Dear Men, What Did Hair Ever Do to You?
Image courtesy: Pinterest
It’s a tale as old as time. A man is blessed with beautiful, voluminous hair — it’s shiny, fluffy, and floppy, it curls in just the right way; the kind of hair that girls everywhere use countless products to try to achieve. Then suddenly, on an unexpected day, the man appears, and it’s like Armageddon. Gone are the luscious locks, now replaced by a short, shaven head. Among the women observing him, there are gasps of horror, and one dominating question: why?
These days, the buzzcut is more than just a haircut. It’s a cultural phenomenon. A man even bringing up the idea of getting one is enough to elicit strong reactions from almost any woman, typically negative. If a girl tells her friends that her boyfriend shaved his head, she immediately receives sympathy and condolences.
Image Courtesy: Pinterest
Image Courtesy: Pinterest
I’m not setting out to write a hit-piece against a particular haircut. It may be high-risk, but it can also be high-reward. There are plenty of buzzcuts that have been received well, despite the buzz-ee in question having great hair prior to the buzz; Brad Pitt in the 2000s, Zayn Malik, and if we’re looking at women, one of my favorite movies, Empire Records, features a young Robin Tunney shaving her head and looking amazing. However, even with these success stories, it cannot be ignored that the general emotions regarding the haircut tend to be ones of rejection and fear. It’s worth exploring how something as simple as a close-cropped hairstyle can create such an infamous reputation for itself, and why people choose to get them anyway.
The first reason I’ve picked up on is a rather simple one: it’s just more convenient. Most men do not have the willingness to groom themselves to the same extent most women do, so taking care of hair is a much more debilitating process in their minds (even though it tends to involve fewer steps for them). So, if given the option to eliminate the need for hair maintenance almost entirely, why not go for it? I myself have a man in my life who has recently embarked on a buzzcut journey. His head, which was once full of hair, has now been cut down to a fuzzy, bald-looking entity. When I asked him why he chose this path for himself, his response was along the lines of, “Well, I did love my hair. When it looked good, it was awesome, but when it looked bad, I hated it, and it ruined my mood. I just got sick of worrying about it.” If every man’s reasoning were as simplistic as this, I could brush my search for answers off with a mere conclusion of “I guess it’s not that deep.” But unfortunately, I cannot do this, for I know there to be a more complex and elusive underbelly to this phenomenon.
Image Courtesy: Pinterest
Another reason I’ve gathered as to why men adopt this haircut is that, like any hairstyle, it can serve as a form of self-expression. Just as any aspect of our appearances, hair can be a projection of our internal selves to the outside world. Of course, this self-expression can go down many different avenues. On the one hand, I can’t help but think of the Eminem side of it all (AKA the Swag White Boy). In an effort to incorporate his Slim Shady persona into his physical appearance, the rapper sported a bleach-blonde buzzcut throughout the late 90s and early 2000s. Given the personality of this alter ego (a tough, chaotic, intimidating character), it is easy to presume the buzzcut was meant to bring a cool factor and sense of edge to Eminem’s appearance. Due to the rapper’s popularity, it was inevitable that this haircut would spawn an entire wave of Swag White Boys, with the matching shaved heads to boot.
Image Courtesy: Grammy
Image Courtesy: Vulture
For a more recent (and slightly less easily explained) example, we can look at Frank Ocean. The acclaimed singer/rapper has had a shaved head for pretty much the entirety of his time in the public eye, but chose to bring specific attention to his hair during the era of his 2016 album Blonde. The album cover highlights Ocean’s hair by featuring nothing but a white background, a picture of Ocean covering his face (leaving his green buzzcut to be the focal point of his appearance), and the word “blond” in plain text. The album cover, despite its simplicity, has been the subject of heavy analysis, sparking conjecture about the mismatched spelling of the titles, why his face is covered, and, of course, his hair. Even amongst all the theories fans and critics have come up with, the significance of the haircut within the album is not definitively known, but given the emphasis it receives on the album cover, and the multitude of references to hair within the album’s lyrics, I’m sure that within his buzzcut, Frank Ocean is hiding some genius level of artistic expression that I just can’t understand.
Among the men who choose to shave their heads, we find varying levels of thoughtfulness in their reasoning. Sometimes it’s to eliminate the need to wash their hair, sometimes it’s just to feel free, and sometimes it’s to adopt a new persona for your rap career or imbue subtext from your wildly acclaimed album into your physical appearance. Regardless of how women feel about it, there seems to be a method to the madness, so men, grab your shavers and buzz away.
Strike Out,
Writer: Annaliese Long
Editor: Daniela Mendoza
Graphic Designer: Gianna Graziano
Tallahassee