What’s with the obsession with thinking that your body shape says something about you as a person? For a long time, humans held onto the belief that how we look is a clue to our personalities – whether that’s the medieval idea that outer beauty reflects inner virtue, or psychoanalyst Carl Jung saying that “bodily traits are not merely physical, nor mental traits merely psychic.” Today people are turning to the Kibbe system for an “image identity” and getting their entire essence defined.
TRANSCRIPT
There’s no scientific proof that your body type says anything about you as a person – but this idea is back in the zeitgeist and body typing has blown up into a surprising modern craze.
For a long time, humans held onto the belief that how we look is a clue to our personalities – whether that’s the medieval idea that outer beauty reflects inner virtue, or psychoanalyst Carl Jung saying that “bodily traits are not merely physical, nor mental traits merely psychic.” Over the years, this has crystallized into certain categories of bodies and what they’re thought to represent. Athletic, muscular bodies are associated with courage and bravery. Hourglass bodies are confident, romantic and independent, while round bodies are funny, and easy-going. And tall, skinny people are often seen as shy and introverted.
David Bent: “Let’s grow ourselves a big lanky goggle eyed freak of a son!”
Gareth Keenan: “Calm down mate, no need to get offensive, I didn’t call you fatty as soon as I saw you.” – The Office (UK)
Today people are turning to the Kibbe system to find out how to dress for their bodies, yet what they’re getting isn’t just a type, but an “image identity” and getting their entire essence defined as either a dramatic, a classic, a natural, a gamine or a romantic.
Of course, there is no proven correlation between what a person looks like, and the kind of person they are. So is there anything to body typing – and why are we so willing to believe there must be?
William Sheldon’s theory of somatotypes dates back to the 1940s, and splits people in just three distinct categories: ectomorphs, tall and thin, introverted but artistic; endomorphs, soft and round, sociable and relaxed; and mesomorphs, hard and muscular, risky and competitive. Sheldon’s work has been resoundingly debunked as pseudoscience.
But body typing in different iterations continues to periodically come back in – even in our modern era after there’s been so much pushback to judging people based on appearances. The Kibbe Body Type test has amassed over 80 million views on TikTok. On the surface, these categorisations — popularized by stylist David Kibbe back in 1987 — are all about how to dress for the body shape you are, and they’ve caught on because they offer this guidance.
bodyandstyle: “Dramatics have long and sharp bones, so they need tailored pieces. Soft dramatics dress predominantly for long bones, plus accommodation for curve.” – TikTok
Kibbe’s formula is based on the idea of softness and sharpness, or “yin” and “yang”, and is itself an adaptation of a concept introduced by Iowa State University professor Harriet Tilden McJimsey in her 1963 book Art In Clothing. If you have more angular features, more yang, you’re a dramatic or a natural. Rounder, softer, yin features makes you a gamine or an ingenue.
And somewhere in the middle means you’re a classic or romantic. But in the style guide written by Kibbe, there are also plenty of character judgments amongst the more objective physical descriptions. Gamines are friendly and casual; Classics have a gracious and serene manner; Naturals have an informal, casual manner.
And these characterizations come from the fact that Kibbe was inspired by old Hollywood divas – Joan Crawford the archetypal dramatic; Ingrid Bergman the Natural; Grace Kelly the classic; Goldie Hawn the gamine; Elizabeth Taylor the Romantic; Debbie Reynolds the Ingenue – so he was effectively applying the characters they played and their on-screen personas to their body types.
Scarlette O’Hara: “Fiddle dee dee, Ashley Wilkes told me he liked to see a girl with a healthy appetite.” – Gone With The Wind
Ultimately, body typing is a way of putting people in a neat box, and that’s actually a big reason they catch on. People are looking to definitively categorize themselves, eliminate uncertainty about which path they should follow, and then to latch onto an easy framework and a rulebook to operate by. In that sense, the popularity of the kibbe type goes hand in hand with personality categorizations like the Myers-Briggs tests, sorting people into Type A or Type B, or astrological signs and horoscopes.
And while boxes may certainly be limiting, it becomes really difficult to tell how much substance body typing or of these tests are onto because there’s a chicken and egg situation at play. The more we believe in a certain idea of ourselves, the more we act to confirm that belief. And typing is modeled for us everywhere we look: onscreen, the ubiquitous practice of typecasting makes us associate certain traits with certain bodies — often with problematic consequences. Actors like Melissa McCarthy and Jack Black both came up in comedy rather than romantic or dramatic roles, so were seen as reinforcing a long tradition of fatter bodies being viewed as funnier.
Melissa McCarthy: “I did seven years of very dramatic, troubled plays, and thought ‘I’d never do comedy again’, then I moved to LA and just did comedies, so I don’t know what I’m doing.” – Eclipse Magazine
On the flipside, actors who fit the more dramatic type — like Tilda Swinton or Anya Taylor-Joy — get cast as striking, aloof, complicated personas. And when actors change dominant personas, that often means altering their bodies: Chris Pratt was a more comedic actor in Parks and Rec, but then bulked up, got buff, and overnight began to get cast as an archetypal leading man.
Privately, we subconsciously adopt this messaging, and apply it to ourselves. And when our mental image of our type is challenged, people can properly melt down. After Tressie McMillan Cottom went viral on TikTok for saying : “Blonde is not a hair color, it is a signifier for a type of person”, a number of other videos popped up of people who thought they were blondes having an identity crisis upon realizing they were actually brunettes.
@prettycritical: “one of my favorite genres in video right now are brunette women spinning out because they’ve identified as blonde their whole life and somebody told them they have brown hair” – TikTok
And while some of the responses were more grounded or tongue-in-cheek, they still captured the way that – if a person’s hair color or other physical factors change over time – they continue to mentally put themselves in the old box. So then what happens when that box is broken? And regardless, given how multifaceted humans actually are, can you even genuinely fit yourself into any predetermined category without losing something important of yourself?
One name who comes up a lot in body typing discussion as an example of an idealized kind of beauty is Marilyn Monroe. But in recent years there has been an intense questioning of whether the extreme cultural objectification of Marilyn really serves her memory. Her intelligence, real personality, and career as an actor all get overlooked in favor of the idea of her body type, which contemporary celebrities like Kim Kardashian consciously try to evoke.
Narrarator: “Marilyn became the most famous woman in the world, she still is.” “A self-illuminating body. A star.” – Mystery of Marilyn Monroe
Meanwhile, a glaring problem when it comes to body typing is that, predictably, it privileges the body types of white, conventionally attractive bodies. Kibbe’s original system was all based on Hollywood beauties —but when you line up these conventional beautiful starlets from Hollywood’s golden age, is there really that much physical variety there? Nowhere is the bias of body typing more apparent than in its treatment of fat people.
While some may assume the stereotype of the funny, easygoing fat person has pretty much always existed, in her essay “The World Use To Love Fat Women,” blogger Symptoms Of Living illustrates how in Ancient Greece and throughout the Renaissance, fatness was far more culturally desirable than it is now. It was only in the late 19th century when thinness became prized, particularly amongst women. So ideas that are projected onto fatness in our modern era aren’t just picking up on something inherent – they’re subjective and culturally specific. And when you hold up any one ideal type of body for all to emulate, the result is that other body types become pathologized.
The Whale: “I need to know that I have done one thing right with my life!” – The Whale
Also excluded from a lot of body typing discourse are disabled bodies. In so much of pop culture, if you ever do see a disabled body, more often than not it’s associated with evil and villainy.
Many important cultural figures today consciously challenge preconceptions people have about their body types. Lizzo’s high energy, provocative performances have made people reconsider the things they’re told about fat people being unfit or unhealthy. People reacted in a similar way to her revealing she was vegan. Speaking to Vanity Fair, she said: “People were like, ‘You’re a vegan? What, are you deep frying the lettuce? I’m not a vegan to lose weight, I just feel better when I eat plants.”
Lizzo: “I made vegan frankenbeans, add some vegan bacon please.” – Just Saying
Actor Peter Dinklage has also pushed beyond the boundaries of what is typically allowed for actors with dwarfism. He has played complex male leads like witty, flawed Tyrion in Game of Thrones, and the romantic lead in Cyrano and The Station Agent. He’s also openly criticized how stereotypes about dwarfs are still perpetuated in culture, challenging the upcoming remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
We all make snap judgments about people based on what they look like, but these judgments typically say more about us.
Aubrey: “You call yourself Fat Amy.”
Fat Amy: “Yeah so twig bitches like you don’t do it behind my back.” – Pitch Perfect
Advice about dressing for your body type can truly be useful, a way to demystify something that doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and make you feel good about yourself. But applying moral value to that is dangerous, and creates a culture where more people don’t fit than do.
SOURCES
Drenth, A.J. ““Face” Thyself: How Your Body Reveals Your Personality Type.” Personality Junkie, 16 Aug. 2016 https://personalityjunkie.com/02/face-reading-body-type-personality/
“Somatotype.” Brittanica, 20 Jul. 1998 https://www.britannica.com/science/somatotype
Kinsey, Ellen. “The Kibbe body types test has gone viral on TikTok (and here’s what clothes suit you).” HeatWorld, 1 Feb. 2023 https://heatworld.com/shopping/fashion/kibbe-body-type-styles/
Nguyen, Terry. “How Kibbe body types became an internet obsession.” Vox, 28 Feb. 2022 https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22950721/david-kibbe-body-typing-explainer
“The World Used to Love Fat Women.” Symptoms of Living, 30 Dec. 2020 https://symptomsofliving.com/blog/the-world-used-to-love-fat-women/
Kreutter, M. “What’s your kibbe type?” The New York Times, 24 Mar, 2023 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/style/kibbe-body-types.html#:~:text=An%20image%20consultant%20trained%20in,needed%20to%20minimize%20their%20features
West, Lindy. “The Whale is not a masterpiece – it’s a joyless, harmful fantasy of fat squalor.” The Guardian, 10 Mar. 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/mar/10/lindy-west-on-the-whale
Robinson, Lisa. “Lizzo Is Here to Talk About All of It—That Flute, That Lyric, Her Man, and More.” Vanity Fair, 11 Oct. 2022 https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/10/lizzo-is-here-to-talk-about-all-of-it
Shoard, Catherine. “Peter Dinklage criticises Disney for ‘backwards’ remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” The Guardian, 25 Jan. 2022 https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/jan/25/peter-dinklage-disney-remake-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs