Recently, GreenFriend wrote a blog post about going to see a certain animated movie (which title appears as the name of this entry). She remarked that the title was hardly appropriate to the movie, at least in the most literal sense of the word. While she is correct, since Rapunzel's hair was consistently shiny, brushed, and silky smooth, I saw the title in a different light.
GreenFriend made it very clear to me that she was not ruling out other possible meanings for the title. This post is not a response to hers, so much as it is an expansion of it. In regard to my comment to GreenFriend's post, and as a means of ammending it thereof, I would like to submit the following blog post into evidence.
I am convinced that hair controls lives. I've been employing my Anti-Bill-Nye Science and doing some research, and I have several documented examples to support my theory (or, well... they'll be documented when I finish this post, anyway).
Take, for example, the dreaded Bad Hair Day. The legend and folklore of the Bad Hair Day rivals that of the tales collected by The Brothers Grimm (and considering that the goats of a similar name probably had a few Bad Hair Days themselves, you might say the history of the Bad Hair Day comes out ahead). Pun(s) definitely intended. Let's look at it in more detail, shall we?
A Bad Hair Day has the inexplicable and inconquerable power to completely ruin what would otherwise have been an average day. And it only takes one Bad Hair Day to make everyone forget all about your ten million good ones.
There is Science here -- hair is often the first thing people notice about you, and it tends to be a large part of how people recognize you later on. Just get a drastic haircut or change the color to something outrageous if you don't believe me, and your acquaintances will have to do a double-take before they realize who you are.
How your hair looks can also be linked with how healthy you are. If you have good hair hygeine, you probably have pretty good hygiene overall. (Coincidentally, this is also true with cats. A healthy cat will have a glossy, smooth coat that is well-groomed and soft to the touch. An unhealthy cat will have a nasty mange that sheds every time you touch it. My cats have excellent hair!).
But aside from the way others perceive it, the most important way hair controls lives is through your own obsession with it. Since I am the writer of this blog, I suppose we ought to use my hair and life as an example, oughtn't we?
Let's begin with my second grade year. I hadn't cut my hair in a few years at that point, so my hair was pretty long. As is pretty common with me, I had a bad habit. These bad habits interchange over the years: sucking my thumb, smacking on gum, biting my nails, etc. The second grade version of my bad habit was chewing on my hair.
I gnawed on my hair, sucked on it, chewed it all to pieces. As you can imagine, this was not an attractive habit. It wasn't charming. It wasn't cute. It was just... gross.
My mother, realizing that this was not a habit I would willingly break, decided to cut it off at the root of the problem... literally. She took me to the hairdresser, telling me I was just going to get a trim. Then when they got me into the chair, they started saying the words, "Page-Boy Cut."
When I left the hairdresser that afternoon, I was traumatized. All my hair was gone. I looked like a boy. People kept calling me 'young man' and 'sir.' My mom said they simply weren't observant, but it wasn't like there was anything else for them to go by. I hadn't exactly developed any feminine assets by that time. And my face is not really all that feminine. Besides, I was wearing a haircut that had the word "Boy" in the name, for heaven's sake!
After the second grade, I stubbornly refused to go back to the hairdresser. If Mom suggested a trim, I locked myself in my room until she forgot about the idea. She would ask if I wanted my hair cut, and I would start crying. I started chewing on my fingernails instead of my hair, so she wouldn't have that excuse anymore. People began to call me 'young lady' and 'miss' again. My hair grew longer and longer and longer (though it was never as long as these chicks'). Still, I fought a return to the hairdresser for seven long years.
In my freshman year of high school, I managed to get my waist-length hair in such a snit of a tangle that my mother broke a comb trying to straighten it out. She had reached her breaking point again. She declared that we were going to get my hair cut, and I was forced into the car with a sense of foreboding settling over me.
When we arrived, my mother had to promise me that I could decide the length before I would get out of the car. After she had made that promise, she marched me through the doors. I was weak at the knees and trembling, trying not to cry. The extremely nice hair-stylist they set me up with was very understanding, showing me several length options and talking to me soothingly while she loaded my hair with detangler spray.
Before I could call out in protest, she had detangled my hair enough to put it in a ponytail below the length I wanted. And in one swift snip, there went half a foot of hard-earned hair. Horrified, I watched her throw my hair callously into the trash can.
But my horror was short-lived. The shorter hair (still past my shoulders), was easier to take care of by a factor of ten. And after that, my haircutting days were less dramatic. With each passing year of high school, my hair got shorter and shorter. Right before I went to college, I snipped it too close once again, and ended up covering my short cap of hair with a Newsies hat for about a year straight (no really-- I wore it so much that when I came back sophomore year and didn't wear it, people literally did not recognize me).
That experience led me to decide I shouldn't cut my hair for a while. That didn't stop me from dyeing my hair pink, however, when my mother learned that she had breast cancer. It wasn't pink all over, just highlights, but it was crazy enough that I started getting hit on by rednecks and middle-aged men. The fuschia dye eventually faded to red-orange, then to just orange, and finally to dead blonde. My hair was so dead after the pink dye was through with it that it wouldn't even curl anymore (and believe me, my hair curls).
By the time the pink dye was out of my system, my hair was long again (and dead), so I got it cut again. First I got a bad haircut in Houston (I should have known better than to trust a Texan with my hair). Then I got it fixed when I came back to the good ol' Volunteer State. I added in some red highlights for good measure.
That haircut lasted all summer, and as usual, when winter came, I wanted it cut. I wanted it cut even though it meant that there was going to be less hair to keep my head warm when the cold blasts came with December. I think my brain has convinced itself that I can cope better with change if I do something drastic to my hair -- exchanging something I can't control for something I can.
That last winter haircut was too short again. It was Tonks hair, as described in the book (not like that chick in the movie), short and spiky and purple. You read it right: purple.
Well, I was forced to live with that hair for quite a while, even though I would have liked to cut it when several huge changes assaulted me all at once. But I survived despite the lack of haircut control, and in spite of the numerous Cracker Barrel patrons who called me 'sir' (by this time, I had developed certain, *ahem*, features that those people really should have noticed).
Recently, I am trying to recognize my hair's amazing, ominous ability to dictate my life. I like to pretend like I am controlling it, but really my hair controls me. I am trying to take back control from my hair by resisting the (constant) urge to cut it short again. Not too short, mind you, but shorter than it is. And that's without mentioning the bright blue peek-a-boo streak I want to get... I am proud to say that I have triumphed in this battle -- my hair is longer now than it has been in almost a decade. And there's not a speck of blue in it.
But I still went and got it layered and trimmed the other day.
~And now, ladies and gentlemen, watch and be amazed as I come full-circle!~
Because of these experiences and observations, I think that movie we discussed has a very appropriate title. Rapunzel spends the majority of the movie defined and controlled by her hair. She's tangled in it, if you will. It isn't until she is freed from that over-arching vanity, and the world's preoccupation with it, that she discovers who she really is.
After all, her prince has a thing for brunettes.
GreenFriend made it very clear to me that she was not ruling out other possible meanings for the title. This post is not a response to hers, so much as it is an expansion of it. In regard to my comment to GreenFriend's post, and as a means of ammending it thereof, I would like to submit the following blog post into evidence.
I am convinced that hair controls lives. I've been employing my Anti-Bill-Nye Science and doing some research, and I have several documented examples to support my theory (or, well... they'll be documented when I finish this post, anyway).
Take, for example, the dreaded Bad Hair Day. The legend and folklore of the Bad Hair Day rivals that of the tales collected by The Brothers Grimm (and considering that the goats of a similar name probably had a few Bad Hair Days themselves, you might say the history of the Bad Hair Day comes out ahead). Pun(s) definitely intended. Let's look at it in more detail, shall we?
A Bad Hair Day has the inexplicable and inconquerable power to completely ruin what would otherwise have been an average day. And it only takes one Bad Hair Day to make everyone forget all about your ten million good ones.
There is Science here -- hair is often the first thing people notice about you, and it tends to be a large part of how people recognize you later on. Just get a drastic haircut or change the color to something outrageous if you don't believe me, and your acquaintances will have to do a double-take before they realize who you are.
How your hair looks can also be linked with how healthy you are. If you have good hair hygeine, you probably have pretty good hygiene overall. (Coincidentally, this is also true with cats. A healthy cat will have a glossy, smooth coat that is well-groomed and soft to the touch. An unhealthy cat will have a nasty mange that sheds every time you touch it. My cats have excellent hair!).
But aside from the way others perceive it, the most important way hair controls lives is through your own obsession with it. Since I am the writer of this blog, I suppose we ought to use my hair and life as an example, oughtn't we?
Let's begin with my second grade year. I hadn't cut my hair in a few years at that point, so my hair was pretty long. As is pretty common with me, I had a bad habit. These bad habits interchange over the years: sucking my thumb, smacking on gum, biting my nails, etc. The second grade version of my bad habit was chewing on my hair.
I gnawed on my hair, sucked on it, chewed it all to pieces. As you can imagine, this was not an attractive habit. It wasn't charming. It wasn't cute. It was just... gross.
My mother, realizing that this was not a habit I would willingly break, decided to cut it off at the root of the problem... literally. She took me to the hairdresser, telling me I was just going to get a trim. Then when they got me into the chair, they started saying the words, "Page-Boy Cut."
When I left the hairdresser that afternoon, I was traumatized. All my hair was gone. I looked like a boy. People kept calling me 'young man' and 'sir.' My mom said they simply weren't observant, but it wasn't like there was anything else for them to go by. I hadn't exactly developed any feminine assets by that time. And my face is not really all that feminine. Besides, I was wearing a haircut that had the word "Boy" in the name, for heaven's sake!
After the second grade, I stubbornly refused to go back to the hairdresser. If Mom suggested a trim, I locked myself in my room until she forgot about the idea. She would ask if I wanted my hair cut, and I would start crying. I started chewing on my fingernails instead of my hair, so she wouldn't have that excuse anymore. People began to call me 'young lady' and 'miss' again. My hair grew longer and longer and longer (though it was never as long as these chicks'). Still, I fought a return to the hairdresser for seven long years.
In my freshman year of high school, I managed to get my waist-length hair in such a snit of a tangle that my mother broke a comb trying to straighten it out. She had reached her breaking point again. She declared that we were going to get my hair cut, and I was forced into the car with a sense of foreboding settling over me.
When we arrived, my mother had to promise me that I could decide the length before I would get out of the car. After she had made that promise, she marched me through the doors. I was weak at the knees and trembling, trying not to cry. The extremely nice hair-stylist they set me up with was very understanding, showing me several length options and talking to me soothingly while she loaded my hair with detangler spray.
Before I could call out in protest, she had detangled my hair enough to put it in a ponytail below the length I wanted. And in one swift snip, there went half a foot of hard-earned hair. Horrified, I watched her throw my hair callously into the trash can.
But my horror was short-lived. The shorter hair (still past my shoulders), was easier to take care of by a factor of ten. And after that, my haircutting days were less dramatic. With each passing year of high school, my hair got shorter and shorter. Right before I went to college, I snipped it too close once again, and ended up covering my short cap of hair with a Newsies hat for about a year straight (no really-- I wore it so much that when I came back sophomore year and didn't wear it, people literally did not recognize me).
That experience led me to decide I shouldn't cut my hair for a while. That didn't stop me from dyeing my hair pink, however, when my mother learned that she had breast cancer. It wasn't pink all over, just highlights, but it was crazy enough that I started getting hit on by rednecks and middle-aged men. The fuschia dye eventually faded to red-orange, then to just orange, and finally to dead blonde. My hair was so dead after the pink dye was through with it that it wouldn't even curl anymore (and believe me, my hair curls).
By the time the pink dye was out of my system, my hair was long again (and dead), so I got it cut again. First I got a bad haircut in Houston (I should have known better than to trust a Texan with my hair). Then I got it fixed when I came back to the good ol' Volunteer State. I added in some red highlights for good measure.
That haircut lasted all summer, and as usual, when winter came, I wanted it cut. I wanted it cut even though it meant that there was going to be less hair to keep my head warm when the cold blasts came with December. I think my brain has convinced itself that I can cope better with change if I do something drastic to my hair -- exchanging something I can't control for something I can.
That last winter haircut was too short again. It was Tonks hair, as described in the book (not like that chick in the movie), short and spiky and purple. You read it right: purple.
Well, I was forced to live with that hair for quite a while, even though I would have liked to cut it when several huge changes assaulted me all at once. But I survived despite the lack of haircut control, and in spite of the numerous Cracker Barrel patrons who called me 'sir' (by this time, I had developed certain, *ahem*, features that those people really should have noticed).
Recently, I am trying to recognize my hair's amazing, ominous ability to dictate my life. I like to pretend like I am controlling it, but really my hair controls me. I am trying to take back control from my hair by resisting the (constant) urge to cut it short again. Not too short, mind you, but shorter than it is. And that's without mentioning the bright blue peek-a-boo streak I want to get... I am proud to say that I have triumphed in this battle -- my hair is longer now than it has been in almost a decade. And there's not a speck of blue in it.
But I still went and got it layered and trimmed the other day.
~And now, ladies and gentlemen, watch and be amazed as I come full-circle!~
Because of these experiences and observations, I think that movie we discussed has a very appropriate title. Rapunzel spends the majority of the movie defined and controlled by her hair. She's tangled in it, if you will. It isn't until she is freed from that over-arching vanity, and the world's preoccupation with it, that she discovers who she really is.
After all, her prince has a thing for brunettes.
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