Persons interested in pooh-poohing a thread taking its impetus from photos of prominent politicians are invited to hang it in their ear.
How much damage did Al Gore do to the environment with all that brilliantine, am I right? Am I right?
Dang, this thread's plumb stupid.
So it turns out that George Sr. is kinda hot, huh?
He really does look like Will Ferrell
Racist.
Cheney looks like Back to the Future's Biff Tannen, which is fitting. Yay physiognomy!
Interesting. The only ones who look like douches are McCain, Cheney, and Gore if you take an uncharitable interpretation of the baffled look on his face.
Jimmy Carter looks kind of terrifyingly tortured.
7: I was just thinking the same thing. Like someone's just shown the man a vagina for the first time, was the first, terrible thought that popped in my head.
Ben's cute when he's preëmptively hostile.
7,8: I thought he had a bit of a Bowiesque thing going.
Something really weird happened to Huckabee's hair. Is is play-doh?
Weird. I would have underestimated Bill Clinton. Just looks like such a damn rube.
Ben's a sucker for a man with a well-placed diaresis.
11,15: But sadly, a half-your-age-plus-seven fail.
14: Huckabee totally looks like the kid who'd sell you pot.
I never would have thought the crookedly smiling boy in the yearbook photo would have grown up to be the devil.
Uh, in reference to Cheney, of course.
14 I think that would be Norm Coleman.
Blagojevich looks way more of a tool than Huckabee. He's already smirking about his plan to shake down a children's hospital several decades in the future.
re: 21
I meant to ask about your nick, btw, teraz ...
I know what it means, I just don't get the reference.
Cheney looks like Back to the Future's Biff Tannen, which is fitting. Yay physiognomy!
Holy smokes, that was exactly my impression! This is a case where the pwnage feels good.
And McCain has a little of Wally Cleaver in him, does he not? (At least physically; his personality is more Eddie Haskell, obvs.)
21: I think you meant "17".
And I think Coleman's is the best, all things considered.
Sara Palin totally looks like the Vice President of the local Young Life group.
Like someone's just shown the man a vagina for the first time, was the first, terrible thought that popped in my head.
He fears the rumors are true and he's about to turn into stone. In fact he can already feel it start to happen . . . .
Like someone's just shown the man a vagina for the first time
Actually, that works pretty well as an explanation for the grin on Clinton's face as well.
W looks like a drunk to me; very uncharitable, I'm sure.
Marginally related: Japan's Finance Minister losing his job.
"W looks like a drunk to me; very uncharitable, I'm sure."
It's a college yearbook photo. I'm suspicious of anyone who wasn't a drunk then.
7, 8, 10: Carter looks tortured all right, but I'd say it's more of a German philosopher look than anything else.
I cannot see anything of Dick Cheney in that picture. It looks like a completely different person.
The Norm Coleman picture as a skanky hippy was pulled.
Do they still arrange women in those weird wrap-tops that Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin are sporting? I certainly was forced into one for my senior photo.
29: Operative word "looks like." Decent society people hide it!
To me, Bush Sr. looks fairly disappointed in his son's dishevelled, goofball look.
Biden was a babe! He's still quite handsome. (Is this a mavericky opinion?)
Coleman: Holy freakin' moley!
Obama's clothes are (unironically) outta sight!
those weird wrap-tops
Ours were velvet, and we had a choice of black or dark blue, as I recall. Maybe also a royal blue. I would definitely sign a petition to free the high school girls of today from their stupidity.
Persons interested in pooh-poohing a thread taking its impetus from photos of prominent politicians are invited to hang it in their ear.
I'm not interested in doing that. What's bugging me is the subject line of the post. I don't care that he really looks like Will Ferrell. He's out of office and I don't want to look at him any more, at least not more than I have to. Don't want to see him or hear him, or his impersonators. Will Ferrell's fine, but I just don't want it in my life at this point. And don't get me started on that awful Frank whatever-his-name-is who does his impression in ads. You'd think by now that advertisers would realize that putting that kind of crap up would create actively negative attitudes toward their product, but I guess you'd be wrong.
Sorry. It's not a great morning.
31: So what you're saying is, Cheney is an alien who replaced a more-or-less normal young Wyoming man as the first step of a decades-long plan for world domination? I never would have thought of it myself, but I think you might be on to something.
Will Ferrell's fine
Actually, I rather dislike Will Ferrell. I have pretty much the same reaction to seeing him on the screen as I do to the former president.
While I'm not feeling as cranky as JL, I would prefer that associations with Bush were more around war crimes than his goofy yearbook photo. I know his image for a lot of people is most likely to fade into a bumbling-but-loveable type like Reagan -- an image which plenty of people had while they were each in office, of course.
38 - could be. Am I the only person who sees no resemblance whatsoever?
41: I don't know whether you're the only person, but to me the picture looks just like I would expect a young Dick Cheney to look.
I see the guy who played Superman in "Superman Returns" was chosen for his resemblance to a young Al Gore. In related news...
Biden was a babe! He's still quite handsome. (Is this a mavericky opinion?)
I whole-heartedly agree with the first, but have qualms on the second. Your call on whether or not that makes you a maverick...
Am I the only person who sees no resemblance whatsoever?
I agree (that was sort of the point of my earlier comment) but I can also get that people are saying he looks like a frat boy bully, so, voila, Cheney.
Biden was a babe! He's still quite handsome. (Is this a mavericky opinion?)
I don't think so. Biden looks like the guy who everyone in the class secretly hated a little because he was so clearly superior in everything he did while still being so gosh darn nice. George W., OTOH, looks like the guy who could always score some weed or booze and who might befriend you one day and try to kick your ass the next, basically a funny/scary psycho-fuckup.
No, not much. Also, Clinton looks like the President of the Future Farmers of America and Carter looks like the President of the Baptist Student Union. I'm imagining a television show populated by these characters: sort of a Saved By The Bell as written and produced by Aaron Sorkin.
Like someone's just shown the man a vagina for the first time
Biden too, but he looks like he is knows just exactly what to do with it.
"is knows" dammit. Looks like I don't know what to do with English.
Well, Biden is gazing slightly upwards, so the vagina would have to be elevated in some fashion.
As is Carter, but I guess he is not the tallest of men.
Maybe he just invented the Biden Vagina Pedestal.
53: Actually he stole the idea from Neil Kinnock.
53 is going to make for the best "google search referers" post EVAR.
Is it just me, or is Cheney a dead ringer for Zeppo Marx?
Carter looks like he is about to be or has recently been traumatized by the trenches of WWI.
Ronald Reagan looks like that actor fellow, only older.
Sarah Palin looks astonishingly douchey, and only sexism has kept you all from noticing it.
Also in sexism watch, it's "vulva.". The vagina is an internal organ, dummies.
Also in sexism watch, it's "vulva.". The vagina is an internal organ, dummies.
Why do you think Carter looks so horrified, B?
And what looks douchey about Palin?
Also in sexism watch
You misspelled "humorless pedant."
Why do you think Carter looks so horrified, B?
Nobody's happy to see a prolapsed vagina.
Pelosi was a stone hottie.
She is very pretty, but I think she's got the advantage of a kinder photographer than some of the rest of the subject (also see George HWB). They've both got that perfectly smooth creamy skin that looks to me like a photographic effect more than what they really looked like.
Carter looks like a crazed backwoods preacher with terrible visions of the dark days ahead. Or like he has belladonna drops in his eyes.
And that Huckabee looks like a tool.
Huckabee looks totally likable. He's still totally likable, except for being batshit crazy.
Oh, another thing: really, Ben.
Really, Ben, what?
Palin doesn't look douchey. She looks like victim of an unfortunate era in women's hair styles. She also looks a little scared, because her eyes are too wide and she's trying too hard to smile.
Huckabee and W. look like laid back, friendly guys, if only because they have causal clothes on. The Huckabee shot doesn't even look staged. This is a generational effect too. They are of the new, casual era.
It is also easy to project "tool" onto either picture, not only because of what we know about the people's future, but because we all know so many other laid back guys who know where to score pot who turn out to serious assholes.
various on horrified Carter.
It does look like any second he could turn into the cover art for In the Court of the Crimson King. (And he has the right lips for it.)
Carter looks like he's auditioning for a role in a Bergman film.
i wouldn't recognize Biden and Cheney from their young faces, very like generic looking faces
others all are recognizable
if only because they have causal clothes on.
As opposed to acausal clothes, which you can take off without ever having put on.
yesterday i looked at that actor's photo, Joakin Phoenix's, as he appeared on the Late show
thought he resembles someone, now i thought of who, he looks like JE
75: I was thinking more Ken Burns documentary.
Doesn't Hillary look high? Or is that just more sexism?
Am I the only one who looked at Bill Clinton and thought "young Elvis"?
80 - She does look a little buzzed. I hope she was.
I think Hillary Clinton looked very all-American, like she was going to organize student government just as soon as she finished winning the state debate championship. Nancy Pelosi is striking, as is Sarah Palin in a different way where she's very pretty although you feel like the styles of the day were not doing anyone any good. More evidence: Michelle Obama's pic (Update #3) is not good; I think there's got to be something to the idea that the eighties made everyone actively unattractive.
78; I'm old, old, old, Read. But thanks.
i wasn't thinking about age, facial features, he doesn't look like for example Zizek
he's a Hispanic guy, right? and looks like as you say DFH, so i thought like he must be another deeply displaced subject
i hope DFH is a very positive image, coz i imagine the best of hippies are called that, the intellectual elite, peaceful tolerant pot smoking The beatles etc
if not, sorry, then just wanted to say he looks hippie
I am the DFH of the liberal blogosphere, if I do say so myself.
re: 68
I wonder if they did retouch the photos? Either now, when they were released, or back then. It's not like it was hard to just remove a few spots.
There are, of course, tricks to get a bit of the creamy skin thing happening in-camera [that don't require retouching].
92: I'm not sure when those pictures of Pelosi were taken, but they look very similar to touched-up professional photos of my mother as a small girl, except that the ones of my mother were colorized by the touch-up. Same sort of luminosity (if that makes any sense.)
68: Probably not a coincidence that those two were children of VIPs, unlike most of the others shown.
luminosity
Yep, I have some photos (including one colorized version) of my mom's graduation from nursing school that look quite similar. Man, did she look a babe!
The entertainment value of every one of those photos is improved if you imagine the subject is being shown a vagina a vulva ladyparts as the picture is taken. I'm thinking professional photographers should adopt that as a standard procedure.
What, imagining that their subjects are being shown female genitalia? How will that affect their photography?
photos (including one colorized version) of my mom's graduation from nursing school
Walking down the halls of the local CC and viewing the class photos from the nursing school, ca. 1975-1990, quickly disposes of any nurse-oriented fantasies.
Also, interesting seeing the increase in male students, but that's hardly as interesting and Unfogged comment. Maybe over at Ari's place.
Someone showed Kobe a vagina for this shot.
I think there's got to be something to the idea that the eighties made everyone actively unattractive.
Oh, I agree. Though I wouldn't wish those 50s hair and clothing styles on anyone (too much mussing and fussing with hairpins and hairspray, not to mention the heavy-duty foundation garments [the brassiere as a piece of armour and etc]), I do think that the typical subject of a 1950s yearbook photo looks much better than the typical subject of a 1980s yearbook photo.
I do think that the typical subject of a 1950s yearbook photo looks much better than the typical subject of a 1980s yearbook photo.
Perv.
I'm with togolosh and Parenthetical that Obama looks nothing like Will Ferrell.
How many vaginas did these guys just see?
103: Or JP in 4. Not that I'm bitter.
Am I the only one who looked at Bill Clinton and thought "young Elvis"?
I can't speak for everyone else, but I certainly didn't. Clinton's was the only photo I looked at and winced.
***Breaking*** Must credit Stormcrow *** Breaking***
Blog thread reveals that people have different aesthetic sensibilities.
105: I suspected, but it was subtle, and I'm hyena-like in my willingness to settle for scraps.
Here's the Pelosi image with accompanying amusing yearbook-text.
99: viewing the class photos from the nursing school, ca. 1975-1990, quickly disposes of any nurse-oriented fantasies
Probably so. My mom's is from 1960, maybe 1959.
It's clear that the famous political figures high school pictures speak more to photography conventions of the era than anything else. I don't review them again now, but doesn't GWB's photo have his shirt unbuttoned half down his chest to reveal his chest hair(s)? I mean, it was the 70s, right?
Am I the only one who looked at Bill Clinton and thought "young Elvis"?
No, you're not the only one. But the point is, he looks like the young (pre-Vegas) Elvis, before the booze and the pills and the powders had caught up to him.
Cheney looks quite shockingly wholesome. Well, I don't know about the rest of youse, but I'm shocked, at any rate.
Huckabee has helmet hair, which flatters no one, but which is arguably more flattering than a mullet.
The only really interesting (by which I mean, unexpected or surprising) photo here is that of Jimmy Carter, who looks at least one, but probably more like two or more, generations before his own time. I mean, seriously, he looks like he might be a contemporary of Edgar Allen Poe or something, and I'm not only talking about his hairstyle.
Jimmy Carter, who looks at least one, but probably more like two or more, generations before his own time
Agreed, and it's not just the hairstyle. He's the only babe among 'em.
but doesn't GWB's photo have his shirt unbuttoned half down his chest to reveal his chest hair(s)? I mean, it was the 70s, right?
Yeah, he does leave his shirt unbuttoned like that, almost as though he were hoping to understudy for a minor walk-on role on Starsky and Hutch. Well, there's no point in naming names, of course, when it comes to a widespread cultural trend. At best, we can perhaps timidly and tentatively suggest that the trend was maybe a little bit unfortunate.
Whether or not 113 was MC, I question the suggestion that any of these trends was unfortunate. 50s fashion, 80s fashion, now 70s fashion, well, they were what they were. I have no idea what high school photos from the current day look like, but I don't doubt that some of us will cringe 30 years hence.
Oh, and I take it back with respect to the interesting photos there: Cheney's interesting insofar as he looks like a heartbreaker. Stay away from that one.
I wonder if W was fresh off an interview for a hobo consulting gig.
hobo consulting gig
I'm never going to hear the end of that one, am I?
Don't make me do an analysis of those photos sorting by era and gender! All of the ladies are dressed up; some of the men are wearing suits, and some are not. I myself did not wear a suit for my high school yearbook photo.
I am not in my high school yearbook senior year because they would not allow me to be photographed dressed normally, as I had been the three previous years. Tuxedo/suit (fake top, if you needed one) only. I was fine with not being pictured.
I'm sure I've mentioned this before.
121: Isn't what you wear in your yearbook photo at least partly also determined by where you went to school? I'm pretty sure my senior class yearbook photos look different, dress- and hairstyle-wise, than those of people I know who went to private schools in the city.
I'm never going to hear the end of that one, am I?
I thought of you, Stanley, just the other day when my young son told me he wants to be a hobo when he grows up. Naturally, I blame you, and will not let you hear the end of it.
I'm convinced that all Herff Jones activities (and I'm sure there are others, but they seem to have a monopoly 'round here) are a fucking racket. Even worse than yearbooks: those university first-year facebook* things? Gah.
Class rings? Don't get me started.
*Full disclosure: I participated in the dissemination of such a book, and I regret it.
123: I assume so. And I'm sure that yearbook photo day was individually influenced by family circumstance, class and so on.
All I remember in my own school was that it was yearbook photo day, so dress up in whatever way you wish if you want to.
124: On the other hand, I'm glad you're letting the young lad read this fine weblog.
They are a racket.
I managed to fail to turn in a picture for my high school yearbook, and then chose an odd and unexpectedly paranoid-sounding quote about the traces of ourselves we leave in the global information grid. The overall impression is that I planned to drop off the face of the earth to pursue my devious plans.
Which, hey, fair enough.
120:I'm never going to hear the end of that one, am I?
Maybe when Heebie does a post on it after the Rolling Stone article comes out.
when my young son told me he wants to be a hobo when he grows up
Good lord, in going through my mother's photos recently, I found pictures of myself dressed as a gypsy for Halloween at least two, maybe three, years in a row. Age 9, 10, maybe? I had a thing, I guess.
Grow up to be a hobo, grow up to be a blogger, the lines are so blurry these days.
132: Everyone can be, for a month, during NaNoHoBoCoBloMo.
133: National Novel Hobo Blogging Consultant Blogger Month?
A hobo co-blogger logs cobs lobbed from box cars.
23 Natt, the nick comes from a statement by Jaroslaw Kaczynski way back in the mid or late nineties after the post-solidarity camp ousted the post-communists. The rough translation would be 'now it's our fucking turn'. He was replying to a question on whether or not the new government should push hard and play rough with the opposition. I'm not exactly a fan of the Twins but, but I find the sentiment appealing in the context of US politics.
111 My thought on seeing Carter was 'most likely to end up starving in a artist's garret in turn of the century Vienna'.
137: Right. Some of us recognize the look.
Though actually, I also thought F. Scott Fitzgerald. Same difference, maybe.
re: 136
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!
This is probably conditioned by my thinking that she's the best thing that happened to the party in the last five years, but I see Pelosi as pretty hot even in her current 68-year-old form.
136: "Kaczynski politics" means something different here in the U.S., you know. Our Kaczinski was a militant follower of Al Gore. Unfortunately, he murdered innocent coyotes, so he never attained the leadership role he deserved.
Pelosi as pretty hot even in her current 68-year-old form.
She is smokin' hot. The lady has real style.
I think there's got to be something to the idea that the eighties made everyone actively unattractive.
Is this considered a debatable premise?
What? You've got something against shoulderpads, batwing sleeves, and stripy eye-shadow?
re: 144
Sure. Some people looked good in the 80s. Not all 80s clothing was bad -- the haircuts on the other hand .... shudder.
144: you can't be serious. Hott.
You all had better recalibrate your attractiveness meters to include some variations on eighties style because the recent fashion shows are not letting up on the trend.
re: 150
Yeah, it's been sort of on the go for a while now. 80s hair is creeping back in as well.
Mmm. Highwaisted, pleated jeans, here I come! (I figure I've aged out of the baggy butt-length sweater over leggings look.)
Palin looks a tool in that trying-to-be-doe-eyed way. And apparently I'm the only one who thinks carter looks like a scary Hitler youth.
Do fashion shows have some relationship with what people wear?
re: 154
Depends who you mean by 'people'; but, ultimately, yes.
I figure I've aged out of the baggy butt-length sweater over leggings look.
You're always complaining about what you have to wear to work, but when the perfect style that blends comfort with professionalism comes along, you scoff.
They're showing big shoulder pads for Fall 2009. I swear to God. The hairstyles at the Marc Jacobs show were straight out of the 1980s NY punk scene: asymmetrical teased bobs etc. And here in NYC, a LOT of people slavishly emulate whatever Marc Jacobs presents. In American Apparel stores, a hot-selling item are GOLD LAME leggings. (I kinda want some.) Those stores are everywhere.
Yes. Some relationship. Not a tight relationship, and it's not necessarily obvious to a non-expert how it plays out. But (for example) I was preternaturally unfashionable in a "not paying attention at all" kind of way as a teenager. In pictures from the time, though, I'm very clearly wearing '80s clothes, that are visibly derived from '80s 'fashion'.
Jesus, I hated shoulder pads. I have broad shoulders -- you put shoulderpads on top of them, and they just look lumpy. And then if you removed them from your shirts, there was this odd little baggy spot of fabric.
Despite its silliness (or maybe because of it), I still like '80s fashion better than the Grunge look that followed. Neon colors and paisley beat plaid flannels any day.
Neon colors and paisley beat plaid flannels any day.
Luckily, God has made other clothes for us to wear.
The kids are really into the '80s music, too. Half the new Brooklyn bands use the exact same synth sounds and drum machines, only sampled and played by laptops or whatever.
the baggy butt-length sweater over leggings look
Eekbeat brought this look's resurgence to my attention recently, and now I notice it everywhere. I'm ashamed to admit that it usually causes me to recoil a bit as I think, "ACK! YOU'RE NOT WEARING ANY PANTS!!!"
Think of how the wearer feels. Imagine going through the day recoiling in horror as you think "ACK! I WENT OUT WITHOUT ANY PANTS ON!"
Sweaters over leggings are everywhere here, but because of the current UK leg fixation --short shorts etc for the past 2 years -- it looks more like a lot of girls walking about after having forgotten to put a skirt on because the sweaters are very short, the leggings are very see-through.
I suppose I'm not the intended audience, but that sounds esthetically unfortunate.
"ACK AWESOME! YOU'RE NOT WEARING ANY PANTS!!!"
re: 166
It really works, if the person wearing it is some 5ft 8 gamine. Otherwise, not so much.
Cheney's interesting insofar as he looks like a heartbreaker date rapist.
Carter looks like Kafka. How can you all not see that?
I saw a woman with the no-pants look at Chipotle last week. This was the first time I had ever seen such a thing except for people onstage (or backstage) at a rock concert. This is going to be everywhere now, like the tasseled mukluks in 60 degree weather?
Giuliani looks like he'd make an attractive transvestite. But lamentably he grew up in a different direction.
Probably. One thing about it (I say as a slovenly type who lived through the 80s the first time around) is that it's comfortable and easy. Big baggy sweater, leggings, and flat shoes and you're good to go. If it hits the point where enough people are wearing it that you're not afraid of looking ridiculous, it's appealing sloven-wear.
In American Apparel stores, a hot-selling item are GOLD LAME leggings. (I kinda want some.)
Last time I was in NY I saw 3 women wearing these. At the Museum of Natural History, between 11 am and 3 pm. It's a look, all right.
Please God, don't let them bring back those rooster hairdos and stand-up bangs. Thank you.
173 to 171.
To 172: Is this sarcasm, or are you genuinely unaware of Rudy's long history of cross-dressing?
"Make it higher! I want a wall of hair!"
If it hits the point where enough people are wearing it that you're not afraid of looking ridiculous....
Otherwise known as the Overton Window of Fashion.
Please God, don't let them bring back those rooster hairdos and stand-up bangs. Thank you.
Too late. I've seen bits of that around already.
175...I know about that, but his youthful picture impresses me as a svelte gamine who would be more suited for such things than he turned out to be.
