﻿Few people are quite as established and renowned in the Hollywood scene as Ryan Gosling. A name
known to many on the world stage, he supposedly defines the pinnacle of masculine aesthetics.
His charisma and attractiveness have not only catapulted him into Hollywood's elite,
but also cemented his role in romantic movies such as the Notebook, and La La Land. Interestingly,
when compared to other actors like Brad Pitt, Tom hanks, or Chris Hemsworth, Ryan gosling's face
deviates from the Hollywood prototype. He doesn't have a masculine jaw or striking eyes, and unlike
the men depicting male beauty standards, Ryan Gosling has certain indiscreet facial flaws.
His eyes in particular are one such feature which deviates far from the defined
“Ideal”. His palpebral fissure length, the actual eye opening itself is only 27.5mm.
This is smaller than the average of 29mm, and compared to long vertically narrow eyes,
is not considered ideal. His intercanthal width or the distance from eye to eye of 30.29mm is
also less than the average of 33mm. Normally, this would mean his Interpupillary distance
would be narrow creating close set eyes, however since his eye length is narrow his interpupillary
distance is also below average. Interestingly, not only is a wider
Interpupillary distance associated with increased perceptions of intelligence, but it is actually
correlated with IQ. High interpupillary distance resembles the eyes of a dolphin,
while a very narrow interpupillary distance looks more like a cyclops which could be
where these perceptions come from. . For reference, an extreme example such
as Sean O’pry has an eye width of 31mm (3 standard deviations above Ryan).
This changes the positioning of his eyes to take up more of the face. For proportion, the blackline
should intersect the medial canthus, and the white line would intersect the limbus or inner iris,
both of which are mis-positioned on his face. With most conventionally attractive men in Hollywood,
this is not the case and their eyes match their facial width with near perfect proportion
Although unconfirmed, many believe that Ryan suffers from , aka Lazy eye, leading to much of
the associated asymmetry we see here. To test if the eyes are truly as asymmetric as they seem, a
chimeric morph of his two halves were produced, And overlaid, correcting for jaw width,
showing that its not as bad as it seems but it is definitely noticeable and detracts a few points.
His left eye is closer to the facial midline than the right,
which most people are incredibly perceptive to, but cannot accurately pinpoint.
His eyes also disrupt the harmony of his facial fifths, since his eye opening length is small.
Ideally all fifths should be equal, but Goslings narrow width, and narrow eye fissure lengths
cause large discrepancies. His eyebrows are proportionally long for his eyes,
as normally the peak of the eyebrow lines up with the eye limbus for men, but in this case
it's closer to the lateral canthus (8.4mm away from the limbus), indicating a larger eye shape
would be more appropriate for his brows. As we’ve covered in our most recent video on brows,
this is a variation of the westmore shape and is very well suited to his face shape giving him a
soft, placid appearance which suits his on screen appeal. However, a bit of a longer, thicker brow
would do well to add some additional masculinity while balancing out his close set eyes.
The uniqueness of his features is that despite these fundamental ratios not being ideal, he
still manages to look good, but why is that? To truly answer the question, we need to take some
more measurements which are part of what makes a high-trust face. His long midface
is compensated for by a tall overall face length. His facial height is 225mm, with
a large chin making up 36% of the facial thirds with the midface at 31% and upper third at 33%, so
theres clearly some disproportion there too. Side profile analysis shows us that his tall chin
is actually due to his jaw angle of 133. This is definitely on the more feminine,
pretty-boy side rather than square and masculine at less than 125. Think of a
drill sergeant vs a Kpop star. With more of the jaw being pointed downwards this increases
his facial length and makes the face narrower. While lower gonial or jaw angles are preferred on
men for masculinity , Ryan Gosling controversially benefits from this increased vertically downward
growth. Without this downward growth, his chin would be too short and his lower facial height
would be negatively impacted. In other words, the positive effect a lower, masculine gonial angle
would have on the side profile is less than the negative effect it would have on his chin
height which is necessary to balance out his long midface. It should also be noted that the
same study which found a relation between IPD and Intelligence, also found the same effect
in facial height and intelligence. What for most people would be a flaw, works to
his favour given how tall his face is. This combination of tall midface, tall chin,
deep jaw and close set eyes, exhibits a trustworthy nature. This is partly because facial
perceptions of friend or foe are more sensitive to the vertical height of the midface than its width.
Findings by Carre et al has shown that vertically taller midfaces such as Ryans are perceived
as more trustworthy and vice versa for shorter ones appearing more aggressive and deceitful.
While Ryan has above average width, it also has above average height which is more important.
One study indicated that it takes individuals 170 milliseconds to infer if a stranger is trustworthy
or not, based on facial appearance alone and this is based on the dimensions of the midface.
These character attributions show broad cross-cultural consensus
and they often result from overgeneralizing perceptions of a face
to quickly gather valid information such as emotional state or fitness,
you know, things that would tell your ancestors not to mess with this one particular guy.
In short, having features such as Ryan Goslings, of the mentioned high trust midface has been shown
to give individuals of different cultures all over the world, similar perceptions of
safety and loyalty. Conversely, having the facial features of a UFC fighter or boxer would likely
have the opposite effect. Ryan just looks like someone you could trust to babysit your children,
and part of the comes from his imperfections making him more human.
Researchers tested this, and investigated children's responses to faces which had been
morphed to appear more trustworthy (3 standard deviations more than average). The children
overwhelmingly chose the trustworthy faces to be nicer. While the evidence isn't concrete,
there are numerous factors which cause a face to look higher trust such as the lips,
nose, and eyes. Looking at Ryan Gosling's face he has: Higher trust eyes due to their beadier,
close set size, a thinner nasal bridge, positively inclined oral commissions,
and a broad forehead all of which are juvenile features. In comparison, Kit Harington appears
to have a lower trust face because of his: vertically long eyes, larger nasal bridge,
negatively tilted oral commissions and compact midface. These extremely dimorphic, almost feline
features are the opposite of Gosling’s average, easy to understand ones. His imperfections, from
the eyes to the crooked nose and tall face make him a more relatable face compared to a perfectly
sculpted statue of a person. It is obvious that even Hollywood recognizes these traits in their
character selection, and therefore Gosling was allowed to star as a dreamy eyed romantic
in the notebook, while Kit harington was sent to fight white walkers in game of thrones.
Ryan Gosling also appears as a high class individual. While this seems presumptuous,
there is surprisingly a significant correlation between facial features and social class.
A recent metaanalysis with various datasets concluded “ various measures of social class
tap into the same latent construct of class, and, perhaps more important, people’s perceptions of
various facets of class interrelate strongly. This suggests that perceivers detect the underlying
construct of social class, regardless of how they are asked to judge social class.
The Author tested different data sets, and defined social class in different ways, but still
found that people were able to estimate social class based solely on facial cues.
Other than good health, there are two equally interesting hypotheses why there are deviations
in face which can be linked to social class. The first is that historically, In higher classes
there were clear differences in sexual selection. Male opted for femininity, youthfulness, and
attractiveness. Females however, often compensated for a lack of attraction with wealth and status
since income and gender inequality were much more prevalent. This created an attractiveness
imbalance in high class families where the mother was usually more attractive than the father,
leading to the sons having more prominent feminine attractive characteristics. The Habsburgs Jaw
was a phenomenon where individuals had both mandibular prognathism and maxillary deficiency.
It was found that this was caused due to high inbreeding coefficients in the royal family.
This is just one such example where repeated choices in sexual selection
does have significant alterations in the facial structure of noble or wealthier groups.
The second theory explains this phenomenon through social evolution. Working class males
with professions such as blacksmiths and hunters needed to rely on fighting success and strength
to survive while upper class males such as merchants needed intelligence to survive. This
leads to facial differences, observed as “fighting success” overtime such as a more pronounced
browridge to protect the eyes. When we analyse the difference between low perceived fighting success
and high fighting success, we see a similar trend to high social class and low social class.
A 2013 study compared the facial morphology of Finnish soldiers in WW2, with their percentage
of survival, reproductive success, and rank. To ensure similar success of survival,
soldiers were primarily gathered from two infantry regiments. The study concluded that
while higher FWHR individuals had higher fighting success and aggression, thinner
faced individuals had higher ranks. Despite this FWHR didnt have an impact on survival,
presumably because higher FWHR individuals, while appearing more aggressive, had lower ranks
and so their better fighting chance survivability would be cancelled out by being sent in as cannon
fodder. The study concluded, “Wider-faced males exploit trust more often, and others tend to trust
thinner-faced males more readily,” which led to getting higher leadership positions Pre-Conflict.
Not only does this support the hypothesis, but also that a relatively thinner face, i.e tall and
relatively narrow like Goslings, increases trust and looks high class simply by association.
These facial attributes are also noted in Hollywood castings such as The Crown’s actor
Matt Smith. His long midface and tall skull are why he was chosen to represent the noble portrayal
of Prince Philip. However since Ryan Gosling's appeal comes from his high trust, high class and
overall social status he looks significantly worse without proper grooming to someone more
conventionally handsome such as Brad Pitt, Henry Cavil or a disheveled Idris Elba..
While Ryan may not be conventionally attractive, he is a good example of
alternative appeal. His features aren’t very masculine or dimorphic,
in fact they’re plain and unassuming but this coincidentally makes him the perfect typecast
for his roles as someone who relies on charm and wit. In contrast, someone who is extremely
masculine and dimorphic such as John Hamm or Henry Cavil, gets portrayed as the all powerful
Übermensch who imposes his will, most notably in the latest Witcher series. while trustworthy faces
like Ryan’s rely on being comedic relief or the suave savior but never the macho man. Both can be
attractive, but its important to realise Ryans attraction comes from his on screen portrayal,
much like how Robert Downey Junior is both ironman on and off screen, while some of
the truly handsome faces in hollywood were known before they ever made a movie.
If you would like to get your own face assessed, you can order an Aesthetics report
over at the qoves website and subscribe to the channel to catch future content.