Photo: Via The Atlantic
File this under our daily dose of outdated clichés: an article published in
The Atlantic
has pointed out how often women characters on television complete an emotional time in their lives with a super-dramatic scene in which they cut off their hair. Think Hannah on Girls, Sally Draper on Mad Men, Felicity on Felicity, and, most recently, Maggie on HBO's The Newsroom.
Somehow, in modern TV culture, the answer to a woman having feelings is an old-school, Les-Miz-esque shearing. Forget therapy, exercise — even the very stereotypical shopping — apparently, there's nothing that makes us women feel better than chopping off all of our hair. Even better if it's with our own two hands.
We wonder whether or not this phenomenon is the result of people — men and women — being terrified of female emotional power. Feelings make us uncomfortable, so rather than show the more realistic side of struggles, TV writers and/or producers decide that a good shearing scene will somehow sum it all up.
Not only does this undermine women, but, as writer Casey Quinlan says, these scenes "give viewers the impression that happy women don't get pixie cuts." Which is, obviously, total BS. We women are way more emotionally intelligent than that — and sometimes, we just want to get a damn haircut.
(The Atlantic)