Armitage anatomy: Two more uses of mentalis

OK, I said that the mentalis move wasn’t frequent for Armitage, but I’m finding some more instances of it. (To clear up any confusion, I’m reposting the chart above — mentalis is a chin muscle that makes you look thoughtful when you move it — comes from Latin mens, mentis, the mind. (Not to be confused with frontalis, which comes from the Latin frons, frontis, for forehead, and shows up in Spanish, for example, as frente). I discussed it in that previous link as a rare pout that he actually used fairly disingenuously, and then in a subsequent post as a sympathy move. But I’ve run into two more employments of the muscle.

First, when I was discussing Armitage nose logistics, I had to look at the Lucas / Sarah Spooks 8.2 first kiss a lot, and there’s a really glaring use of mentalis in that scene. Witness:

Right from the beginning, it seems like he’s got his lower lip protruded. I actually think this is supposed to signal aggression here — Lucas trying to take the upper hand and holding his jaw in a more forward position, which shows the lower lip further forward as well.

And then, in Strike Back 1.3, in the scene where Hugh, Layla and Porter are planning the Zimbabwe mission, we see mentalis again:

Here it appears at 0:05-0:06, and seems to be signaling masculinity, as if he’s saying “of course, I already knew that, I’ve got it under control.” It’s gone again after that, and by the end of the clip he’s back to hard-faced Porter again.

~ by Servetus on December 12, 2011.