Now, I got to thinking about what really hair means. How can it be such a strong symbol of growing up? It's just a lifeless thing on our body, why does it hold such powerful meaning for some people? I automatically thought of the movie Hair, a 1979 musical war comedy-drama and film adaptation of the 1968 Broadway musical of the same name. This movie follows a group of hippies who despise the Vietnam War and disregard the draft. The plot is significantly more developed than what I'm describing, but the most interesting aspect of this movie is the role that the hippies' appearances and hair play. Their hair is what describes their identity, identifying them as deviants of society.
In this movie, the hippies' 'coming of age' comes from disregarding their family's wishes and creating their own individual identity. The same happens to Benji in Sag Harbor. Cutting his hair signifies that he is ready to separate himself from his less than ideal father and create his own identity.
Yeah I agree that the power that hair has is strange. Another aspect of it that I find interesting is how everyone is always trying to change their hair. People with curly hair want straight and vice versa. We are always changing our hair. This shows the strange motivation for people to change who they are to be like someone else. I bet if you kept looking, you could find many other social issues played out in hair, like gender double standards ect...
ReplyDeleteGoing along with that, Benji decides he wants to have control over how his hair looks. Yes, hair is dead protein growing out of our heads, but how you style your hair can change other peoples' perceptions of you as well as your perceptions of yourself.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting comparison. I can personally attest that choices about how to cut one's hair (or not) in the 1980s had significant social consequences, and the various cliques at school (think of a John Hughes movie--not too far off from the reality) were easily identified by hairstyle (long hair for metalheads and Deadheads, but more feathered and well-brushed for the metalheads, more greasy and stringy for the Deadheads; spiked/shaved/long bangs for skate punks' shaved clean or close buzzed for skinheads; hi-top fades for hip-hop heads; carefully shaped swooping bangs, often bleached, for preppy guys; shaggy, sun-bleached and usually longish for surfers, etc.). No one ever talked about these "rules" or consciously followed them, but many of them would have entailed some degree of conflict with parents. ("Cut your hair!")
ReplyDeleteWhat's odd with Benji's case is that his haircut doesn't quite function this way. It does mark that important independence from his father--and his father's haircuts--but it identifies him in his dad's eyes as a "corner n-----r," which isn't the style he's necessarily trying to affect.
The close crop will look sweet with the plaid jacket and combat boots, though.
Yea, I'm with Julia on how hair can change our perceptions of ourselves. Like right now I have extension braids, some of which are purple. It's really weird, but my hairstyle makes me feel more confident and slightly more badass. I don't know what it is.
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