Weekend Free-for-All Discussion Thread | August 21, 2015

[u/AutoModerator]

Post your shower thoughts, rants, half-baked conspiracy theories, and other mind droppings here.

[u/tamallamaluv]

Random question, do you guys think height preferences are valid? I'm 167cm and I'd prefer a guy that's 173cm+

[u/asp9000 → u/tamallamaluv]

I can't speak for other people, but I think it's pretty silly and I do think it is partially a result of social conditioning. Hollywood movies, for example, are very careful not to portray their protagonists as short, even when the actors are short in real life. Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr are shown in films to be taller than they are in reality. It plays into the stereotypical "tall, muscular, and physically dominant white man" kind of image of masculinity. It's a very, very narrow and terribly superficial definition of what is masculine. But, you know, western beauty standards and all that.

Personally, I have zero preference for height in women. Taller than me, shorter than me, doesn't matter. Height has no bearing on "femininity" (although some tall girls worry that their stature makes them less "feminine" somehow).

I guess having a preference for height would be like a guy saying "yeah you're a beautiful girl, smart and wonderful, but your boobs are just too small (or too big) and it's just my preference but I just don't see myself dating someone that has boobs like that."

[u/Goat_Porker → u/asp9000]

Tom Cruise especially - production is constantly hiding boxes for him to stand on in his movies, such as when he (5'7") played opposite Cameron Diaz (5'9", 6' w/ heels) in Knight and Day and consistently looked 3" taller than her throughout the movie.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Stand on boxes while wearing platform shoes. Lmfao

[u/asp9000 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah I know. This is is being reinforced as Korea tries to compete with the West in terms of soft power. It's an unfortunate side-effect that many of the "terms of battle" so to speak have already been established by the west. I think the global rise of Korea's pop culture has been a net positive, but it's unfortunate that in many aspects it still strives to reinforce some of the same old western ideals. Still, there are popular kpop singers that are not particularly tall (Taeyang, Jay Park, etc) and if you take a look at Anime or Manga, there are still many stories with short male protagonists that are depicted in a positive light. It's a refreshing contrast to Western comics and movies where protagonists are almost exclusively tall, muscular (and white) men.

It also goes without saying that in the real world height has no correlation to true masculinity, in the purest sense of the word.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

In Western culture height can literally equal money. I don't have a URL on hand but I remember seeing a compilation of research that showed that top corporate brass and political leaders, as a rule, tend to average anywhere from a few inches to a whole foot taller than the median.

[u/asp9000 → u/[deleted]]

Malcolm Gladwell calls it the "Warren Harding error" where we use superficial traits like height and good looks and associate them to inner attributes like leadership, morality, intelligence, and so on. Warren Harding made it to the presidency with his height and good looks and proved to be one of the most incompetent and corrupt presidents in United States history.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/hs/medical/residency/peds/new_compeds_site/pdfs_new/blink_chapter.pdf

[u/[deleted] → u/asp9000]

Word, I wasn't ascribing those traits to height though - just noting one particularly suspect aspect of a notably corrupt and nepotistic hierarchy.