How long have show hosts been standing at an angle?

Cafe Society
1

I find this annoying. Craig Ferguson does it, and often Ellen Degeneres.
Many of the standing hosts on E! network do it, too.

It seems so unnatural. I suppose it makes people look thinner, because everyone is thinner front to back than side to side.

The effect is when you snag someone in the hall at work, and they deign to talk to you but stay partly turned to show they are still on their way elsewhere.

How long has this been going on?

2

Am I alone in noticing this?

3

I’ve noticed as well, though it doesn’t really annoy me. And yes, I expect it is to appear thinner. If you look at photos of celebrities, they often do the same thing, For the same reason, many will also pose with one leg in front of the other or their weight on one leg, so that their hips are uneven.

4

An interesting side note re: standing angled towards who you’re talking to. I was at a sci-fi convention where someone hosting one of the panels mentioned that people at cons often tend to stand that way when talking to eachother, and the effect is usually that someone else joins in the conversation, because the collective stance looks more welcoming than two people directly facing eachother.

As for why a talk show host does it, yeah, it probably just looks better that way to whoever makes these decisions.

5

It often looks even stranger when one faces the camera straight-on. Cameras are weird that way.

6

The thread title puzzled me, because I imagined it was about talk show hosts standing at an angle to the floor, like the leaning tower of Pisa.

7

Or Micheal Jackson.

8

I’m going to take a wild stab at this and say that at least for TV celebs, it’s due to blocking. Blocking, as in the theatrical term describing the placement and movement of actors so that they remain visible to the audience. Actors who have spent time on the stage may do it out of habit. Shows shot in front of a live audience may have been blocked out by the director beforehand so that the live audience can see what’s going on and the camera director doesn’t have to worry about camera placement.

Vlad/Igor