Mirror Mirror

with a woman named Mafi. Although she's an effervescent grown up, as a kid, Marfi was acutely and uncomfortably aware of our preference for symmetrical faces because hers wasn't remember being asleepover once at this girl's house this guy went to school with, and she was like really rich, and she had like you know these like white carpets and like

mini tobler own bars and the company. I know. She had this blonde brat stole and I like looking at it and like saying a prayer to God and being like please, please, God, Like, can I look try this one day. If you're not familiar with the Brad's brand, it's a line of dolls with big heads and tiny waists, wearing nightclub fashions and runaway makeup. They've got exaggerated potty lips, enormous almond eyes, and almost no nose because you don't need a nose to be sexy, and they are, of

course perfectly symmetrical, as you might have already gleaned. I am not a huge fan of hyper sexualized dolls with alien proportions marketed as playthings for young girls. I've had this aversion since I myself was a small girl and was once discovered lecturing on the topic while standing at a box in the middle of my day care center. I digress back to Mafi, who was painfully aware of her own facial asymmetry. Mafi's mom was awesome, always telling

Mafi how beautiful she was. But moms are so easy to write off, like they have to say that right. I had such a kind of fixed idea of myself as someone that wasn't physically beautiful at all. I wore really serious, full long glasses, and I also wore an eye patch on my stronger eye to make my weaker I have to work harder for years, and they try and kind of kind of sex it up for me with stickers and stuff to kind of compensate in some

way for the humiliation at school. Mafi has stra business a lazy eye, and that's sometimes made eye contact difficult because the other kids weren't sure where she was looking, so she spent a lot of time looking down at her hands. Although mafia is asymmetry is obvious, none of

us are quite the same on both sides. Chris mcmannus is a medic and a psychologist who wrote a book called Right Hand, Left Hand that splits us open to study both halves, how they're built, while we use them the way we do, and even our attitudes about each side. Chris is a professor at the University of London. We met at the BBC Studios to sit down for a serious intellectual exchange. Can you lift an eyebrow? One? Which one? No, I'm not sure. I didn't even I need some feedback.

I've got no idea what I'm doing. Do you do your best to lift your left eyebrow and I'll tell you, Okay, that's not happening. Do your best to lift your right eyebrow. God, this isn't video. Now there is a movement that is not okay. Chris is not likely to be cast as an arch villain in the next blockbuster. When I asked him why we're generally symmetrical in the first place. The

answer was pretty forthright. It's easier to navigate through the world on legs that are roughly the same length and with ears that work in pretty much the same way and are in the same position on our head. But growing into a symmetrical organism might be harder than it seems on first glance. Think think about a fetus in the womb, all its individual parts forming separately. How his fingers are he is or its knees get to be

the same on both sides. Well, the answer is that they both take the same set of instructions, the same DNA, But by the time the knees, the ears, and the fingers are developing, they're stuck out miles away from each other. So they both read the same instructions and they try and produce the same organ by using that codebook. Okay, same pattern book. But if stuff goes wrong during that process,

if there's noise, there's interference, stuff happens. I mean literal noise, I mean biological noise, but it might be physical noise as well. Stresses stresses anything, some radioactivity, the old cosmic ray coming through, perhaps some drugs or something, but anything can happen, then the two sides get slightly different. You

and I are both making duck allourage and separate kitchens. I, however, have had three martinis, so we have the same recipe, but an intervening factor that means that I'm going to burn the duck. Yeah, that's what we call biological noise. But normally, for most of us, there's what we call buffering. There's enough control over it to make sure the two

things stay the same. So if that goes wrong, then of course the two sides become slightly different, but it means actually other things are going wrong in development as well. If an organism's symmetry has been thrown off, there might be other problems beneath the surface too, And that's probably why we look for symmetry and faces and that sort of thing. People with symmetric faces, it's probably they've got good genes, they're well buffered, they can respond to stress

and survive it. And that's why we think that symmetry is beauty in faces in particular. So we have this idea that seeing someone and appraising their faces symmetrical and beautiful, is that sort of shorthand for appraising their reproductive health in biological terms, yes, all organisms are looking for somebody to mate with in order to produce offspring, probably having

a symmetric faces part of that story. So far, Chris and I have been discussing the symmetries that we can see in one another are external appearances, but inside we're not so symmetrical at all. So, for instance, our heart is asymmetric, and what it's like that is interesting because if you go to more primitive animals earth worms or insects, or even some primitive vertebrates, then they have a small heart which is in the middle of the body and

it's not at all asymmetric. We seem to get large hearts when we have a lot of muscles, and when you start to pump a lot of blood through a symmetric heart, you get turbulence. And what seems to have happened is that the heart is evolved so that the blood spirals through it and stops the turbulence. So you know, if you want to open up the chest, you'll find that if you look at the lungs, then the right lung has three lobes and the left lung has too.

If you look inside the abdomen, you'll find that there's the liver on one side, the spleen on the other, the stomach, the intestines, all of them are asymmetric. Famously, the testicles even are asymmetric, and they're larger on one side than the other, and higher on one side and the other and so on, and all of those asymmetries seem to really follow on from the fact that the

heart is asymmetric. So if you find the rare people it's about one in ten thousand people in the world who have their heart on the right side, then they will tend to have their liver, their stomach, their spleen, even their testicles reversed, so they're a mirror image. They're flipped over. We're not at all behaviorally symmetrical either. Somebody parts are stronger or more flexible, more nimble than their

partners on the other side. About nine out of ten of us favor our right hands, though men are more likely to be left handed than women, and there's evidence that handedness actually starts in utero. So if you spy on babies with an ultrasound while they are in the presumed privacy of their mother's stomachs, you'll see that they often suck the thumb of the preferred hand. And sitting here watching you interview me, I noticed you've just clasped

your hands together. And hand clasping where you grip the hands together, then there's usually one thumb on top. In my case, it's the right thumb on top right for me to write, but half the population it's the other way around. And if if I force myself to the other way around, it feels so disgusting I want to leave my own company. What are the other behavioral asymmetries besides right handed dominants? Like what are the part of

our bodies are asymmetrically used? Almost all of them. Although about ten percent of people are left handed, about twenty percent of people who left footed. What about like for our sense organs? Even the eyes are the obvious one. Eyes are slightly tricky about people are right eye the other left died. But it's in the sense of which I we choose to look with. So it's a strange question. But if you had to look through a keyhole, which

I would you view? In some ways eyes themselves or keyholes through which our brain peers out at the world from inside its skull. I asked Matthew what it was like to see the world through her eyes. I only really focus with one eye at a time. I've got one that I use for far away, and I've got one that I I used to close up. The interesting thing about it, though, is that I can look at two things at once. Um, it's just yeah, it's just that one.

It's just that one is kind of performs a kind of peripheral function in the sense that I don't focus on it, so I'm able to kind of shut one of them off. But it's it's probably quote. I think you'd probably been pretty freaked out, like if we could, if we could trade little feed for a second. But on the other hand, you'd probably be pretty freaked out to like, why could this girl only see like four degrees in front of her? She's going to pop down.

You'll be glad to learn that Marphy had a much better time of it as a teenager than as a grade schooler. I remember when I got to secondary school and suddenly boys fancied me and I just could not believe my love. I was like, oh my god, I've got all this sexual power and I don't know what to do with that, as it happens, marfy did find something to do with all that sexual power. When you're at a caffeh shop or or if you're at a bar, do you ever get the sense that maybe people recognize you? Yeah,

it does happen a bit. Now, will you tell me what you do for a living? I am a I suppose model, and that's the idea. It was kind of an accident. Really, I got scouted at a festival when I was fourteen or fifteen and did a test shoot and really, like I thought it was intolerable. She tried modeling, hated it and built completely and then essentially gets discovered again a few years later, like modeling will only roll on.

Someone introduced me to this photographer called Tyrone Nabon, who now is a really good friend of mine, and he wanted someone that wasn't kind of fashion e and he took some photos of me and they ended up on the cover of Pop So what did that mean? Like? How big a deal is that? I suppose? Maybe? Still do I really know? I mean, they've had lots of other kind of big celebs. Um uh much? You hate this? You hate name dropping? Like you really hate this? Part?

Is that right. I find it quite embarrassing. Yeah, okay, stop, I'm gonna take over. Pop is a UK fashion and culture magazine that's featured people like Naomi Campbell and Britney Spears on its covers, and Storm, the modeling agency that signed Mafi, discovered people like Kate Moss. Mafi is kind of crushing it and I ended up being her calling card. I don't know if this is easy to answer from the inside, but do you have a sense of how much the lazy eye defines your career? Oh? No, yeah,

I mean it, it is my career. Basically, a bit of asymmetry might have an attraction all its own. To talk aesthetics more generally, for a moment, I have wrangled my design friend Vance Wallenstein. Vance and I met in our early twenties, having crossed paths in the Minneapolis indie music scene and conveniently for future podcasting me, He ended up the head of design at Moment PS one, a branch of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. I asked Vance to explain how symmetry is understood and treated

in his field. I think historically, you know, symmetry represented the ideal perfection the most beautiful. It was the most elegant, it was the most you know, wealthy. You know, you think of places of worship, religious texts, even tombstones for example, you rarely see you know, a name left justified or right justified. It's going to be centered. It's the most kind of respectful, maybe precious way to present information. Symmetry

also had class connotations. It was refined. Vance who has a special expertise and typography can see those class connotations play out in our type treatments. At least in the Western world. You have, you know, the emergence of data to still Russian constructivism, you know, bau House, all of these sorts of movements in Europe that are advocating for an asymmetrical approach to typography and reading as a way to kind of socialize the experience of reading and advertising,

to make it for the people in a way. It wasn't absolute perfect. Symmetry is also like totally impossible to find in nature. Absolutely it's the ideal, but as we all know, the ideal with regards to anything doesn't exist, which does not stop us from trying to find it. I do think that you know, the eye is trying

to make connections between forms, etcetera, and create lines. When things are asymmetrical, the experience of viewing something from a visual standpoint becomes much more dynamic as a result, and I would say charged exciting in a way because you have to do more work and optically, once you've done that work to actually figure out the alignments, the experience

just becomes so much more rewarding. What do you mean when you say that we're doing more work, Does that mean that, like, my eyes are literally moving all around the picture. Yes, because your eyes do want, just by nature, to have things be balanced, to be symmetrical. So when they're not, you have to create those visuals. Those you're you're you're creating those points, You're finding those points to

create those lines for it to become symmetrical. Asymmetry being a much more I would argue, challenging but rewarding experience, And I think that can be applied to just about anything, whether it's type setting, whether it's art, whether it's a human,

whether it's how they look, how they act. Part of the reason that evolutionary biologists give for a general attraction to symmetrical human faces is that human beings that were able to develop one eye that looks pretty much like the other eye, like grew up in an environment without too many developmental strains, and they got some genes that were able to express themselves evenly across the body, like

it might be an indicator for reproductive health. And then to balance that against like every adolescent girls crush to be real heteronormative on like the classic scar over just one eye, or the Monroe piercing on one side of the mouth, you know, or like if you imagine flappers, like the parting your hair really far to one side. When you talk about like asymmetry being more of a challenge and more interesting, fundamentally, there's also a limit to that. Right.

It's like at a certain point, if we're to asymmetrical, generally we consider that's considered less beautiful. Like if one side of your face is super different than the other, right, Like, is there is there a sweet spot? Yeah? Absolutely, And I think with regards to any sort of whether it's the human form or arch design, it's you know, finding that point of tension and how does asymmetry kind of react against symmetry and that kind of that liminal place

where things vibrate. The Monroe the piercing, the scar, the hair part, I think is where the experience becomes the most charged. So if it's everything is purely symmetrical, it's a very static experience. If it's completely asymmetrical, it's going to be chaos. That sweet spot in between and finding those moments of yeah, vibration, we respond in the most exciting kind of ways. Do you think that if you'd been born like ten or twenty years earlier, that you

would have still had a shot at a modeling career. No, I don't think so. Like what's changed in the industry. I think generally attitudes have changed towards people that previously would have been kind of mothered by society. Like there's lots of disabled models now, and transgender models and plus sized models, and you know, it's much more of a culture of tolerance. Do you think that you're asymmetry is like accepted by the industry because you're otherwise very beautiful

and symmetrical in a classic way? I think of like Cindy Crawford's more, you know, this kind of calling card against a backdrop of supermodel beauty. Um, yeah, I do think so. It's funny. I mean, whenever I've been told to lose weight, which obviously has happened. I always think, kind of, you know, such a cheek, isn't it? Like I'm allowed to have a lazy eye as long as

I haven't got like back rolls or a fatass. But I also think that the truth is that it's you know, usually it's the imperfection that gives something its own kind of sparkle. And also it's what kind of draws interest because the meaning is kind of closed, otherwise there's nowhere to go with it, Like, what do you mean by that? How do you see the relationship generally between beauty and symmetry.

I think that physical imperfections are suggestive of something internal, and they invite analysis in a way that perfection doesn't really And that's what I mean when I say that the meaning is closed. A perfection is that there's no past to read into it, and there's no kind of future to extrapolate it. Just it doesn't suggest identity or individuality. Marphi says she has mixed feelings about the fact that her lazy eye receives so so much attention in her career.

None of us are reducible to just one feature, but On the other hand, I think it's kind of wonderful. And if it's, you know, managed to function as a kind of invitation for other people to exercise a bit of self forgiveness for their flaws and all the rest of it, then I feel, you know, really kind of touched and quite humbled really to have anything to do

with that. The throngs of crazed fans camped outside my podcast mansion often tell me that I have a perfectly symmetrical broadcast voice, so you may be surprised to learn that my face is not particularly symmetrical at all. The left side of my mouth tilts up. It's always the first to start smiling, which can make the right half of my face look like it's just a it was disappointed in you, like there were staff cuts. So I am playing both good cop and bad cop at the

same time. Why is symmetry beautiful? Symmetrical faces indicate good genes and developmental resilience, strong reproductive stock. But we ask more of faces than to be only beautiful. We want to connect, to see the flash of anger or delight, the lust or tenderness as it breaks across the brow or ripples the muscles of the jaw. We want to know who the face belongs to and what she makes of us. We don't just look at faces. We look to them to reveal an inner life, fortified by past

triumphs and freighted with the old hurts. We want to know how the pretty face on the magazine is related to the little girl at the sleeve bar with a doll and a private prayer. Next time I'm deeply human, we'll be asking why do you see faces and clouds? And why does the creaking of an old house freak you out, even though you are positive you're the only one home. In short, why are we so eager to

perceive other creatures everywhere and in everything? Within the human brain, we have specialized systems for detecting other social animals, and we have, if you like, dedicated mechanisms for identifying others and their form and their shapes and their movements. I mean, I could hear his voice so clearly. I didn't feel a worn Somebody said, Oh, I feel like there was somebody behind me touching me. He was not me, he felt creepy. Guy said, I felt like that there was

a monkey replicating my movements on my back. Deeply Human is a BBC World Service in American public media co production with I Heart Media. Oh and if you want to know what happens when you ask a very modest, self effacing model describe her own face, it's pretty cute. They are kind of thick at the bit where they kind of approach each other in between my um, you know, upstairs with my nose? Did you say hold on? Did you just say the upstairs of your nose? Is that

this phrase that you just said? And my cheeks are probably quite cheeky as well. Quite my mouth is kind of medium size. I'd say stop, So I'm going to cut in. You know, I'm gonna cut in because like as someone who's read about your face, like as other people are writing about it. Um, this is just hilarious because I'm you know, other writers are like her lips are pillowy, like I got a medium sized mouth, ask