Judge a book by its cover

We often hear the saying ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’.

However, how often do we really listen to this preaching? Even though we tell ourselves to try not to judge someone by their appearance, most of us still do it. A person’s physical appearance is a form of nonverbal communication. The way they are, the way they dress and the way they carry themselves allow us to form a certain image of that person’s character or personality. This is why we are told that first impressions count.

Our appearance allows us to be stereo-typed. If someone has a funky dyed hairstyle, people may think that the person is a bit wild, or loud. If a girl dresses conservatively and wears neatly pressed clothes, others may go ‘Oh she’s probably one of those quiet studious types’. It’s like how we see shabby looking men at night and try to avoid them because we’re afraid they could be thieves. We wouldn’t have that thought if it were a well-dressed or handsome looking man. have a good friend who has piercings everywhere, a couple of tattoos and a penchant for rainbow coloured extensions. To strangers, she practically screams “Hi, I’m a wild child and I drink, smoke, and love being a young punk.” To us, she’s the animal rights activist who once went vegetarian for about 3 years straight, thinks cigarettes are evil, never drinks, loves politics and is absolutely ace in school.

It is not that appearances are deceiving. Instead, it is because of how we all have a certain type of ‘labels’ in our mind to categorise the different multitudes of people in society. Perhaps it is through the media that we have created a certain stereotype, but it also could be our backgrounds and social circle which has influenced how we see certain physical aspects in a person and link it back to an identity.

One of my most favourite comic sketch, ‘Little Britain’, has many perfect examples of nonverbal communication particularly in kinesics, paralinguistics, artifacts and physical appearance. The actors in the show analyze the cultural differences in the British society, and make a parody out of them, using obvious traits from each subculture for the audience to identify. Like in the clip above, the main character, Vicky Pollard is a ‘chav’ (identifiable by her tracksuit, speech, and ‘bling’). Her boyfriend, Jermain, dresses exactly like what guys in Vicky’s social circle would. However, the moment he speaks, he surprises the audience and it is at this point which proves to be the ‘climax’ of the sketch because we are unsuspecting of what he was going to do that it becomes a funny twist. Kind of like “Oh haha, I thought he was going to sound stupid, but he turned out be such a fluent speaker.”

So isn’t it interesting how we know not to judge people by their appearance, yet even before we get to know someone, we create these impressions in our mind about how they are going to be like, that when they show or act out of ‘character’, we are still surprised?

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