What's up with all the squinty headlights on new cars?

I know automotive designers need to create innovative designs with their latest generation of cars. There's a constant struggle to make your car either futuristic or go retro. I'll touch upon the resurgence of retro styled cars later. One of the themes lately among auto makers are these very narrow headlights that give it a very spacey futuristic look. To me, they just look like squinty eyes on a car. Its a trend that's started on Japanese cars with the boldy styled 2004 Acura TL. Even the American's are getting into this squinty headlight thing, just look at production photos of the Chevy Volt.

I'm not saying I hate this new squinty headlight look. I think if someone could figure out how to properly implement it, then I'm all for it. The problem is, these narrow headlights leave a huge blank space on the front fascia that used to be filled with... well... a headlight. Now you have this empty space and it just feels like there should be something there to fill in that gap. Maybe it's me, but all this extra space looks like chubby cheeks of the fat I used to pick on in elementary school.

(2009 Acura TL, the new kid on the block with fattest cheeks)

The overwhelming violator of squinty headlight revolution is everyone's 90s favorite, Honda. Car after car that they've been coming out with has squinty headlights. (Honda Civic, Acura TL, Acura TSX, the up coming Honda Insight hybrid) Lets take the civic for example. It's not like they originally designed this car to have squinty headlights. Look at the JDM civic vs the US version.

(JDM Civic on Left)

(US Civic on Right)

As you can clearly see... the Japanese Civic has nice big headlights. US civic has these narrow headlights that taper off at the ends (squinty headlights). With larger headlights, the area below is filled in a little better. It doesn't look as awkwardly empty.

I've always thought of headlights as the eyes of a car. The lower air damn is the mouth. If this is the case... why is honda giving us squinty headlights? Are they trying to perpetuate the stereotype of Asians having squinty eyes?

Gallery of Squinty Eyed Cars