Bitchy resting face has gone from hilarious fake PSA to a segment on The Today Show with Taylor Orci, the creator of the original video appearing to discuss the huge response to this video. I’m pretty sure that we have all at one point or another been told to smile or cheer up when the situation hasn’t required such helpful advice and this is probably why so many people can relate to this video. The Today Show goes so far as consult a plastic surgeon to discuss what you can do to rectify this problem (because of course it does) and there is a procedure called a “grin lift” which is “used to turn a permanent frown upside down.” Yep, that is indeed a real thing that you can have done.
This instantly reminded me of a scene in season 2 of How to Make it in America – which I have just watched for the first time – when Rachel is told by her boss that she has a hostile listening face. This was something that I hadn’t heard of before but my boyfriend immediately turned and looked at me with a knowing look on his face suggesting that this is something that I do. Here is Lake Bell in How to Make it in America demonstrating the twin of bitchy resting face with her hostile listening face.
Tabloid journalism has been playing photo assumption with people’s faces for a long time (just click on The Daily Mail’s sidebar of shame to see countless examples – “Michelle Williams looks sad walking her dog alone! Is she still heartbroken?”). As discussed on The Today Show video Anna Paquin talks about her own bitchy resting face on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and that she tends to look angry in paparazzi photos (though I wouldn’t blame her if she did look mad at them trying to take pictures of her twin babies).
It’s hard to talk about any kind of bitchface without mentioning the undisputed champion of every type of bitchface and that is Mad Men’s Pete Campbell (who goes way beyond the corresponding asshole face, resting or otherwise) and this supercut of Pete’s biggest outbursts shows why he deserves this particular honor.
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