Nun Pulls Car with Hair

I thought this video was interesting because we discussed the symbolic meaning of hair in class.

This video shows the power of a nun's hair...literally.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8221933.stm

The Fabric of Faith or the Commodification of Faith?

Dear All,

One of your classmates has asked me to post this for you. Thanks you, Armando!

Consider the following question: Are there any foreseeable advantages/disadvantes to the commodification of the veil?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbK_QOXPV3s&feature=player_embedded#at=95

The Simpsons: On Gray Hair

Below is the episode on The Simpsons where Marge decides to stop dying her hair blue. She comes back home, and her entire head of hair is gray. Of course, this sparks a variety of reactions to her hair. Lisa finds it liberating. Children see her as a grandma. Some women scoff. Near the end of the episode, as Marge is on her way to a party to see Homer, several things happen to her and she ends up looking like a witch. By the very end, she decides to dye her hair blue again. What messages does this episode send?

One group during our class presentations pointed out that while gray hair symbolizes wisdom for men, the same positive symbol is not seen with women who have gray hair. Why is this so?

The important scenes are at 6:51, 11:10, 11:40, 12:20, 15:22, 16:40, 19:20. Enjoy!

Eastern Freedom Western Bathing??

This image is brought to you by one of your classmates. Thank you, Kyle!

Considering what we discussed in class about veiling and feminism, the image below makes clear not only that there are as many definitions of freedom as there are of femininity (and masculinity, of course), but also the importance of understanding the choices that we make. Are they really choices or have we been culturally conditioned to believe they are? Who is setting the standards? Who is making up the rules?

Gender Stereoypes

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Column+Children+aren+born+pink+blue/4834603/story.html

The story of a couple who is trying to free their child from gender expectations.

Will Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes? Jennifer Aniston's New Brown Locks

http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/1387-jennifer-aniston-debuts-new-do-in-horrible-bosses

Virtual Barber Shop

Whenever I get hair cuts, it's an oddly intimate experience for me especially when I decide to get a very short hair cut. I now cut my own hair since I never really got comfortable with going to a hair salon / barber shop. They always seem to cut more than what I asked for, and today I still tense up whenever someone around me is holding a pair of scissors.

This video was a funny reminder of my experiences with hair cuts. I think the event of a hair cut, the fact that people post photos on social networking sites whenever they get a hair cut, and the different meanings a barber shop or a hair salon has for every person are really interesting topics.

Anyway, here is the link to the video. It only really works with headphones, so please try it if you haven't already!

Lady Gaga's Hair

This is brought to you by Christine Ristow. I invite you to make connections between what the song says and our class discussions.

Enjoy!

Susannah

Of Love and Other Demons

Mr. Stache

This is brought to you by your classmate, Brian Shin. Enjoy!

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes . . .

Pink and Blonde is not just for Barbie!

Jack Demy's Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967)

Barbie and her best friend Teresa follow the trend . . .

Madame C. J. Walker

Dear Students,

Below please find the ad (1905) that we discussed yesterday in class. Please notice that there are no labels of "before" and "after" in the original ad, although the pictures themselves tell the story. "Before using," Walker looks away from the camera. The last picture shows a very different Walker, both in terms of hair length and style and in terms of body language.

Disney Hair / The Weave

In class, we were talking about Disney a few weeks ago when we watched Tangled. This YouTube video focuses on hair in Disney movies, and it provides a lot of great clips. For instance, we can see the contrast of hair in villains (dark, frizzy, mustaches, etc) vs. heroes (shaved, blonde, straight and flowing, etc). The video also shows clips of transformations with hair from Mulan cutting her long hair in order to become a male soldier to Beast becoming a shaved prince with a lot less hair. These are only a few of the  issues we can see in the video, and I think it would be interesting to hear more input about what other people notice.

Last class, we watched Good Hair. This video does not necessarily raise the same issues as the first video, but it did amaze me that her weave had saved her life. In her case, I suppose the investment was definitely worth it. 

On the other hand, there is also an article that I came across that touches upon the negative consequence of hair loss due to weaves. It's almost ironic to think that the more one tries to maintain their hair in order to look "beautiful" by the standards of mainstream media, the more you lose that hair. Speaking of hair loss, I also hear that Lady Gaga is experiencing it due to the excessive and constant dying of her hair.

Study on Weaves and Hair Loss
Lady Gaga's Hair Loss

Dick and Jane Reading Primer

Dick and Jane were main characters in popular readers created by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp. The readers were used to teach American children to read from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Bo Braids and the Politically Incorrect

From Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Blcak Hair in America, Chapter 5--"Politically Incorrect--Black Hair's New Attitude: 1980-1994," (pp.100-104).

"What Farrah Fawcett did for the cascading mane, Bo Derkek is doing for braids," Newsweek magazine proclaimed in 1980.

Ironically, the era that began with Blacks exploring a new visual aesthetic of natural, nappy hair and African-inspired styles ended with a White woman being  championed by the mainstream as the embodiment of beauty for wearing one such look. In 1979 Bo Derek made the movie 10. In it she wore her hair in cornrows with beads on the end, the same style that Cicely Tyson had worn more than a decade earlier. By 1980, on the pages of Time and Newsweek and in the lexicon of the population at large, cornrows had come to be known as "Bo Braids." Even those mainstream publications that took the time to note the African roots of the style seldom included photos of Black women wearing them.

Some like to point to Bo Derek as an example of America's embracing a multicultural, more inclusive beauty ideal." (the rest of the article will be available as class handout!)

Alicia Keys--

Cornrows and the Perfect 10

Interview with Bo Derek

Hair Pieces and Other Hair Stories

“Hair brings one’s self-image into focus; it is vanity’s proving ground. Hair is terribly personal, a tangle of mysterious prejudices.” Shana Alexander

Taking the above quote into consideration, read the three articles below and briefly respond to at least one. In your response, consider how hair is a marker for ethnic and cultural identity, sexuality, femininity, as well as violence (in the case of at least one of the articles/posts). How does hair function in the article? If you have a hair story that you would like to share with us, we would love to read it!

 

1. Guest Blogger Meowser: The Hair Piece (Posted on April 23, 2008 by Kate Harding)

 http://kateharding.net/2008/04/23/guest-blogger-meowser-the-hair-piece/

2. Preschool Student Faces Expulsion Over His Hairstyle-- Three-year-old Jayce Brown is being threatened with expulsion from Southern Maryland Christian Academy if he doesn’t change his hairstyle.

 http://somdnews.com/stories/100507/indymor101644_32114.shtml

 3. Black women and Their Hair - Back in the Day (This essay is a post from the Black Hair Yahoo Group) by Ta Ankh

http://www.pamspaulding.com/Pam/pampix/hairhistory.htm

Hairy Men

Does the appearance of chest fuzz on a man make you hide behind a bush, or do you want to bury your hands into that luscious body hair? It seems that in general, we don't particularly love it. Enjoy "The Cycle of Chest Hair" from College Humor (http://www.collegehumor.com/article/5623567/the-cycle-of-chest-hair)

Fear the Beard

new ESPN commercial about "the beard"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4BO26nqPmM&feature=player_embedded

Hair Matters

Hilary Clinton briefly mentions the importance of hair. This is from her speech at a Yale commencement ceremony in 2001.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803E3DE143DF932A15756C0A9679C8B63

Fairly recent video on Sesame Street, "I Love my Hair"

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enpFde5rgmw

The ponytail/pigtail (queue) and Chinese men

Hello Everyone,

While in class, the discussion that the 'superior' physical looks of imperialists had an influence on what society now considers ‘bad,’ got me thinking. This reminded me of Americans cutting Chinese men’s ponytail/pigtail in the 19^th century. The ponytail/pigtail (known as queue) was initially a symbol of submission in China, which I find ironic, for later cutting it or having it cut by someone else was of great shame. Their hairstyle became a symbol of culture, heritage, identity, etc. Moreover, the queue shows the importance of hair and politics. I did some little research and found the following chapter in Alternate Identities: The Chinese Contemporary Thailand.

The first three pages include a brief Prologue. The history of the queue starts on page 44.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=I4-PA0PjnPQC&oi=fnd&pg=PP7&dq=alternate+identities:+the+chinese+contemporary+thailand&ots=9fmuDiegJI&sig=e82EFYz9gFHq9AkmzQRDJPA2sL0#v=onepage&q=44&f=false

I Am Not My Hair - Hair Stereotypes

India Arie's song "I Am Not My Hair" featuring Akon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_5jIt0f5Z4

First Hair Matters

The following article is a courtesy of one of your classmates. Thank you, Tina!

Michelle Obama's Hair Matters:  (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1919147,00.html

Disney Princesses

I came across this picture on Tumblr a few weeks ago and thought it was related to Tangled and what we were talking about in class. In the '50s, "beautiful" meant white & blonde but since then, Disney seems to have been making it a point to represent all different races (and hair!) too. Tangled is like a summary of the progression: from Rapunzel's long blonde hair doing domestic work like Snow White and Cinderella to her new independence with her edgy haircut and taking her life into her own hands like the newer princesses.

Early/Original 'Rapunzel' folktales

Hello Alll,

Here are a couple of early 'Rapunzel' folktales. Basile's version of the tale is rather bawdy considering it was in a collection directed toward children. 'The Maiden in the Tower' has several notions seen in Tangled.

Both tales are a short read. :D

Basiles' version (pg. 147-51):
http://books.google.com/books?id=ol1exPT23ZAC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=prezzemolina+basile&source=bl&ots=2insGsVUY6&sig=U7qWAZ8n226a71PE_bAE9Foct4A&hl=en&ei=CYuTTd7ACeTgiALdgL31AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFsQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=prezzemolina%20basile&f=false


'The Maiden in the Tower' (pdf attachment): coming soon... not quite sure how to post it on blog.

"The Fuzz That Was"

An article about the hair down there.

http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-5132-the_fuzz_that_was.html

The Politics of Hair

I Love My Hair!