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 . . .
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
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--
"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--
Monday, April 11, 2011
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)
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
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