Althouse: "It's one thing to say you're going to let go. It's another to actually do it. To loosen your grip, to let yourself fall."

October 4, 2015

"It's one thing to say you're going to let go. It's another to actually do it. To loosen your grip, to let yourself fall."

"So when I walked into the haircutting place, I was taking a leap. But I wasn't doing it for a guy or because of some list. I was doing it for me."

30 comments:

JAORE said...: Never watched it. But the show must have been extremely well written, brilliantly acted and tightly directed. After all if a hair cut makes the difference between great and crap.....; 10/4/15, 8:57 AM
madAsHell said...: Jennifer Grey went with a nose job.; 10/4/15, 9:25 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: It started with a short haircut: it so often does.

Then comes the judgement, and the inevitable retreat from judgement into the safety of Feminism, where You Are Not Your Hair and The Patriarchy Cannot Tell You What To Do With Your Body.

You are Free Now, Free to Exult in Feminist Fisting Circles, where Feminists insert their Fists into each others' Vaginas as a Statement that says "I can put my entire fist in another woman's vagina."

Feminist fisting provides the physical experience of vaginal childbirth without having to actually have a baby: Fists, not Fetuses.

Oh, she would be a Favorite in Feminist Fisting Circles: small delicate hands, not sausage-shaped Lena Dunham fingers. For example.

Still: as a Feminist, if Lena Dunham wants to stick her swollen pudgy fist in your vagina you cannot say No.

As I said: It started with a short haircut.

I am Laslo.; 10/4/15, 9:34 AM
Fernandinande said...: When I walked into the haircutting place, I was getting a haircut. But I wasn't doing it for a guy or because of some list. I was doing it for me. Exciting times.; 10/4/15, 9:40 AM
pious agnostic said...: I think we all remember where we were and what we were doing when we first learned that Felicity had cut her hair. It was a clear, cool morning in early Autumn. I had just finished my coffee and danish, and was rinsing my dishes in the sink, when my wife and daughter told me.

My reaction was immediate and visceral. "Who cares?"; 10/4/15, 9:52 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Gone with each clipping was the long hair of Shame, and the Bukkake Night Memory she could never completely wash from her hair, no matter how hard she tried or what shampoo she used.

Oh, it seemed fun at first: just some alcohol and a bunch of men, ejaculating on her face and hair. But when they were done the stickiness set in: the stickiness, and the Shame.

Weeks later she would be walking down the street and be convinced that people were staring at her chin, where some remnant of dried semen somehow was not washed away. They SAW it, and she saw that they saw it.

Her eyes still watered at the memory of trying to unglue her eyelashes from the rivulets that splattered her face; that was indeed bad, but The Hair. The Hair was where the Shame subsided.

So she got a haircut.

I am Laslo.; 10/4/15, 9:54 AM
Michael K said...: Never heard of it. A great haircut scene was in "Roman Holiday" when the princess, played by Audrey Hepburn" gets a haircut into the style of the day. It is a declaration of independence. Later she dances with the barber at a barge on the river in front of San Angelo palace.; 10/4/15, 9:57 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: And the anal sex. How men loved to tug on her long curly locks as they pounded her from behind. Here she was, giving up her ass to them, and it seemed all they wanted to do was play with her hair.

But, after the haircut, that was gone: now the men pounding her ass from behind had no hair to distract them from their anal ravaging, as it should be. If she was giving up her ass to them they better damn well concentrate on her ass.

That should be obvious.

I am Laslo.; 10/4/15, 10:04 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Anyway, those are thoughts I tend to think when I see a woman with newly-short hair.

I thought maybe women should know that; I can't be the only one.

I am Laslo.; 10/4/15, 10:13 AM
Birches said...: I loved her short hair.; 10/4/15, 10:15 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/4/15, 10:21 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: A how-to on Feminist Fisting that -- unfortunately -- leaves out the importance of the haircut.

I am Laslo.; 10/4/15, 10:22 AM
Big Mike said...: Who's Keri Russell? Who is (was?) Felicity?; 10/4/15, 11:20 AM
Skeptical Voter said...: Ah Laslo. Our host teed it up with this bit of TV trivia--and you knocked it out of the park! (Mixing my golf and baseball metaphors--or maybe because your humor is sometimes childish, we're talking tee ball here). Anyway, you go guy.; 10/4/15, 11:32 AM
William said...: There's a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald called Bernice Bobs Her Hair. It explicitly warns of the perils young women face when they cut their hair short. This is not a new thing, but every generation must learn anew. Short hair on a pretty girl is not an improvement......Michael K. points to the more happy experience that Audrey Hepburn had in Roman Holliday. Ok, that's one. Not too many others.; 10/4/15, 11:36 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Who's Keri Russell? Who is (was?) Felicity?"

If she hadn't cut her hair, you would know.

It's pop culture ephemera from 16 years ago. I blogged it because of the ephemerality and because of the lightweight feminism, which is probably somewhat different from today's lightweight feminism.; 10/4/15, 11:49 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: "...because of the lightweight feminism..."

Althouse is implying that there is a kind of Feminism that doesn't include Feminist Fisting.

Quaint.

I am Laslo.; 10/4/15, 11:59 AM
Michael K said...: "Michael K. points to the more happy experience that Audrey Hepburn had in Roman Holliday. Ok, that's one. Not too many others."

My gorgeous daughter has cut her hair so short that she looks like a boy. I don't know why and her mother and I hope she gets over this soon. Her hair was beautiful.

She is 35 and old enough to know better.; 10/4/15, 12:20 PM
JAORE said...: Search pics of Halle Berry when her hair was quite short. Yowzer (not that she is less than spectacular in other hair lengths, but the shortest of her cuts, Yowzer again.)

And my wife's hair cut? Short is perfect on her.; 10/4/15, 12:54 PM
rcocean said...: I loved the comment "i didn't do it for a guy".

Well, duh. The percentage of straight men who like short hair on young women. 1/100.; 10/4/15, 12:58 PM
chuck said...: When I got my long hair cut, it wasn't for a woman, it was because I was tired of combing out the twigs and leaves after working under the car. More women should work under cars, equality you know.

PS: The barber enjoyed himself, he had had his eye on me for years.; 10/4/15, 1:30 PM
Paddy O said...: "It's pop culture ephemera from 16 years ago."

I remember this being a big topic of discussion even among those who didn't watch the show. It's not a big deal, but it's something that hit people's interest at a certain age.

Long hair is youth and innocence. Short hair is a mom cut and cynicism. She aged herself right out of her role and people saw her with different intentions or interests. Women liked the show because they could identify with her, young men because she was cute, an age-fitting version of Meg Ryan. Chop the hair off, she becomes the older sister and authority figure.

Just as I have very little interest in a huge amount of pop-culture issues today, those who were older than 30 in the late 90s have no interest in Felicity. People who are fascinated with pop-culture today can't imagine why anyone would be stuck on the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s. The moment you say "Who's _____? Why should I care?" about a pop-culture event, that's the moment you become old. A lot of readers hereabouts were old in the late 90s.; 10/4/15, 3:10 PM
Big Mike said...: If she hadn't cut her hair, you would know.

Probably not. I have never been much into network shows. CSI back before Petersen left the cast -- Danson, like Caruso on CSI Miami never projected a degree of comfort surrounded by scientific instruments the way Petersen did. Bones for a while. House for a while. Home Improvement was a lot of fun. I never bothered with cable so my TV was more or less permanently tuned to PBS whenever they showed old BBC shows like "Foyles War."; 10/4/15, 4:13 PM
Charlie Currie said...: It doesn't appear that many, if any, commenters watch The Americans.; 10/4/15, 5:16 PM
Bob Ellison said...: I think there were two problems: the actress was really beautiful, and she appealed to a target audience of young girls and boys. When she cut her hair, she was suddenly a different person , trying to appeal to a very different group. She was not Meryl Streep. It did not work, and the show was not mature enough to carry off the change.

Not afraid to opine.; 10/4/15, 7:36 PM
ken in tx said...: I am about to do my annual migration from Western North Carolina to Austin, TX. I plan to get my last real haircut, at a barber shop, Fri before I leave on Mon. In Austin, there are no real barber shops near where we live, just these chain unisex hair cutteries. That's where a woman who has never been to barber school sprays your head with water and snips around your ears with scissors. She doesn't shave your neck or shave around your ears. The best she does is keep you from looking like you live under a bridge on the Mopack Expressway. That's what I have to look forward to until next April.; 10/4/15, 8:23 PM
kristinintexas said...: The Americans is a really good show. I mentioned something to my husband (who's 36) about Keri Russell having naturally curly hair and he didn't know what I was talking about - had to google a picture for him. But he's not much for pop culture.; 10/4/15, 9:34 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/4/15, 10:30 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: Short curly hair on a young girl can be stunning. I still have very fond memories of a lovely french girl in Nice, way way back in 19(cough), daughter of a colleague of a colleague of a relative. Too bad I was even stupider about girls then, than I am about women now.; 10/4/15, 10:31 PM
Peter said...: "The cases about accommodating religious believers are not about what the Constitution requires — what government must do — but about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA")"

Amending the Constitution is more difficult than passing legislation, but, surely this is a difference in degree and not in kind?; 10/5/15, 9:09 AM