This week on analysing celebrity faces, we take a closer look at Johnny depp. The talented
actor rose to films in his early roles in 21 Jump street, the 1987 version, and more
notably in Pirates of The Carribean which earned him the status of Hollywood's latest
heartthrob who has still managed to remain a beauty icon into his late 50s.
What's interesting about Johnny depp, and what gives him a worldwide appeal are his
average proportions. While Johnny depp doesn't look average, his proportions and ratios are
almost identical to the mean proportions when averaging measurements in a group of individuals.
This importance of “averageness” of a face was found accidentally in the 1800s by
Sir Francis Galton. The English anthropologist tried to visualize a “typical criminal face”
by creating a composite photo by overlaying multiple images of prisoners. Surprisingly
when showing this composite to his colleagues they unanimously agreed that the composite
photo was more attractive than any of the constituent faces which it diverged from .This
finding later developed into the “averageness hypothesis”, a hypothesis that the composites
faces of a population are more attractive than any individual faces within the population
itself. Another experiment tested this theory. The experiment manipulated symmetry,averageness,
and dimorphism of a face, and conducted a two-alternative forced choice simulation where
participants had to choose between the original or edited picture. As predicted both the averaged
and more symmetrical faces were preferred over the original, however averaging the faces
had the greatest effect on attractiveness. It was discussed that this effect was due
to the averaged faces resembling mental representations of a typical face and could be easily processed
by the visual system, and secondly the averaged faces had total bilateral symmetry. Correlation
between averageness and more diverse gene heterozygosity, was also noted in another
study, which suggested that average faces had better immune function. While this may
seem straight-forward now, it’s a crucial part of the Depp appeal.
Unsurprisingly, Johnny looked best in the early 90’s when he was much younger. His
facial proportions and masculine features were best appreciated at a time when his face
was much leaner. Splitting his face into thirds, we see that the lengths are proportional.
His ratios are ideal compared to modern anthropometric measurements. His lower third is proportionally
ideal, being slightly larger than the middle and upper third. This means his middle and
upper third are well balanced, with his lower third being larger due to a taller chin. The
mix of facial harmony with a masculine broad chin does look aesthetic.
His Lower third is also extremely proportionate. His upper lip was ⅓ of his LAFH (lower anterior
facial height), while his lower lip and chin made up ⅔. This is equal to leonardo da
Vinci's hypothesis of a proportional relationship between the lower and upper half of the lower
third. Even more interesting is if you divide his lower third into thirds again, taking
upper lip, lower lip, and chin his ratios are 31%, 27%, and 41%. This is almost exactly
the proposed ideal found by Farkas et al. in later cephalometric studies.
Looking at his face as a whole he has a very aesthetic masculine tapered jaw. Again this
is extremely common for the hollywood look, and happens as a results of 1) a wide bizygomatic
width (distance horizontally from cheekbone to cheekbones) and 2) A wide bigonial width
(distance horizontally from widest part of mandible to mandible). This combination with
low body fat which is essential for maximum aesthetic appeal, creates the wide masculine
jaw with a nice taper or more accurately an inclined Ogee curve. Measuring Johnny depps
face and comparing his bizygomatic:bigonial width we see his ratio bizygomatic:bigonial
ratio of 90%. Since the average male has a bizygomatic width:bigonial width of 70%, we
can see why his face looks masculine. His ratio of 90% is again considered the ideal
for aesthetics, which was discussed in detail in our video about the ideal jaw using Mommaerts
2016 study on the ideal male jaw.
Johnny's wide cheekbones also give him a very wide FWHR of 1.96. As discussed in previous
videos, FWHR is the ratio of face width, to face height. FWHR is dimorphic, and studies
have even shown that higher FWHR makes people seem more dominant and aggressive (1). We
also note that Johnny depp has a harmonious face which is helped by his compact midface.
Taking his midface ratio; the distance from the midpoint of the pupils to the top of the
lips we see that it is exactly one. That shows that his midface is technically a square,
and everything is placed evenly and harmoniously. Vertically shorter faces, wider faces are
almost always more attractive on men and his mix of feminine softness in the eye region
only adds extra balance.
Despite this there is more to Johnny depp than just a harmonious face with average proportions.
In a classic study of facial attractiveness, Perrett et al. aimed to investigate if averageness
was really the crucial decider of facial aesthetics. In this experiment Perrett photographed 60
women in equal light conditions. He then made a composite image of the 60 women, and then
a composite of the 15 most attractive woman (as rated by one group of participants on
a scale of 1-7), resulting in a hyper-attractive composite. The hyper-attractive image was
manufactured by exaggerating the attractive qualities of the attractive composite. The
findings were intriguing with the hyper attractive composite being ranked as most attractive,
despite mathematically being the least average of composites. Specific deviations from the
average configuration lead to increased perceptions of facial attractiveness, and these morphological
patterns were dimorphic. What this means, averageness gives you the blank canvas to
draw on, there are no unusual cosmetic defects and dimorphically attractive features help
paint the painting.
Given the research it makes sense to predict that Johnny depps universal appeal comes not
only from his averageness, but also from his prominent attractive features. One feature
which Johnny Depp was known for were his hollow cheeks. Hollow cheeks are a result of prominent
high set zygomatic bones, and little buccal fat in the area between the zygomatic bones
and the mandible. We see from his ¾ profile that Johnny depp has a prominent Ogee curve
as a result of a large zygomatic projection. An Ogee curve is an imaginary s shaped curve
which happens to curve as a result of contrast with high cheekbones tapering to the mandibles
and is a reliable method of qualitatively seeing the strength of the cheekbone prominence.
A quantitative method to measure cheekbone size is by Powel’s analysis which indicates
where the most prominent part of Depp’s face. The further laterally outwards the intersection
of these lines as shown in orange the larger and further outwards the cheeks are in relation
to the midface. This is important because big faces can have big cheekbones by numbers
alone, but they're not always prominent because the midface is not always the right size.
Moving on, Johnny depp's eye area is also masculine but nothing unusually over the top.
His eyes match the average proportions and the rule of fifths. If we cut them into 5ths,
all 5ths are equal. This means his eyes have equal length, and are spaced ideally. Johnny
depp also has hooded eyes. Hooded eyes are eyes where the upper eyelid is not visible,
reducing upper eyelid exposure into the lower end of ideal at 1-2mm (Neimkin et al). This
is because the low and prominent positioning of the supraorbital rims provides support
to the upper eye region covering much of his upper eye. These hooded eyes are masculine
and argued to be an adaptation to combat and hunting, protecting the eyeball from trauma.
Hooded eyes are also less neotenous, as the brow ridge grows during puberty due to testosterone.
Our previous video’s analysis of Adam Driver’s face revealed the same features but on an
even more exaggerated scale with stronger brow ridges and browbones strongly poking
out of the skin. Check that out after this and if you’re enjoying the content so far,
support the channel by subscribing.
However, the man isn’t perfect. When we look at his undereye support we see his first
flaw. Johnny Depp's infraorbital rims are recessed. This type of contour depression
can manifest itself in different ways for most people, but commonly lead to dark circles
and nasojugal fat pads due to fluid and soft tissue buildup. You can even see it here where
he has on a permanent squint to keep his lower eyelid up due to the lack of support, the
quote on quote smouldering, or blue steel look. If you would like to learn more about
these cosmetic flaws, we have full article write ups from actual doctors over at the
qoves website.
One form of aging as defined by“Facial Aesthetics Concepts and Clinical Diagnosis” is the
loss of uniformly distributed fat. Looking at the undereye area, If Johnny Depp had prominent
infraorbital bone the atrophy of his fat wouldn't be visible as there would be hard tissue under
his eye. However, the absence of hard tissue due to his recessed undereye region causes
the pronounced aged look. The significance of the inferior orbit, aka lower eye socket
in ageing is often overlooked and not only do prominent infraorbitals help hide aging,
but recessed infraorbitals can be mistaken for premature aging according to “Fabio
Meneghini and Paolo Biondis’ book on Clinical Facial Analysis” We touched on this in our
analysis of Mad’s Mikkelelsen where his masculine periocular region is part of why
he has aged so gracefully.
Looking for the flaws on Johnny depp's face is much harder than pointing out his positive
features. Researcher noted that the appeal for averaged faces was the absence of large
discrepancies and deviations, in other words lack of flaws. This hypothesis is consistent
with Johnny depp's seemingly absent flaws because his positive features draw attention
away.
If we were to nitpick however, one could criticise his mouth proportions. Firstly we see that
the Oral commissures (corners) are also not of equal lengths on both sides, and drawing
a horizontal line along his lips we can see they are not even. This is because on the
right side of the high point of the vermillion there is less vertical height compared to
the left side. The commissures are also not even, with right side commissure has a positive
tilt while the left has a negative tilt. These are small flaws, and his lips still are proportionate
with his upper lip:lower lip ratio being the ideal 1.6. However, even this being a flaw
is debatable as mild asymmetry is normal. Interestingly there have even been studies
where images were manipulated to create perfect symmetry, but the original slightly asymmetrical
version was preferred.
Lastly, we wouldn't be doing the worst pirate you’ve ever heard of justice if we didn’t
talk about his hair. He for the most part has always maintained some variation of a
middle parted look. I promise the video on mens hairstyles is coming out soon, but typically
men with square faced jaws look best with more feminine, longer hairstyles, for instance
Cillian Murphy keeps his hair long off set, but had it cut short in Peaky Blinders as
gangsters back then did so to avoid lice. Even for someone with a very shapely head
such as him, cutting the hair too high up to the natural part makes the face start to
appear rounded and feminine again, so ideally it should go up to the temples and no higher.
Back to Depp however, his middle part curtains work best because it's a softer hairstyle
on a masculine face shape. As studies have found, contrast between the face shape and
hairstyle is attractive in men. Likewise, the drooping bangs also help cover aspects
of his ageing hairline and since he has strong bone structure that’s not reliant on soft
tissue which tends to sag, this adds to him ageing more gracefully than most 50 year old
men. When his hair is pulled tightly to the sides, he doesn’t have the facial masculinity
in the upper third, so mainly the sharp inclination of the forehead to pull off the look, instead
looking like a sorry Tim Burton character. Granted that John ham is younger, but his
appearance is far more masculine than Depp’s who has more feminine pretty boy features.
As explained in the skull shape video with examples, the shape of the upper third and
face shape dictate if you can pull off this swept back look, and the more angular the
forehead the better.
However all of this aside, the main reason for his preference could just be much simpler.
It’s from a period in the 90s where it was the norm, and he simply stuck with it because
he could. It’s very different to a middle aged man suddenly adopting a middle part to
hide a bald spot, instead it’s something that works with his hairline and has grown
with his style. Another analogy would be British billionaire, Richard Branson who has always
kept his long flowing mane and has an even more masculine face than Depp that works with
the style regardless of age.
If you’ve enjoyed the content, subscribe to the channel and leave a comment down below
on what you thought and who you would like to see next. If you would like for your face
to be analyzed and learn about your features, you can order an aesthetics report over at
the qoves website.