Have you ever been told that you looked like someone famous?
When I was a kid, I used to get stopped on the street because people just had to tell me that I looked EXACTLY like Amy Carter (the daughter of then president Jimmy Carter - for you young'ens who can't remember that far back.)
I suppose to the general public, all little girls with strawberry blonde hair and glasses just look alike, but I never really saw the resemblance, and totally HATED the comparison.
Of course, it didn't help that the press was so fond of referring to her as "homely." Pardon me for saying this, but I hope there's a special place in hell reserved for the person who started that one. Not that I actually believe in hell or anything, but calling a kid "homely" is just not acceptable in my book. Resemblance or not, I do have to give Amy props for the cat!
When I was in high school, I inevitably got compared to Molly Ringwald. That's another one that I just never really saw - well... 1980's fashion notwithstanding.
I guess all of those red heads just look alike!
CatMan has told me that he thinks I look a bit like the actress Daryl Hannah. I dunno... maybe a little tiny bit. At least that one is based on something other than hair color!
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| Sorry the top of my head's cut off - I've yet to master the art of the selfie! |
But honestly, if I do really resemble anyone, I think it would have to be my mother.
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| Me at age 17, my mother at age 20 |
That one always left me with mixed feelings too, since my mom & I didn't have the best of relationships.
Actually, these photos were taken at my parents' wedding, and I never saw them until after she had passed away. The woman I knew looked much different because her weight had more than doubled by the time I came along. But even so, there was enough resemblance to wipe out any notion that I might have been adopted - a reality that I lamented often throughout my crazy dysfunctional youth!
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| Both of us were age 20 in these photos |
It's funny the different cues that different people use when sorting out a resemblance. In the process of writing this post, I stumbled upon a whole pile of "celebrity doppelganger" pictures. Some of them I thought were quite compelling, but CatMan didn't think there was much resemblance at all.
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| Andrew Johnson and Tommy Lee Jones |
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| Mark Zuckerberg & King Philip IV of Spain |
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| WWII General Douglas MacArthur & Bruce Willis |
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| Maggie Gyllenhaal & Rose Wilder Lane (Daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder) |
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| Peter Dinklage & Diego Velazquez's portrait of Sebastian da Morra |
Of course, what the heck do I know? I'm notoriously bad at facial recognition. I'm the person who is always lost while watching movies, because I can't keep any of the characters straight. I watched an entire movie once, only to realize in the last scene that there were actually 2 separate female characters with long blonde hair, not one - no wonder I was lost! And if someone changes hair or "looks" mid-movie, I'm completely doomed. Sigh.
Anyhow, what do you think? Do any of these comparisons ring true for you? Do any of you have a doppelganger out there? Are you good at recognizing faces or do you suck at it like I do?
So nice to see some pictures of you! Looking good, lady! I think you're right - some people will just think that all red heads look alike. I'm like you, I'm quite bad at facial recognition. The worst are crim movies and the like where the plot is super complicated and many people are involved. I get SO frustrated! Why do they have to put three guys of similar height and hair style in there?! With similar clothing?!
ReplyDeleteI do see some similarities between the picture of you and maybe especially Molly Ringwald, but it's hard to really say from a picture. Could just be similar hair and dresses. But the celebrities you picked out look a lot alike! And I don't think Amy Carter was a homely child. Just a prejudice against red heads and kids with glasses I feel, and also because she maybe isn't polished and fashionable the way an aspiring cheer leader would be,
Maria
Ha! I know exactly what you mean about the crime movies - and the worst are the "period pieces" where everybody dresses exactly alike! I was trying to watch "Lawless" last night on Netflix, and had to stop half way through to call CatMan and have him explain it to me!
DeleteAnd that's an interesting point about prejudice against red heads. I think it's difficult to get a good picture of someone with such light coloring - we tend to look washed out, and like we were born without eyelashes or eyelids!
I meant born without eyebrows... not eyelids! That's an interesting mental image! :-)
DeleteI too have red hair although it's darker than yours, but I certainly have fair skin to go with it. I think in general, people don't consider red hair attractive. Occasionally, there is a fad of everyone wanting red hair, but generally fair skin and freckles is not considered pretty.
DeleteTell me about it! I think that people might like red hair itself, but nobody likes all the stuff that goes along with it - red eyelashes, red eyebrows, freckles, yadda, yadda, yadda. I actually heard once that a significant percentage of sperm banks were no longer accepting donations from red-headed men because there was no market for it. Sigh.
DeleteReally interesting to see pictures of you after all of this time. I never imagined you with red hair. You had shoulder length, brown hair with a subtle wave in it. No glasses and a slightly rounder face than you have. The interesting thing is I didn't realize that I even had such a specific imagine of you that I conjure up every time I read your posts. In all of the comparisons between you and someone else, I see the most resemblance with Darryl Hannah.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of celebrity look alikes, I always thought that Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen, who she was married to, looked just alike.
So the red hair in my avatar didn't tip you off? :-) It's interesting the mental images we develop of people, I find that to be true when I read a book - then if they make a movie from it and the actor doesn't look anything like my mental image it's really disappointing!
DeleteAnd I just went and googled Valarie Bertinelli & Eddie Van Halen (I know what she looks like, but not him). I think you're totally right, they could be siblings!
It is interesting how people would have compared you to others since I didn't see the comparison in the pictures you shared, except of course with your mom :) I agree with you, homely should not be used to describe a child, why label them with that and to me true beauty is within not without :)
ReplyDeletebetty
Looking at those pictures of my mother does really strange things to my brain - it's just hard to believe she's the same woman who raised me!
DeleteI can definitely see saying you look like your mom. I can kind of see the Amy Carter and Daryl Hannah resemblance. I don't see the Molly Ringwald one at all, unless you're just talking hair and dress. You have gorgeous hair by the way. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm not that great at deciding who looks like who, unless it's really, really obvious.
Awww, thanks. I have a love/hate relationship with my hair, but I've come to love it more and hate it less over the years. It's sorta hard to "fit in" with the crowd when you stick out like a sore thumb!
DeleteI also have trouble watching movies. It's best if people have different hairstyles (and genders). In dance class, I realized I recognize people by their shirts--not an ideal characteristic!
ReplyDeleteI've been told I looked like the princess in a terrible movie (that I no longer recall); so I had to see the movie to find out if it was a compliment. Yes. But she didn't look like me. But I do look a little like the young Margaret Thatcher. In real life I was confused with a best friend and a co-worker--other people who were thin with long wavy brown hair.
I know some identical twins that I have no trouble telling apart--except in pictures and in the swimming pool. I've decided they probably move differently. They definitely sit differently.
Ha! Recognizing people by their shirts - that's totally something I would do! And that's very interesting about recognizing the twins by how they move. I think that makes total sense though.
DeleteWell, your parents are blind, and should have called you by your full name (I'm working in comments from a previous "conversation" here ...). You were pretty as a girl and are pretty as a grownup. I'd probably be jealous but I'm much too mature for that sort of thing. ;)
ReplyDeleteThe celebrity comparison is funny, isn't it? I think hair color is the biggest factor in those kinds of comparisons. I DID resemble Melissa Gilbert as a girl (complete with braids and an overbite). I've also been compared to Liza Minelli and, about a week ago, one of my patients told me I look like Kris Jenner (but my hubby is and plans on remaining of the male gender! Ha!). I think it has to do more with having a short, dark hairstyle than anything else. It's sort of the same mindset as saying that persons of the same ethnicity all look alike ... I think white people look first at hair, skin, and eye color, and aren't used to looking at more subtle distinctions like facial features.
Aww... you're so sweet with the full name thing.
DeleteAnd that's a very interesting observation about white people using coloring as a cue to distinguish people. I suppose there is much more variation than in some other races. I wonder if the same thing holds true in societies where most people have similar coloring - thinking places like Italy or Sweden.
Of course, I was doing some genealogy research on the Italian surnames on my father's side of the family, Ancestry.com had a thing where you could type in a surname and find out the origin and meaning. One of them meant "Ianni the Red" and probably came from some ancestor with red hair. Red headed Italians - Go figure!
I'm just like you! Did you watch The English Patient? Halfway through the movie I figured out that there were two male lead characters! I've never met anyone who had as much trouble as I do recognizing people. I've decided it's partial face blindness. Others find it so weird, but it's just annoying/frustrating to me. I don't recognize coworkers, can't describe what my family looks like, only believe my daughter's baby pictures are hers because I know they are (I don't think they look anything like her now, except that the hair and eyes are the same color). I tell people all the time now, after spending 30 years pretending to remember people/names when I had no clue. Now I'm just honest about it. And prefer to watch movies with my husband who can remind me who's who.
ReplyDeleteWait, there were 2 male leads in the English Patient? Good Gawd! I'm not sure if I really can't recognize people or if I just don't pay close enough attention. With actors, once I "know" a certain actor, I can pick them out without any trouble. But if it's someone I don't recognize, they just sorta become a blur to me.
DeleteThat must be really frustrating not being able to recognize people - I think there is an actual "condition" called "Prosopagnosia" where people have an actual impairment in their ability to recognize faces - apparently it's a very specific part of the brain that controls that ability.
The only time I've been told that I look like someone else was at a cross dressing party, when I not only made a convincing man, but ended up looking very like a friend of ours who was also at the party. That was a bit weird.
ReplyDeleteDon't ask me about lookalikes - my face recognition is terrible. I have the same trouble as you with movies. In one TV series we watched, I kept getting two of the men confused because their names both began with A. One of them has a cleft lip! My theory/excuse is that I pay more attention to what a person is saying or doing than to what they look like.
Funnily enough, when I know someone reasonably well, I can easily recognize them again years later. I've met people at weddings who I haven't seen for twenty years and instantly recognized them, even recalling the name without too much difficulty. On the other hand, ten minutes after the end of an hour's lecture, I can fail to recognize the lecturer in the canteen.
What surprised me about the photos of you is how not-red your hair is. Apart from the first photo, it looks either brown or blonde to me. A nice rich shade of blonde or brown, but not what I'd call red.
I have been told I look better with a moustache (slightly alarming!); when I dressed up as a man for a murder mystery I looked really like my dad...which is probably not surprising but a little disturbing too!
DeleteOK - first of all, I think it's totally hilarious that both of you have male doppelgangers! Perhaps male & female faces aren't so different after all!
DeleteAnd Rachel, I'm totally like you in that once I know someone, I have no trouble recognizing them. It's like their face makes it into my brain's database of faces or something. But until that happens, people are sort of a blur to me. And that's a very interesting idea that perhaps you just pay more attention to what people do than what they look like.
I think my hair is a bit chameleon like. The color seems to change radically depending on the lighting. In sunlight it looks pretty red like in the color photo comparison with my mother, in fluorescent light it looks much more yellow or blonde - sometimes with a nasty green tint to it like in the selfie comparison with Daryl Hannah. Not sure what that's all about!
I've never been told I look like anyone famous, but I could be my mothers twin, and I look like one of my cousins(my mom's sister's daughter) except my hair is a bit darker.
ReplyDeleteI do see the comparison between you and Molly Ringwald it's in the nose and chin; the red hair helps!
And OMG to the comparison of Tommy Lee Jones: I wonder if they're related?
He should be on that ancestry search show...
@Get Lost in Lit
It's funny how those family resemblance things work. I once saw a photo of my father's father (who died loooong before I was born) and I could have been looking at a picture of my older brother. It was striking!
DeleteI thought the Tommy Lee Jones one was pretty striking, and the Bruce Willis one too.
I think the Darryl Hannah comparison has something to it!
ReplyDeleteInteresting... we do both have long narrow faces...
DeleteI can see the Molly Ringwald thing...similar face shape I think...
ReplyDeleteThe celebrity doppelgängers are really good likenesses! The Mark Zukerberg one is funny.
I've been told that my school photo in 6th form looks a bit like Madonna (mostly because I have a bit of a tooth gap I think). Kate Winslet is the other one I've had before...
Not sure if this link will work, but here is me dressed as a man (see comment above) where I look like my dad/brother: https://fbcdn-photos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-0/317175_972884475163_690972127_n.jpg?efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&oh=20d6bc43cc5df0fcb8119e1fbac041f2&oe=55DFCF4D&__gda__=1439314246_42d18108fb4b47ee2ecc23194167f886
Well, Madonna & Kate Winslet - those aren't to shabby as far as comparisons go. And that photo of you dressed up as a man is totally hilarious! I'm sooo jealous of people with visible eyebrows!
DeleteMy eyebrows are dark anyway (much darker than my hair, which is blondeish) but in that photo I had drawn them in extra bushy with an eyeliner :D
DeleteHa! Well, they match your mustache nicely! :-)
DeleteI love the dopplegangers. And shame on folks who think all gingers look alike. I have a twin out there someplace as I once worked with a woman who seemed to instantly feel waaaayyy too close for comfort. After I got to know her a bit better, I found out I looked exactly like her lifelong friend who she had to leave a few years prior when she moved across the country. So, she felt like she knew me forever.
ReplyDeleteThat's hilarious! The mother of some of the kids who studied at the music school I used to run was a dead ringer for one of my best friends in college. I do confess that it probably made me much more friendly with her than I otherwise might have been.
DeleteNice to see a picture of you. I have to admit I was trying to figure out which one you were in the softball team photo.
ReplyDeleteI do see a bit of resemblance between you and Amy Carter. I used to hate how people talked about her. Can you imagine the stress she was under not only needing security and living in the spotlight but then having her looks dissected so? But no I don't see a resemblance to Molly Ringwald, Darryl Hannah yes.
I used to be told I looked like Meg Ryan, I never saw it but so many people thought so maybe there was something there at one time. We sure don't look the same today.
I look like members of my family. I have my grandmother's chin (which unfortunately got passed to each of my kids and three of the four grandchildren). but I look most like my father. I had never met him until I was 18 and graduating from high school. He found me and got in touch, then flew in for my graduation. He wanted me to meet him at the airport and being that I had a hard time trusting people I convinced my grandparents to go with me by telling them I wouldn't know who he was but they knew him. I didn't need them after all. As soon as he came off the plane I finally knew where I got my looks from, down to the crooked and buck teeth, although I had braces to fix mine and he didn't. It was weird because his teeth were exactly like mine down to which teeth were set wrong.
How strange that must have been to meet your father at that age. I hope he was kinder to you than certain other members of your immediate family were!
DeleteAnd your comments about Meg Ryan are interesting - I wonder if people change differently as they age or if the resemblance was really just superficial - hairstyles etc.
And it seems that the press has been much kinder to the children of presidents in recent years - perhaps they finally got the message that it's NOT OK to treat kids that way.
Not sure I would say my father was kinder, he was a bit of a control freak and not in the usual way. He had several degrees, one of them a Ph.D. in psychology which he would use to manipulate the people around him. Let's just say after a year I walked away happily to have no relationship with him. My son didn't meat his father until he was 16 so I got to see from the outside what trying to build a relationship between parent and child is like. My son is happy he knows his father but they aren't as close as my son and I are because we have that history. His father of course gets upset because our son confides in me more than him. It's often frustrating and I want to ask him what he expects when he "wasn't ready" to be a dad for the first sixteen years, but I don't.
DeleteI never saw any resemblance to Meg Ryan so maybe that's why I see none now, but she's now rail thin and well I need to lose some weight so that might have a lot to do with it. I don't know.
Yes, I did notice that the press has said less about more recent children of our presidents. That's a good thing. I think the lives of children who are in famous families, whether politics, entertainment etc should be kept private.
Ooooo yes, you have to be careful of people with PhD's in psychology - my father has one as well - as did, I believe, the Aurora theater shooter. In my experience it's often an attempt to outrun one's own demons that pushes someone in that direction. Anyhow, probably a good thing that you were able to walk away.
DeleteI see only a slight superficial resemblance between you and Amy (who was treated shamelessly by the media - they couldn't get away with that now), Molly, and Daryl. The celebrity look-a-likes are pretty funny especially Jackson/Jones, and Zuckerberg/Philip IV. In my teens people said I looked like Cher (long, straight brown hair and high cheekbones); in my twenties, Emmylou Harris (long, straight brown hair and high cheekbones); in my thirties, Gina Davis (repeat except for the straight hair). None of these people look like each other, nor did I look like them. But the thing about facial recognition is really interesting. I think I 'm really good at it and my SO is not. He's like you, often lost while watching movies. I used to think he was just not paying attention.
ReplyDeleteWell, apparently you have high cheekbones and dark hair, because, as you said, those are the only characteristics I can see in common with Emmylou, Cher & Gina Davis! And I really wonder if facial recognition is something inherent or if it's a learned skill.I know I have to work pretty hard at it, and until a face becomes familiar to me it's just sort of a blur.
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