You may have noticed a look being celebrated
among many female characters and actors in movies and TV––
the “wide-eyed girl” look. And it’s not just you;
people have been doting on the look for ages.
In movie history, it’s been admired
by the likes of actors such as Audrey Hepburn,
Shelley Duvall, and Bette Davis,
as well as in animations where the wide-eyed look is taken
to an impossible extreme.
People have compiled lists online of famous wide-eyed women and girls
using various terms: From “enormous alien bug eyes”,
to “doe eyes,” reminiscent of a Bambi-like female deer.
Intuitively, the look communicates
a sense of innocence, youth, and naivety.
The term “wide-eyed” is defined as “naive and full of wonder.”
But even though it conjures up images of baby-like features,
it’s also associated with seduction.
And sometimes it’s also coded as weird, if not creepy.
"One of those famous big eyed paintings is on display tonight.
Like it's cute but it's creepy. Yeah the eyes do follow you."
Amanda Seyfried, who often tops these lists,
once said in an interview that her eyes make her look like a frog.
Anya Taylor-Joy also said she didn’t initially get the positive feedback
she enjoys now.
"I've grown to love my eyes I was really bullied for them when I was little
but now it seems that their the thing that people want from me."
And the look has also been used to inspire horror.
Here’s our take on why the “wide-eyed girl” look
is such an “in” beauty and what exactly about her
so intrigues our culture.
So what do bug eyes and baby faces say of a person?
There’s a famous story about George “Baby Face” Nelson,
a bank robber during the Great Depression.
He was said to inspire trust and innocence due to his baby-like facial features,
yet he was a particularly ruthless killer.
While investigating the babyface phenomenon, science journalist Zaria Gorvett wrote,
“If you’re blessed with big doe eyes, it can help you get ahead
and get away with more than you think” —
which is backed up by the fact that baby-faced defendants found guilty of a crime
have historically received less severe sentences.
And the “babyface overgeneralization hypothesis”
suggests that we’re more likely to dote on and care for adults
with baby faces due to the instinctual urge to care for actual babies.
So in media, big eyes are often used to elicit a sense of love and warmth.
"She has big green eyes and beautiful brown skin."
It’s well-documented that pupils can get bigger
not only due to lighting changes but also due to physical state
and emotion.
According to The Scientific American, pupil enlargement–
which can give the impression of “bigger” eyes–
can denote sexual interest and attraction.
Perhaps the TikTok “pupil test” best illuminates this.
“think of someone and if your pupil expands, you’re in love”
The wide-eyed girl onscreen is an object of desire,
whose appeal essentially stems from a version of the problematic
Lolita ideal.
While the wide-eyed girl might not be explicitly a Lolita
or underage,
she’s a visual combination of youthful innocence and sexiness.
And if biology biases us to see wide eyes as a marker of innocence,
youth, fertility, and therefore sometimes attraction,
this is all reinforced and exploited in media and storytelling.
"Look at this little baby face"
Image makers use wide-eyed girls and women
to represent innocence and beauty
in young female characters throughout our most iconic films and shows.
Costuming and makeup depict this type of femininity
as submissive, pure, and sometimes kinda dumb.
"I have a fifth sense."
We can see the subtle ways big eye obsession
takes root in animation – from the famous “anime eyes”
to the big-eyed Disney princesses whose eyes, some have observed,
can actually be bigger than their waists.
The baby-ish features make cartoon characters endearing to us –
which is why children so readily connect to the big-eyed heroes.
Yet, when Buzzfeed showed us what Disney princesses would look like
with normal-sized eyes, the results actually feel disconcerting.
Making these unrealistic expectations worse today,
we have eye-enlarging phone filters
that allow us to see ourselves with those impossibly proportioned eyes
and even get used to that self-image, despite it being practically unattainable.
"Yes this is real and no you shouldn't do this just for fun"
This glamor trend has inspired extreme plastic surgery.
And that’s not the only way this bizarre fascination
has proven to be harmful.
Today, there are growing concerns that some anime hypersexualizes young girls.
"She’s harassed by men so much it’s painful"
A clear issue arises when this constant reinforcement
pushes beauty standards to get even more “baby-like”,
thus sexualizing actual adolescent girls.
Other cultural fixtures like Bratz dolls contribute to the problem too.
Sarah Simon writes in L’Atelier, “As a 12-year-old,
I related to their plump baby faces… They tugged at a sexy-cute dichotomy
that has influenced female beauty standards for millennia,
encouraging women to be desirable while remaining childlike.
Bratz embody the infantilization of beauty”.
So it’s important to be conscious of how this biological fixation
and influential media messaging can subconsciously alter our perceptions.
When the wide-eyed girl isn’t just sexy,
she can also be creepy or otherworldly.
Dolls, which often look like young girls,
can become terrifying in certain contexts
due to the uncanny valley effect, and their uncertain existence
in-between human and inanimate objects.
"Megan’s not a person Cady, she’s a toy! - You don’t get to say that"
The same may explain the use of the wide-eyed girl trope in horror,
which is having a big moment today with examples like Mia Goth
in various A24 and Neon horror flicks,
Lupita Nyong'o in Us,
and Amie Donald in the new screamer M3GAN.
The wide-eyed girl in horror scares us
because something’s off and she’s not acting
the way the big-eyed babyface should –
like George “Baby Face” Nelson there’s a disconnect
between their supposed, outer innocence,
and the monstrosities they’re actually committing.
Scarlett Johansson famously played a literal alien
wearing a bug-eyed human costume in the eerie sci-fi film, Under The Skin.
This figure might also be playing on the tension and moral discomfort
that results from our culture’s oversexualizing of young girls.
“She’s always been jealous, I’m younger…”
Yet the wide-eyed horror girl, like a doll,
still retains that baby-faced charisma that draws audiences
to her on some level.
Tim Burton – who was influenced
by artist Margaret Keane, the subject of his movie “Big Eyes,” –
has often used big-eyed characters that feel creepy, yet still childlike.
"Why are their eyes so big? The eyes are the window into the soul."
And wide-eyed “weird girl” heroines like Wednesday Addams and Lydia Deetz
combine that endearing admirability with the weirdness of alien eyes.
So the “unnatural appearance” of baby eyes on adult faces
can play as sexy, or creepy, and often both.
Research has found a preference for neotenous faces
across cultures and ethnicities, but the preference for wide eyes
is an especially strong Western beauty standard
(one that’s undoubtedly spread throughout our global culture).
Many of the most high-profile wide-eyed icons are white,
and attractiveness and trust have long been equated with whiteness.
A study from Northwestern University found that Black CEOs in the U.S.
were significantly more baby-faced than White CEOs, and the authors suggested
that this babyface-ness may be a “disarming mechanism
that facilitates the success of Black leaders by attenuating stereotypical perceptions
that Blacks are threatening”.
This research on what the wide-eyed aesthetic
culturally implies gets at what can sometimes be hard to talk about–
that how we look has a big impact on how we live.
Fortunately, today many wide-eyed actors are giving this trope a refresh,
including Aubrey Plaza, who often plays discerning,
intelligent, and attractive women.
"If you can put up with him for five minutes, you can put up with him forever,
He is consistent. A consistent douche?"
Jenna Ortega, who perfectly encapsulates
the horror “weird girl”,
was lauded for her performance as Wednesday Addams,
and is also set to play Lydia Deetz’s daughter in an upcoming Beetlejuice sequel.
Lupita Nyong’o recently took on the role
of fighter-activist Nakia in the Black Panther series.
“If you were not so stubborn, you’d make a great queen”
“I would make a great queen because I am so stubborn."
Amanda Seyfried, who was originally known as Mean Girls’ Karen Smith,
wowed audiences by playing against type
as Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout,
which explored how Holmes’ looks influenced
the tech industry’s treatment of her in a complicated way.
"Why does everybody want to believe in this girl so badly?
Because she's pretty and blonde.
She makes the men in tech and business feel good without challenging them."
And of course, there’s Anya Taylor-Joy–
whose parts in The Queen’s Gambit and The Menu have likewise explored
how the world perceives and potentially misunderstands wide-eyed girls
"Men are gonna come along and want to teach you things.
Doesn’t make them any smarter”
So instead of only casting the “wide-eyed girl”
as someone to coddle, fantasize about, or even fear,
we should take stock in the way culture and media have conditioned us
to view these cherubic features and recognize that humans are much deeper than their peepers.
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