Saturday

Hair Protest




Hair can be used as means to protest against the established order. Whatever the place or the moment in history, the established order is always very clear on what is the "hair norm", which hair styles are acceptable and which ones are not. Hair is the easiest part of the body to modify (without changes having to be irreversible): an obvious, visible and clear way to protest against reigning order.
This French documentary highlights different protests, from the 20th century until now.


By the 1950s, rockers set the tone with their lubricated bananas, which, combined with a proletarian look, shocked a conformist and materialist America. In the sixties appear the long hair of the hippies and the proud afros of the black community. This time, it is a question of freeing itself from racist diktats and of claiming a desire for freedom and peace during the war of Vietnam. Then punks, skinheads and rastas let the reigns run free, with their mohawks, baldheads and dreadlocks respectively. An all-round capillary provocation that prefigures the great blend of today's hairstyles: XXL banana and peroxidised crests spread from one end of the world to the other and are worn without any particular claims. But hair can still regain its subversive power outside Western countries, or through recent movements like afropunk.

#Protest
#Documentary