Nalyso: Like a shaved head breaks stereotypes about femininity
"Have you noticed that skinheads are trendy now?" - I read the blog Gharans Dore, stroking the crisp 3-mm hedgehog of his hair. In a week, he will double his face and will simply rustle, and a friend will send me a link to a selection of shaved and very short-haired girls from spring-summer 2016 shows with the caption: "You're on time!" That's really true. It's cold only.
Around skinheads are negative - except perhaps Buddhism and a noble fight against oncology.
It is unpleasant to reveal the cards from the very beginning, but I had nothing to shave. I did not have a nervous breakdown, I did not change my social circle, I did not try - at least deliberately - to prove something to someone. Just after the filming of the movie, I still had a trimmer, whiskey, which need to be trimmed periodically, and a free Sunday evening. Despite the fact that I paid great attention to my appearance and would certainly have been upset, having lost my eyelashes or eyebrows overnight, for some reason, I was not scared by the prospect of being without hair - although I had been carefully caring for them all my life, and a year and a half ago they reached mid back. A couple of people recently said that they were waiting for me to really shave completely, the more fun I didn’t expect at all.
Many girls cut or shave their hair symbolically. Nina Nazarova, editor of "Posters" told me that she shaved at 19 years after the love drama: "I was rather unceremoniously thrown by a young man with whom we had been together for a year and, as if it was not enough, instantly started an intrigue with a girl I considered with her close friend and on her shoulder she just mourned her failed relationship. In short, I was rather worried, and in order to draw a symbolic line and at the same time prove to myself and the world that I had my eggs on this gesture. "
And Anya Gubanova, the beautiful heroine of our shooting about the Smokey, has just recently cut a square down to a short hedgehog. “The decision arose spontaneously. She joked about telling her personal friend about the personal and the work:“ Feeling now that the only correct haircut for me is bald. ”Marina responded:“ I will try to vomit, no matter if it suits you! ” It turned out to be symbolic: I wanted to shake things up, stop wasting reflections and start from scratch. "
Annals of Google readily provide extensive information about the role that hairlessness had in history and what connotations I literally put on my shoulders. Alas, with the exception of Buddhists (although it is now possible to sharpen a tooth on the Dalai Lama), Islamic pilgrims and numerous actions to support alopecia or cancer sufferers are negative around skinheads. This is a reminder of the 90s, and associations with the class system, repression and other traumatic phenomena.
Punishment in the form of forced shaving, a very archaic method, took place in ancient China. It was distinguished from other relatively light public reprisals by its long-term effect: the victim was humiliated not only during shaving, but also all the time until the hair grew back to the normal length adopted in society. It is impossible not to recall the last season of the Game of Thrones: Cersei Lannister manages to atone for his sins, only by losing his luxurious hair and passing without clothes through the crowd who hates it. By the way, almost the same scene took place half a century ago, only with real women.
Heads shaved Frenchwomen after World War II if they were accused of having sex with German soldiers. Punishment was not limited to a single haircut: naked women were allowed to build around the city, having previously branded their foreheads with a swastika. At the same time, those who collaborated with the invaders, but did not sleep, were not so severely punished and did not close for them the possibility of a normal life after the war. Supporters of feminism rightly see this attitude to a woman in the post-war world as a whole: how she disposed of herself could have offended the public, and therefore her body did not belong to her.
In a heteronormative society, there is hardly a more convincing indicator of femininity than a luxurious mane
Despite the fact that progressive states have refused any corporal punishment, skinheads are still associated with criminals. The matter is not even in brotherhood and homeless children, but in the inhumane conditions of Russian prisons for a shaved prisoner it is elementary easier to maintain hygiene. For the same reasons, a soldier is also shaved. In addition, the uniform has a powerful psychological aspect: the army does not need individuals, but discipline, and external uniformity helps to achieve it.
At the same time, the shaved head is associated with a radical protest, largely due to skinheads. It is important to understand that not all of them look like a gang of thugs from "American History X", and it is extremely wrong to scratch them with the same comb - the name of the same "Sharpey" speaks for itself (from the English. SHARP, "Skinheads against racial prejudices") , and the anti-fascist ideology also fits the fight against homophobia and sexism. The shaven head can distance a person and whatever subculture, for example, a teenager like Deb from the movie “The Empire Store”, which seeks to stand out and at the same time show what it is about turning her peer opinion.
For shaved women in general, a special relationship. In a heteronormative society, there is hardly a more convincing indicator of femininity (that is, the "usefulness" of a girl) than a luxurious mane, - every shampoo advertisement assures us of this. The value of femininity is a separate issue, but in the past, shaved girls had never been weighed at all. Now we even have Amber Rose, who has not changed his hair for ten years, and also Demi Moore, Sigourney Weaver, Natalie Portman and Charlize Theron. These four snatched their curls are not at the behest of the heart, but for the sake of work, but after filming, they had to somehow continue to be no less attractive and sexy than before. They did it - and taught a lesson in beauty diversity to a wide audience.
Especially good gender add-on long female hair can be traced in the film "Soldier Jane." It is the hair of the main character that forms the divide between the male and female gender, which she tries on herself: after Lieutenant O'Neil hastily shaved under the typewriter, she enlists the approval of her colleagues, who finally saw in her a worthy soldier (what the lieutenant handed the same standards and did not shirk from training at all, it seems to them insufficient). Such a turn is doubly unpleasant: according to the logic of the plot, being a man seems to be cooler, and a woman without hair is not a woman.
Eight “V means Vendetta”, released after eight years, is more progressive and even contrasted in this respect. His protagonist also loses her hair, but not by her own will - she is shaved off. Unlike O'Neill, Ivy remains a woman with a beaver, but the loss of hair causes her suffering - in this, too, can be seen the sacral role of curls that has been implanted in us since childhood.
How does all this concern my head and is it warm to me, or is it cold? “Tomorrow I'll buy myself a hat,” I think every day, walking along the Patriarchal Bridge, blown by all the winds. After a week and a half after the haircut, I didn’t have a hat, of course, and unexpectedly harsh October I endure with a woolen scarf wound over my eyes. It is still cold for me to even open the refrigerator, but I can’t find any other drawbacks with the skinhead.
The point is not even convenience, although it is almost limitless. Hair dryer, styling products, combs, elastics, hair masks - all this belongings are pushed into the far box and do not take a lot of time in the morning. The concepts of bad hair day for me now do not exist, I listen to my friends for the complexity of hair care with an involuntarily smug grin, and the phrase "well, no, I am too lazy to wash my head" is only one of a dozen stupid jokes that I let go every day. And yes, in the future I am not afraid of any experiments with hair, because I know that at any moment I can shave them off and that will be good.
More than that, I like the fact that communication has become much easier. Not even because the interlocutors are now embarrassed me just as I am. When you say non-verbally from the first seconds that, yes, you are a bit strange and you know about it, it becomes easier for you yourself: you no longer need to think how to explain yourself more clearly and apologize for future embarrassment. Moreover, I finally began to look older and therefore stopped worrying about being mistaken for a silly deer (Ageism is my sin), because well, what a deer I am with such a facial expression.
Sinead O'Connor shaved off her hair because in the 90s it was just dangerous to be a pretty woman, so the appearance that is strange by general standards is an excellent filter and even a shield. I have never been so easy to walk on dark streets, as now, when in the eyes of the average Russian I am not feminine, and therefore not a woman. It’s untrue that I’m not at all worried about the “lost” femininity and attractiveness that I’m now fearfully looking at me on the street, I like a lot more unsolicited compliments from strangers.
A couple of people in Tinder tried to find out whether the "bald fire in bed" really
I could not get used to my hair for almost a week; It was her who brought me to a gay club for the first time in my life. It's funny, of course, that I ended up there with my head already shaved - after all, this is how an archetypical lesbian looks like in the view of many people. The club seemed to be masculine, and no one bothered me even with conversations, but after this hike I wondered how many people would think that with my sexual orientation it’s clearer to them than me.
To find out, I restored the tinder, removing from there all the photos with long hair. Having wound up two hundred people at random (both men and women), I unexpectedly got about a hundred coincidences, of which only a couple of people tried to find out if the "bald fire in bed" really was, but nobody asked about orientation. Tinder, of course, is an unreliable indicator of public sentiment, but my opinion about the delicacy of strangers and their tolerance has become a little higher.
By the end of this simple experiment, everything fell into place. The tinder itself did not play a big role here, I just finally digested all the changes. I do not worry about the fact that I look strange - much more worried about the desire of strangers to stroke my head (pregnant, i feel you) or find out the details of my alleged nervous breakdown - the story of Britney, apparently, still does not give people peace.
I found out that with a shaved head can not be painted, because the facial features and so stand out. And you can paint even brighter. With her, it seems, you can do everything at all, because if you decide to show your mom your translucent skull through millimeter bristles, then nothing is scary anymore at all.
Photo: Lyuba Kozorezova, Universal, Caravan Pictures, Kennedy Miller Productions