Benedict Cumberbatch is a Dramatic. Yang Dramatic, if you like. The yangiest yang that ever yanged.
Here he is in Sherlock. I'm sorry Sherlock fans, and it's no reflection on his character in the show, but this is not BC's best look. The hair is adorably curly, and the clothes are cool and period-appropriate. It's not any of that. It just...doesn't reveal the man. He looks like a bug. He looks like Earthworm Jim. And this is a famous movie star! Why is this happening??
Because in order to look normal, a Dramatic has to dress...dramatically.
Here, with a goatee and a mysterious amulet and the world's highest-collared cape, he looks like a perfectly normal attractive person. There's no distortion of his features.
That's the thing. When you don't wear your lines, you look like a caricature of yourself. I'm a Soft Natural, right? Not particularly anything - not tall, not short, not very soft, not very sharp, literally in the middle of the bell curve. (SN's, don't despair! I'll write a post soon about all the cool options that gives us. Stay tuned.)
When I dress in Dramatic Classic lines, which are too sharp and sophisticated for me, I look impossibly small and sweet, like a child trying on her mother's suit.
When I dress in Romantic lines, which are too femme for me, I look like a great lumbering farm girl who is about to tear my dress if I don't get permission to change back into my overalls.
In my own lines, I just look like a normal person. I look comfortable. I am comfortable.
Cumberbatch again, in Star Trek. Do you know how hard it is for the average dude to pull off this swoopy-haired minimalism? But Cumberbatch looks great! We all look great when we dress as ourselves.
Which raises a question. Steve Jobs is famous for his Classic uniform. What if he had honored his Dramatic lines? Even changing from blue to black jeans should have been an improvement.
And it totally would have been! The guy on the left looks like a nice dad who works in a building owned by the guy on the right, the REAL tech billionaire. Style matters, folks!
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