More likely it implies he or she simply has good control of their emotions either by cultural training or natural temperment. It really bothers me how people expect women to always peform emotionally for an audience. Some people keep things to themselves and quite honestly I perfer someone like that to a drama queen. I don’t see Casey Anthony’s expression as that odd. Her daughter is dead, if she wanted the kid, she may want to be alone with her grief and not perform for strangers or have people that knew nothing about her or her family leach emotion off of her. If she didn’t want the kid, she’s displaying the appropriate courtesy of not smirking with glee, but trying to keep her expression neutral through this entire mess.
She looks like trouble.
I don’t know that she does give off any vibes. By the first time I ever saw a photo of her I already knew the charges against her. From then on they were all photos taken and printed with that in mind. The photographers get back to the office with 1000 photos to choose from, they select ones with expressions that feed into the current public perceptions of the subject. Its kind of like a person having 3 years of only photos taken mid-sneeze or mid-blink published, with no editorial control over them.
If there was never a ‘Casey Anthony story’, a tragic death, or criminal trial, and she were completely unknown, and we knew zero details about her life or past, it would be very unlikely anyone would honestly think they could read so much into her personality simply by looking at her basic appearance and features.
Her facial expressions and mouth strike me as odd. Even in her partying photos her mouth seems to smile but not her eyes, and when she smiles her mouth turns up at an odd angle, almost like a rounded “v”. Plus it seems to move in odd ways; as she was being pronounced not guilty you couldn’t tell from her facial expressions what she was feeling. She looks a little gaunt facially, and her mouth seems to be in sort of a permanent pout, as mentioned before.
Still, in my opinion she is definitely above average in attractiveness. Sometimes she can even look hot. But I expect she would be nothing but trouble and frustration to become romantically involved with.
At times like this I’m reminded of a joke Sampiro once told about the way men react to attractive women. The story goes that a man meets an extremely attractive woman sitting alone at a bar and starts a conversation with her. After a while it turns out that she was only recently released from prison after having poisoned her husband. The man’s reaction: “Oh, so you’re single then?”
Seems like men are always willing to take their chances if the woman is good-looking enough. 
I’ve seen plenty of photos that show her with that unsettling hollow gaze. But in googling to study that look, I found quite a few that seem to show a variety of expressions, without that psycho vibe.
Hello, Duckface.
It’s not just women. If a man does it, it looks wrong, too. It is scientifically proven to be impossible to completely hide one’s emotions. You can make them more and more subtle, but you can’t get rid of them. For example, a genuine smile is impossible to fake, as those eye muscles respond subconsciously.
There’s a reason why actors try to actually feel what they are doing. If they don’t, their faces will betray that they are pretending.
Finally, if she doesn’t want the kid, that’s enough for most people. In our society, you are (mostly) free to not want to have kids, but you are expected to love the ones you do have. You aren’t helping your case by acting like it’s acceptable that she would want to smile with glee at her daughter’s death.
BTW, I think I can explain her expressions without her being a psychopath: she’s scared shitless, and jumped into that natural self-preservation instinct. And, no, her guilt or innocence does not matter in that case.
EDIT:
Yes. Why do so many women seem to think that is so incredibly hot? It makes me think drunk.
In fact, SA, you are the first guy I’ve heard of who seems to like that facial expression.
to me she usually looks petulant. maybe that’s why some ppl think she’s hot—pouty, sex-kitteny like?
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Finally, if she doesn’t want the kid, that’s enough for most people. In our society, you are (mostly) free to not want to have kids, but you are expected to love the ones you do have.
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Not to hijack, but I think that is a serious problem we have in this society. Abusing your kids should be a crime, not loving them is a personal choice that should be respected.
This is what I think too. People have decided that she’s evil and therefore they see that in every photo of her. Editors have also probably selected the least flattering (or creepy) photos of her to publish rather than the normal looking ones.
A big part of A Cry in the Dark (“a dingo ate my baby”) was this very subject: the unsympathetic nature of the mother, her strange religion/culture, and how she didn’t seem to perform the role of grieving mother adequately enough for the television coverage of the trial. And also how Australian society was so obsessed with talking about this very point.
(Forgive me if I don’t the precise details right; it’s been years since I saw this movie.)
Diane Downs, who was found guilty of shooting her three children, killing one and paralyzing two, claims her demeanor was the cause of her guilty verdict. Since she had been taught not to show emotion in public, she was very expressionless.
That’s *exactly *ZPG’s case. She thinks that *should *be acceptable. She’s a fringe loony who tries to claim her “unique” beliefs come from her culture, when actually she’s just a lone nutball. Anything she says regarding children is just crazy rantings of a disturbed mind.
While her strange demeanor may have raised a few eyebrows, she was actually convicted because her story was full of holes and because her daughter testified that her mother shot her.
My point is it should be acceptable in that it shouldn’t be allowed to affect anyone’s opinion of her guilt or innocence. Not liking a kid isn’t a crime. Being glad about someone’s death isn’t a crime. If it were most of the country should have turned themselves in the night the SEALS brought down Osama bin Laden.
Allow me to settle this once and for all: while there certainly are some dummies who think they look super skinny and OMGHAWT when they make that face, most of us (semi normal folks) are just joking when we do it. Looks like someone probably said, “Hey, Casey! Turn around!” and she made a stupid face for the camera. She looks like she’s doing “Blue Steel” from Zoolander, tbh. It’s no different than someone sticking their tongue out in a picture or whatever other silly faces people do.
Of course, that all presupposes that Casey Anthony is semi-normal. . . which, ya know, yeah.
Casey Anthony has Charisma.
It is as simple as that.
That is why the whole world is interested in Casey. No matter what else anyone says, whether you hate her or love her, Casey has Charisma.
Killing your child gives you charisma? That’s a new one to me.
She absorbed the child’s essence. Duh.
…not what was said.
I think the idea is that she has charisma regardless if she killed her child or not.