox does. Here are a few flattering pictures of Jones:

http://bit.ly/avvjHM

http://bit.ly/cax2dh

http://bit.ly/bPcQ90

And here are a few similar ones of Fox:

http://bit.ly/c5L7tB

http://bit.ly/9hbuBb

http://bit.ly/a090uU

Again both are quite beautiful women, but there is something “hotter” about Fox, I think. Perhaps she’s a bit more unique looking – as in her odd eye color (probably fake but there it is), or the hair or the collagen lips or what have you. I’ll agree that Fox comes across as more “contructed”, but she also seems to come across as hotter, perhaps as a result of that construction.

In any case, this is an argument about a small difference. I do think that Fox gets more attention because of the way she burst on the scene with Transformers more than anything else.

Unknown said...

Is Megan Fox a "slut? She's a 24-yr-old married woman who has been romantically linked with only one man (her now husband) since she was a teenager. If anything, she exemplifies the highly sexual yet faithful to one man (who is lower-status, to boot) fantasy woman.

Dr. Φ said...

Gcatal: that's true, which is why I stressed that "slut" was a matter of branding. Jones at 32 has never been married, but in her public statements says that she just wants to have a family. Fox is married, but her public statements are hints that she's bi-.

dienw said...

This might explain why Fox is "hotter."

Anonymous said...

I think this is linked to her Transformer roles. Not only is she hot on screen, but she goes home with the nerdy gamma(LeBuef). This cements her image in the minds of the male movie goers as "I have a chance with her". Thus enhancing her desirability and hotness.

For most beta men, the blond is recognizably "out of our league" so her hotness is diminished.

Thursday said...

There's a lot of exquisitely fine detail in Fox's facial features that adds up after awhile to the highest level of beauty. Jones face gets the main things right, but there's a bit of bluntness, a slight crudeness in her features.

For me, Fox is hot despite her wild girl image. For example, those tattoos are really tacky.