Bald people of the world unite
How cool is this? Preparatory to undergoing brain surgery, a woman needs to shave her head. So she has a hair party where she and her friends dye her hair bright colors and give her several hairstyles as they go. When she’s finally bald, her friends shave their heads, too.
(Via Die Puny Humans)
Back in 1987, when my brother shaved his head for the first time, it was considered a shocking thing to do. People around my home town kept asking me why he'd done it, hoping to hear some sort of scandalous story. ("He just felt like shaving his @#$% head, okay?!") My parents thought that my grandfather, a very old-school, working-class Italian-American, would be outraged, but instead he told us a funny story about how he and some friends had shaved their heads back in the early 1930's.
Of course, in 2004, a shaved head is a lot less uncommon than it was in 1987 or 1932. My brother doesn't go bald these days; it's just not the statement it used to be.
Posted by Jimcat on June 25 2004 05:26
You know, I've never quite figured out: just exactly what kind of statement was shaving your head in 1987, and what is it now? I know sometime around the early '90s it stood for white supremacism, but I'm not sure whether that meaning still holds any currency.
Posted by Dan P on June 25 2004 11:49
Not being anywhere near an expert on "skinhead" culture and the many subdivisions thereof, I won't even pretend to offer a comprehensive answer to that.
But in the mid-to-late 80's, most high school boys had fairly thick hair. Down to the collar or even to the shoulders was quite common. Generally the shortest hair was to be found on the oldest men.
So for a 16-year-old boy to shave his head in 1987, the statement was something on the order of "I reject the prevailing fashion trend."
Now you look at the young guys in 2004: I still see some long hair, but I see a lot of buzz cuts and even shaved heads on high school and college guys. So nowadays shaving your head is more like going with the trend.
Posted by Jimcat on June 25 2004 13:01
=v= The skinhead thing is complicated. It's more than a shaved head; there's a whole outfit that goes along with it (a certain variety of London working-class attire).
The irony is that head-shaving was originally an antiracist statement: blacks and whites would shave their heads to look more similar. When racists started adopting the look, there were also antiracist skinheads about, trying to reclaim the fashion. It all got really confusing.
In the thick of the AIDS crisis of the 1990s, many men lost their hair to harsh medical procedures, and other men shaved their hair for reasons similar to those underlying the "hair party."
Posted by Jym on June 26 2004 04:27
I am bald. I shave the little bits of extra hair leftover. And I shine. I love shining my head using butcher's floor wax.
I stand under spotlights whenever I can.
Sometimes I put a revolving police light on my head to draw more attention. Especially when I'm in church.
I hate how people stare at me, don't you?
I've been treated by a tattooed dentist in Fort Collins, CO who thinks he's "new age" whateverthehell that means.
Posted by Emiliano Blummis on October 3 2005 10:16