Your roots are showing
Machilu, this post is for you :)
The Preamble
When I was 8, I went with my family to the Chinatown YMCA boys camp. My dad was the music director that summer and we joined him up at Camp Kern. During the craft time with other staff family kids, I made a pet rock named Dottie. I don't recall what inspired this, but my imagination went to this absurd place, where I somehow devised a character in Dottie who like to be nestled in two particular staff members' hair, Kevin and Hubert. Often I would bring Dottie with me around the camp grounds and if I encountered either of Dottie's favorite follicular playgrounds, I requested that they oblige her. And these kind men both allowed me to put this grubby painted rock in their head's forestry for a few minutes. In fact, sometime after the camp was over, Kevin mailed me the remnants of his latest trip to the barber in a ziplock bag for Dottie's pleasure. It still confounds logic that a grown man (whose next piece of mail to our family was his wedding invitation with a bird motif) would indulge a weirdo child's imaginative liberties such as a pet rock whose favorite thing to do was revel in a tufts of hair. But Kevin Wong, you hold a special place in my heart for this wonderfully odd indulgence.
Like all childhood things, we tend to grow out of it. But ever since then, I have occasionally exhibited signs of an interest in hair and the many meanings around it. My 8th grade science project with Cindy Umanzor, a research survey and evaluation of hair restoration techniques (primarily for male pattern baldness), is one such example. Now, I emerge as a more adult, more sophisticated me, trying to be less cockamamie and more analytical. Indeed, hair is very a important part of style and identity. As it is a symbol of defiance, a statement of personality, a source of woe and shame, a commodity, a thing of beauty and pleasure, and an endless source of tactile titillation.
Strand #1: If you can't take the heat get out the kitchen
A recent episode of Tyra tackled black women's (and girls') hair in surprisingly decent way. Part one here:
There were moments where I was almost going to shed a tear seeing how conventional Eurocentric beauty standards are ingrained in girls so deeply and at such a young age. Check out PostBourgie for some commentary on the episode.
In Spike Lee's movie Malcolm X, the opening and throughout show how hair is a metaphor for the progression of eponymous character's politicization. You can watch the opening scene after the credits (Or the whole film) and see how hair is woven into the narrative:
Lee also takes on the hair issue for women in School Daze, in a very notable filmic dance battle:
In such case you can see how the processing of hair is a highly commodified practice that reflects privilege and wealth, but it also reflects a certain hierarchy of intra- and inter-raciaized beauty.
There's a scene from Clueless about weaves (it starts at about 3:30) and another about shaving your head.It starts with Dee's scream at about 3:25. Speaking of hair. WTF did Brittany Murphy do to her hair? Seriously, when she went blonde she went beyond recognition. Anyway, it is no surprise watching this and considering the other stuff above, how hair becomes a major bone of contention for the main black characters in the movie.
Of course, Oprah.com gives us a detailed account of how to straighten your hair. But is this any surprise when Oprah is a constant combatant when it comes to her own body image and beauty?
Moreover, who could forget the Barbershop/Beautyshop movies? A site revolving around hair becoming the centerpiece of multiple story arcs signals how much energy is expended on coiffure and cosmetics. That energy also creates a camaraderie, contention, and community. Actually in the first Barbershop (I have to admit it's the only one I've seen) some of the characters commit a crime against South Asian convenience store owners. I had to mention it because you know I am always interested in Afro-Asian interrelationships.
Strand #2: Chow Mane and Curry Combs
In a not too graceful segue, this brings me to the concept of Asian hair, which has taken on vastly different meanings from black hair. Yet somehow, since they are both "ethnic" hair they get lumped together by the UK Cosmo-esque website Handbag.com, in this style inspiration feature.
At the same time that "ethnic" hair is taken as worth lumping together, it seems that L'Oreal can't seem to help themselves, dermally saying "light on for the darkness" by blanching Freida Pinto just as they did Beyonce.
According to Marie Claire, Asian hair needs its own special how-to guide. But in looking through the slideshow I fail to see how the tips are so particular to some ambiguous notion of Asian hair. Any styling experts want to come correct and school me?
In his book The Accidental Asian, Eric Liu laments the plight of Asian male hair as wiry. Of course, I'd like to explore issues of gender a bit more, but I realized whenever the blogging becomes expansive it tends to get messy and the post never gets published. In the interest of expediency let's forge ahead. Maybe you gentle readers, can contribute more to the discussion on this point.
From Asian hair for Hallloween to Chinese queues, there's much to be said about the idea of Asian hair.
Interestingly, South Asian hair is coveted. Especially Indian hair.
Whoa, check out this website called IndianRapunzels. It is devoted to Indian hair.
Note the way that the Go Fug Yourself Ladies became obsessed with Freida Pinto's hair in 3/4 posts on her. Here and here. Granted, the go fug yourself gals covet many a woman's hair and skin. However, their covetousness is all the more compelling in the context of Indian hair as it is trafficked and sold for other women's consumption.
Strand #3: A Hair's breadth between real and fake
Beauty, as it is seen in nature and artifice, functions in much the same way that race does as a fine balance between essentialist ideas and the performative qualities of race (e.g. racial impersonation, passing). Our hair says both everything and nothing about who we are.
Nothing shows that better than a few more pop culture examples (i.e. I've amassed so many that I'm too exhausted to do more analysis):
Here's an amazing anthem by the Lady of Rage--a jam that I grew up with watching CMC (California Music Channel) hosted by Chuy Gomez, who's STILL doing it on KTSF 26:
Thanks R. Kelly for also contributing with this autotuned gem:
For some more serious reading, check out Kobena Mercer's essay "Black Hair/Style Politics" in Black British Culture and Society.
Thanks Anoop Desai , for this one. Could you get any cooler? It's like we had a Vulcan mind meld and you knew I was going to blog about this stuff. Score one for the twitterverse (though I'm still not sold).
While I don't know if he's Sikh, Anoop brings up some thoughts about South Asian male hair. I remember very clearly a dated PBS show called Many Voices that I used to really like watching. It deals with diversity issues from a Canadian perspective. Each of the episodes was really well made for that time, if my memory serves me right--though it's been about 15 years since I've watched it. There was one episode that dealt with Sikh hair and the social ostracization that one adolescent boy faced at a local pool. This gives you a pretty good idea of the content (skip down to page 37), but I have not been able to find the video. At around age of 10 this was probably my first exposure to anything related to Sikhs. But not a bad start, I think.
Representations of hair play a role in how Asian-ness and blackness are reiterated, how we style ourselves, and view the way our hair is connected/or not connected to certain essentialized notions about the properties of the keratin growth that springs forth from our noggins. More systematically, it's a classificatory device. And a cartography of beauty and colonization of aesthetics.
Wow, this is super-Linnaean hair taxonomy. I mean, it is a new age of phrenology. *shudder*
Guess what, it's from L'Oreal, the fine people who brought us the whitening of Frieda and Beyonce. They also bring us this fine world tour of hair and culture.
Again, Shalini Vahedra, a presumably South Asian American woman. "India--these are my peeps." She goes on a beauty tour with The View ladies.
Vahedra also has a line called Global Goddess Beauty products purveying cosmetic tourism. And here, set to Indian sounding music, Shalmi talks about her experience of visiting family in Kenya and coveting the women's skin.
Or let's take a look at the covetousness of the Pussycat Dolls, who are ready to "dominate India":
Might I also mention the pencil test in South Africa?
And let's not even get started on other bodily hair trimming and removal.
Okay, maybe just this one example, which is alternately horrifying and hilarious:
Finally, here's Kimora Lee Simmons' emotional moment when her eldest daughter's hair gets blown out for the first time. Because really, hair can mean that much to people, even a a consumerist mogul like KLS:
P.S. I have not cut my hair for a whole year. What does that say about me? It says that I am too low on funds to pay for a good haircut so I've just decided to let it keep growing. And growing. And growing. Yet, it doesn't look half bad. If it did, I'd have gone back to the salon a long time ago, I think.
What are your thoughts on hair?
The Preamble
When I was 8, I went with my family to the Chinatown YMCA boys camp. My dad was the music director that summer and we joined him up at Camp Kern. During the craft time with other staff family kids, I made a pet rock named Dottie. I don't recall what inspired this, but my imagination went to this absurd place, where I somehow devised a character in Dottie who like to be nestled in two particular staff members' hair, Kevin and Hubert. Often I would bring Dottie with me around the camp grounds and if I encountered either of Dottie's favorite follicular playgrounds, I requested that they oblige her. And these kind men both allowed me to put this grubby painted rock in their head's forestry for a few minutes. In fact, sometime after the camp was over, Kevin mailed me the remnants of his latest trip to the barber in a ziplock bag for Dottie's pleasure. It still confounds logic that a grown man (whose next piece of mail to our family was his wedding invitation with a bird motif) would indulge a weirdo child's imaginative liberties such as a pet rock whose favorite thing to do was revel in a tufts of hair. But Kevin Wong, you hold a special place in my heart for this wonderfully odd indulgence.
Like all childhood things, we tend to grow out of it. But ever since then, I have occasionally exhibited signs of an interest in hair and the many meanings around it. My 8th grade science project with Cindy Umanzor, a research survey and evaluation of hair restoration techniques (primarily for male pattern baldness), is one such example. Now, I emerge as a more adult, more sophisticated me, trying to be less cockamamie and more analytical. Indeed, hair is very a important part of style and identity. As it is a symbol of defiance, a statement of personality, a source of woe and shame, a commodity, a thing of beauty and pleasure, and an endless source of tactile titillation.
Strand #1: If you can't take the heat get out the kitchen
A recent episode of Tyra tackled black women's (and girls') hair in surprisingly decent way. Part one here:
There were moments where I was almost going to shed a tear seeing how conventional Eurocentric beauty standards are ingrained in girls so deeply and at such a young age. Check out PostBourgie for some commentary on the episode.
In Spike Lee's movie Malcolm X, the opening and throughout show how hair is a metaphor for the progression of eponymous character's politicization. You can watch the opening scene after the credits (Or the whole film) and see how hair is woven into the narrative:
Lee also takes on the hair issue for women in School Daze, in a very notable filmic dance battle:
In such case you can see how the processing of hair is a highly commodified practice that reflects privilege and wealth, but it also reflects a certain hierarchy of intra- and inter-raciaized beauty.
There's a scene from Clueless about weaves (it starts at about 3:30) and another about shaving your head.It starts with Dee's scream at about 3:25. Speaking of hair. WTF did Brittany Murphy do to her hair? Seriously, when she went blonde she went beyond recognition. Anyway, it is no surprise watching this and considering the other stuff above, how hair becomes a major bone of contention for the main black characters in the movie.
Of course, Oprah.com gives us a detailed account of how to straighten your hair. But is this any surprise when Oprah is a constant combatant when it comes to her own body image and beauty?
Moreover, who could forget the Barbershop/Beautyshop movies? A site revolving around hair becoming the centerpiece of multiple story arcs signals how much energy is expended on coiffure and cosmetics. That energy also creates a camaraderie, contention, and community. Actually in the first Barbershop (I have to admit it's the only one I've seen) some of the characters commit a crime against South Asian convenience store owners. I had to mention it because you know I am always interested in Afro-Asian interrelationships.
Strand #2: Chow Mane and Curry Combs
In a not too graceful segue, this brings me to the concept of Asian hair, which has taken on vastly different meanings from black hair. Yet somehow, since they are both "ethnic" hair they get lumped together by the UK Cosmo-esque website Handbag.com, in this style inspiration feature.
At the same time that "ethnic" hair is taken as worth lumping together, it seems that L'Oreal can't seem to help themselves, dermally saying "light on for the darkness" by blanching Freida Pinto just as they did Beyonce.
According to Marie Claire, Asian hair needs its own special how-to guide. But in looking through the slideshow I fail to see how the tips are so particular to some ambiguous notion of Asian hair. Any styling experts want to come correct and school me?
In his book The Accidental Asian, Eric Liu laments the plight of Asian male hair as wiry. Of course, I'd like to explore issues of gender a bit more, but I realized whenever the blogging becomes expansive it tends to get messy and the post never gets published. In the interest of expediency let's forge ahead. Maybe you gentle readers, can contribute more to the discussion on this point.
From Asian hair for Hallloween to Chinese queues, there's much to be said about the idea of Asian hair.
Interestingly, South Asian hair is coveted. Especially Indian hair.
Whoa, check out this website called IndianRapunzels. It is devoted to Indian hair.
Note the way that the Go Fug Yourself Ladies became obsessed with Freida Pinto's hair in 3/4 posts on her. Here and here. Granted, the go fug yourself gals covet many a woman's hair and skin. However, their covetousness is all the more compelling in the context of Indian hair as it is trafficked and sold for other women's consumption.
Strand #3: A Hair's breadth between real and fake
Beauty, as it is seen in nature and artifice, functions in much the same way that race does as a fine balance between essentialist ideas and the performative qualities of race (e.g. racial impersonation, passing). Our hair says both everything and nothing about who we are.
Nothing shows that better than a few more pop culture examples (i.e. I've amassed so many that I'm too exhausted to do more analysis):
Here's an amazing anthem by the Lady of Rage--a jam that I grew up with watching CMC (California Music Channel) hosted by Chuy Gomez, who's STILL doing it on KTSF 26:
Thanks R. Kelly for also contributing with this autotuned gem:
For some more serious reading, check out Kobena Mercer's essay "Black Hair/Style Politics" in Black British Culture and Society.
Thanks Anoop Desai , for this one. Could you get any cooler? It's like we had a Vulcan mind meld and you knew I was going to blog about this stuff. Score one for the twitterverse (though I'm still not sold).
While I don't know if he's Sikh, Anoop brings up some thoughts about South Asian male hair. I remember very clearly a dated PBS show called Many Voices that I used to really like watching. It deals with diversity issues from a Canadian perspective. Each of the episodes was really well made for that time, if my memory serves me right--though it's been about 15 years since I've watched it. There was one episode that dealt with Sikh hair and the social ostracization that one adolescent boy faced at a local pool. This gives you a pretty good idea of the content (skip down to page 37), but I have not been able to find the video. At around age of 10 this was probably my first exposure to anything related to Sikhs. But not a bad start, I think.
Representations of hair play a role in how Asian-ness and blackness are reiterated, how we style ourselves, and view the way our hair is connected/or not connected to certain essentialized notions about the properties of the keratin growth that springs forth from our noggins. More systematically, it's a classificatory device. And a cartography of beauty and colonization of aesthetics.
Wow, this is super-Linnaean hair taxonomy. I mean, it is a new age of phrenology. *shudder*
Guess what, it's from L'Oreal, the fine people who brought us the whitening of Frieda and Beyonce. They also bring us this fine world tour of hair and culture.
Again, Shalini Vahedra, a presumably South Asian American woman. "India--these are my peeps." She goes on a beauty tour with The View ladies.
Vahedra also has a line called Global Goddess Beauty products purveying cosmetic tourism. And here, set to Indian sounding music, Shalmi talks about her experience of visiting family in Kenya and coveting the women's skin.
Or let's take a look at the covetousness of the Pussycat Dolls, who are ready to "dominate India":
Might I also mention the pencil test in South Africa?
And let's not even get started on other bodily hair trimming and removal.
Okay, maybe just this one example, which is alternately horrifying and hilarious:
Finally, here's Kimora Lee Simmons' emotional moment when her eldest daughter's hair gets blown out for the first time. Because really, hair can mean that much to people, even a a consumerist mogul like KLS:
P.S. I have not cut my hair for a whole year. What does that say about me? It says that I am too low on funds to pay for a good haircut so I've just decided to let it keep growing. And growing. And growing. Yet, it doesn't look half bad. If it did, I'd have gone back to the salon a long time ago, I think.
What are your thoughts on hair?
posted by Em @ 7:56 PM
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