--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: <snip> > Just as a followup, doncha think it's > fascinating that a supposed "feminist" > throws away several posts 1) picking a > nit about another woman's "unkempt" > appearance as if that somehow offended > her, and 2) does so by suggesting that > it is somehow "inauthentic" for a woman > in any era to wear her hair the way she > wants to?
Barry. [knock knock knock] Anybody home in there? I was talking about *a character in a movie*, and how that character *would have been likely* to wear her hair, not about how women *should* wear their hair in real life. And it wasn't just a "nit." It had to do with how the choice of hairstyle for the movie reflected a racist attitude on the filmmakers' part. Nothing wrong with "unkempt" on its own terms. Nothing wrong with it in a film either when it's appropriate for the character. It *is* problematic when it reveals subconscious racism. It seems you've been spending so much time lately watching movies that you're having trouble distinguishing their fictional reality from real life. > That said, having dated a number of > women with naturally curly hair in my > life, and lived with a few of them, I > can attest to the fact that no matter > *how* society-whipped or pussy-whipped > Judy would like them to be, those curls > are not going to stay "kempt" for very > long if they live outdoors in the wind > and the elements. McDonnell's hair isn't "curly." At most, it's wavy. And she could easily have had even the waviness straightened for the film. Braid it however you > want, bind it up neatly the way Judy > thinks it "should" be bound up as much > as you want, and within an hour you're > looking pretty much the way Mary McDonnell > looked to start with because she was > smart enough to realize this. Braided or tied-back hair under windy conditions doesn't end up looking anything remotely like McDonnell's hair in the film. Plus which, according to what you quoted her as saying in your earlier post, that's not why she went along with it in any case. Did you forget that already? <snip> > Mary McDonnell -- in "Dances With Wolves" > or "Grand Canyon" or "Battlestar Galactica" > or any of the other 48 films she's been in > -- pretty much encapsulates my vision of a > certain kind of feminine (and feminist) > beauty that is on the one hand lovely and > on the other hand Don't Take No Shit. Free clue: A woman can do the Don't Take No Shit thing regardless of the hairstyle she chooses. For that matter, she can also be the type who takes all kinds of shit regardless of the hairstyle she chooses--even possibly *more important* shit than how she wears her hair. It isn't impossible that McDonnell was *intimidated* into wearing her hair that way against her better judgment, and then had to try to justify it after the fact. In other words, the messy hair may have been a function of her taking shit from the costumers and makeup artists about how she couldn't hope to put the character across otherwise.
