A weird observation.

[xiphias]

Anders Behring Brevik is disturbingly good-looking -- the best-looking terrorist I'm aware of. (He's the guy who killed 91 people, mostly kids, in Norway the other day.)

Comments

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

I thought he looked kind of crazed in the picture of him in the New York Times. More crazed than good looking.

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Don't you wish that monsters would have the decency to look like monsters, and not like the rest of us?

[tournevis.livejournal.com]

I don't think he look good. I think he looks "standard", "default", "Aryan". He proves by his own face just how wrong his own beliefs are, because he looks like the default he considers the superior one and that has permiated our culture so profoundly we all see it as beauty. That is what scares me.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

This is what I was thinking too. Well said.

[seventorches.livejournal.com]

I don't think he looks standard; I think he looks like an extreme example. I suggest it may be the other way around; people who are beautiful (physically) usually enjoy a level of privilege higher than that of "ugly" or "not-pretty" people, regardless of what the default look is for that society. And people who are privileged in that way often take is as their due, in this case, to the extent of killing other people. (That's a gross oversimplification of course.)

(Of course, once you find out their personality is crap, you go "ick" anyway.)

Or am I misunderstanding what you said?

[seventorches.livejournal.com]

I noticed that too.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I don't think he's particularly good-looking. I do think the world is seeing a particularly flattering picture of him. We're used to seeing news stories about terrorists illustrated with a police mug shot, or a picture a journalist with a telephoto lens took at a crime scene. Or possibly a picture from a security camera, or something from the suspect's photo ID (which is notorious for making everybody look terrible.)

I think the media is relying on a much more positive image of Brevik, possibly from his Facebook page or someplace like that. It was probably taken when he was relaxed and happy, possibly by somebody who was fond of him. That makes anybody look better.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

the popped collar one that is most displayed was obviously done for a PR type model shoot. But other pics of him that have emerged, more casual ones, also do seem to show hes not a bad looking man by conventional standards.

(by *my* standards, I think [Bad username or site: ″xiphias″ @ livejournal.com] is far more the type I'd hit on than Brevik)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Thanks! For one thing, I've never shot ninety-one people to death. Personally, I think that makes me better dating material.

[arib.livejournal.com]

Meh. Weird double-clefted chin, and too Aryan-y.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

If you say so. Way not my type. Blandly Aryan. Insert comment about the banality of evil here.

[temima.livejournal.com]

I didn't notice much about his looks. Then again, I was not paying much attention to anything beyond 'shot 91 people'.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

I imagine he'd be pleased to hear that. According to this article, he's had multiple plastic surgeries and cared a lot about his looks.