Teeth

This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.

People have FEELINGS about school picture day. My feelings about picture day have changed quite a bit over the years from excitement, to annoyance, back to excitement, to a shoulder shrugging whatever, to a source of great pleasure at showing adult friends my terrible grade school photos, and right back, like an Oroboros, to angst and frustration while trying to get my own child properly set for pictures or retakes. Across these personal epochs one thing has remained the same. Picture day was, is and likely always will be, above all else, about hair and teeth.

Hair was my mother’s primary source of personal agitation. One year she spent 4 hours crimping my Rapunzelesque mane the night before picture day. Once, my hair was looped into twin braid pigtails in a configuration not entirely unlike something Princess Leia might wear. In another I look like nothing so much as the child of secret werewolves. Werewolves who sent their child to public school and brushed her pelt to a burnished cascade on picture day. In yet another year, we had to be up at 5am so my mother could sculpt my expansive bangs into an artful swirl reminiscent of a soft serve ice cream cone. It was partly style and partly to keep the overgrown bangs from hiding my azure eyes, the only feature I’ve ever been consistently praised for. All the curling and pushing and swearing only to have the “lady with the comb” jerk my head about determined to straighten the “mess” despite the clear intent of the do and the 3 cans of Aquanet meant to hold it in place. I was more than gratified to discover that when my own child went to school they had discontinued the ladies with combs because of lice. I cannot say that I am at all vexed at the idea of the ladies with combs going home with itchy heads, forced to endure medicated shampoos and fine toothed combs.

Though having my hair jerked about by a poorly considered pest spreader was annoying, for me, the drama of picture day always revolved around teeth. “Smile!” The photographer would cajole. 

“Ah ahn sniling,” I would grunt through gritted teeth, carefully concealed behind my lightly crooked lips. 

“No, SMILE,” they would repeat louder and more slowly as though that tactic ever achieved anything ever. 

I widened the cant of my lips ever so slightly in response.

“SMILE!” 

Eventually, deciding I simply did not understand the meaning of the word they would describe what they wanted. “Show us your beautiful smile! Let us see those teeth,” At this point the had earned the lifelong enmity of a budding 9 year old linguistic fascist who collected words like other kids collected action figures or stickers.

Well how in the bloody bleeding heck was I supposed to do that? I could either show you my beautiful smile, or I could show you the mouth full of snaggle-teeth that backed up the mounting evidence that I might really be spawned of werewolves. “Troglodyte,” I hissed lowly, my eyes narrowing to match the tight smirk. 

As an adult, I would simply have obliged with the widest most rictus grin I could, showing the full expanse of crooked real estate that made orthodontists rub their hands together gleefuly and hygienists sigh mightily. The first reveal was always the lower 4 incisors canted at of angles, one bent nearly 45 degrees back into the mouth, then there would be the upper canines, displayed prominently over the top of the front incisors. Harder to see, but no less impressive were the bicuspids, rotated nearly 90 degrees on their axes. Giving the photographers a full show of my demented clown mouth might have shut them up. But I was kid, so I just revealed as little tooth as I could get away with before they gave up and snapped the picture.

‘nuff said

My teenage son, who inherited my crooked mouth, but benefited from early orthodontia and is in possession of a perfectly fine set of teeth for the purpose of smiling, threw his hands in the air the other day and rhetorically asked, “Why are people obsessed with showing teeth when you smile?” I couldn’t agree more. 

As a child, I thought my closed lip smile was solely a choice based in my desire to hide the mouth of madness. The only school photo in which I proudly display my teeth is the first year I had braces when the calcium cavalcade had lined up in a glorious arc for the first time in my life. The picture looks . . . weird. It’s not the braces, it’s the full toothed smile. Years after the braces were off and dentists nodded approvingly at the perfect geometry of my dental arch, people would comment on my closed lipped smile. I would say that it was an old habit from back when my teeth were crooked. But my teeth were now gloriously straight [1] and I was more than happy to show them off. The thing is, some of us just smile closed lipped. It doesn’t mean we’re not happy or that we’re hiding something, we just have small smiles. What’s wrong with that?

I was gratified at my son’s frustration. “Yes!” I shouted back. “It’s so bloody annoying!” There’s a long history of people trying to control women’s emotion and expressions. “Give us a smile,” or “You should smile more” are part and parcel of the patriarchy’s massive and insidious tool kit to keep us in our place. However, there’s also definitely an non-gendered American attitude and aesthetic toward smiles that favors big, bright, white [2] teeth on display – front and center.

Look around at the magazines in the check out line at the grocery store and you’ll see an ocean of big, bright, toothy smiles. Models seem to have the ability to smile with every tooth showing. Movie stars are a close second in square inches of calcium on display. I begin to suspect that celebrity is less a function of attractive symmetrical features and great hair or talent or style than it is the ability to contort ones facial muscles into showing as many teeth as possible while not looking like you are either 1) in pain or 2) a demented killer of puppies.  I mean really, have you ever actually tried to mimic these smiles? The effect is weird and off putting. Sure, for a few people a wide open smile comes naturally and for those people, I think you might have a career in Hollywood, but for the rest of us . . .

Seriously, grab and issue of US Weekly or look at one of those style web sites. Find a picture of a smiling model and take it to a mirror. Now try to mimic that smile. WEIRD AND CREEPY. After a few seconds your face will start twitching uncomfortably and you’ll look like you’re in some sort of war with your own body.

Maybe those conspiracy theorists who believe powerful members of our societies have been replaced by shape shifting alien reptiloids are on to something? Smiling like a famous person just isn’t human.

Look at our nearest animal associates? Apes and monkeys, our biological cousins, and dogs, our co-evolved and most constant companions only show teeth as a sign of aggression or a warning. Only humans think, “Hey, how can I show people I’m friendly and desirable? Oh, I know, I’ll display the sharp bone parts that I use for rending and consuming flesh.” How did we start doing this? Now you can say that babies smile instinctively. Sure, of course they do. BUT THEY DON’T HAVE TEETH. Think about it. How long have the reptiloids been with us, slowly, systemically using media to convert our harmless and friendly closed-lipped smiles into giant, tooth grins. Sounds crazy? Look at old paintings. How often do you see teeth in portraits? Uh huh. It’s all coming together.

Those who know me know that I have an alternate public persona that involves dressing up as a mad scientist. I’ve got a spikey green wig, a full length marine vinyl lab coat, green eye makeup, and a bunch of accessories that would make a steam punk cosplayer drool, but when I go out as my alternate self my most important accessory is my giant, enthusiastic, show ALL THE TEETH grin. I look like a mad woman, which is exactly the point. 

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[1] And scarcer in number, having had 8 molars extracted to make room for the rest of the party. My family snort whenever I explain that I have a very small mouth. HAHA. Yeah, husband, you’re perfectly straight tiny baby-sized teeth are creepy, and you know it.

[2] We’re also obsessed with white things. In my entirely unscientific life sampling I find that if you ask people for a choice between white or darker versions of the same in thing, most Americans will reflexively gravitate toward the white ones. Light or dark meat? They automatically say “light.” But ask which PART they want, and they’ll go right for the juicy dark thigh or drumstick, because, duh, it tastes so much better! White or brown rice? White. White or wheat bread? Give me that flavorless Wonder Bread! I think the height of this is bleached flour. WHY ON EARTH would you BLEACH something you intend to eat? Have you looked at the difference in shading between bleached and unbleached flour? It’s only noticeable when they are side by side, but people overwhelmingly go for the “pristine” white version. Yeah, we don’t live in a baseline racist culture, SURE.

Also, some of us have teeth than just aren’t naturally bright white. Why should I have to feel pressure to bleach my clean, well tended teeth because they are more of an ivory than a brilliant white?

*This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.