The Many Meanings of Big Hair

Hello loyal readers!

Apologies for my dereliction of blog duty but I have been soaking up the cultchah of Oxford (drinking) and the sights of London (in pubs) and surrounding Olde Englishe Countryside (very old pubs).

I want to tell you about a commercial, or advert, I saw on TV, or telly, the other evening. I think it was BBC4. A pretty, slim, olive-skinned young woman with a penumbra of dark curly hair falls as she walked along the sidewalk, or pavement, in a busy metropolis and twists her ankle. No one responds in any way. Oh the alienation of urban life! She hobbles pathetically along, with no one offering the poor girl any assistance whatsoever. But indeed, it is the way in the cold, hard city.

She goes into a flat where a male person (boyfriend? flatmate? unclear) is lounging on the couch. He proceeds to ignore her low moans of agony. She hobbles to the bathroom where she picks up the Remington Hair Straightener, rather than an Ace bandage or an ice pack. She uses said Remington Hair Straightener to iron her enormous frizzy mass of curls into a smooth, sleek do reminiscent of a wet seal pelt.

Newly coiffed, our hobbling heroine limps into the living room, or parlour, where the male on the sofa leaps to his feet and gathers her into his arms, cooing with care and concern over her poor ankle. He carries her to the street, where a series of chevaliers pass her from street to taxi to hospital, where a hunky doctor takes one look at her swollen hoof and seal pelt and kicks another patient out of bed to make room for her and her tamed mane.

Ten points if you can tell me the moral of this story.

Twenty points if you can tell me why this ad is problematic; thirty if you allude to historical precendent. Thirty-five if you have a big 'fro (Af- or Jew- or other).

Minus fifty if you say, "But I like curly hair, so I don't see what the problem is, it's funny!" Minus one hundred if you say that and you are a dude, especially a dude with straight ass Anglo style hair. But seventy-five points if you can make a serious analysis of why "porn hair" is what it is and what that might mean in a larger cultural metanarrative kinda thing.

Go!