new thread
I am not a man, but I like this board, so I hope you dont mind if I post here. I have waist long hair, myself. I saw a long hair makeover show on Maury Povich today and I am so pissed off!!! A bunch of people, including one man with really long hair, past his butt, all had their cut off because their "loved ones" wanted it. I don't understand why whenever someone get's a "makeover" they have to have it ALL hacked off and that is supposed to be such a good thing. Why does long hair elicit so much negative response in a lot of people? You know, "you look like a hippy" "that style is so outdated". Blah, blah, blah!! I even get these comments from some people in my family. If people care about you then why can't they let you wear your hair the way you want?
mostly it is a fear of too well expressed independent thought. the fear stems from the survival advantage we get from being easily identifiable members of a group. until not too long ago not belonging to at least a family was a death sentence. in some parts of the world it still is. the lesson is: be different enough to be an individual but not so different that you loose identification with the group thereby getting yourself cast out. it could be bad for your health. that the fear mostly no longer applies locally doesn't stop people from suffering from it or inflicting needless suffering on others. you only hurt the ones you love.
Vic Wolczuk
Despite this tragedy. is it possible to get any photos of the guys on
the show for posting here.
Leslie, I agree to 100% with you. I hate this shows so much that I sometimes have problems to find the right words. I heard about it on another messageboard and I couldn't sleep the whole night.
wolfgang
Hmmm...a friend and coworker, on noticing (and receiving confirmation from me) that I was growing my hair out, told me I was "going to look like an old hippie" (in part referring to the fairly large beard I have had for many years, now graying at the age of 40). Here it was clear he meant it in fun and has had no further comment (in about three months). This is the origin of my handle, even if I don't relate all that well to real "old hippies."
I haven't regularly watched TV in many years and don't even have one at home as the programming has steadily gotten less and less in tune with my intellectual proclivities. The glimpses I get to see now and then do not impress me: The sitcoms with increasing depreciation of the values I have always held very dear, the "unsolved mystery" type of show that too often leaves me thinking "how dumb do they think we are?", and the strange trend of what I will call "voyeurvision" leave me quite frankly offended. I have never seen a "makeover" segment on TV but have seen mentions of them a few times in about six months of occasional lurking here and wonder why a TV producer should find enough entertainment value in someone getting his long hair cut off to be interested in airing it. (Yes, my intellectual proclivities may not be in step with recent social trends, and I may have since my late teens come to increasingly, innately hate getting my hair cut (I finally stopped eight months ago), but I still can't imagine why I or anyone I know would find someone getting a haircut all that interesting.) Nonetheless, given the voyeuristic trend now afoot in the medium, along with the "almost anything goes" mentality seemingly pervading it, I suppose I should not be surprised. I find myself agreeing with various observers in this board that these segments may be intended to carry messages ridiculing men with long hair -- particularly as there seems not to be a variant on the theme where the longhairs are shown merely being restyled but get to keep their hair -- or what about one where long hair or beards on men could be frankly portrayed in a positive light, with perhaps a pictorial discussion of how a man went from short to long hair or barefaced to bearded, and how with a little styling help the hair and beard could be made even more attractive? I can't imagine how these variants could be any less interesting than a picture of someone getting a haircut, and would promote a diversity of opinion that the medium says it wants to achieve.
However, while I still wonder why a man wanting to get a haircut for any reason should want to have it done before a national TV audience, and I still think the unspoken premise behind these segments of ridiculing longhairs (or anyone else based merely on his choice of physical appearance) is a bad thing and hence I will not condone this "entertainment," I can't quite buy into the thesis sometimes expressed in this board that the men are unwilling subjects perhaps deserving of sympathy. I hope I'm not being naive, but I don't think any TV producer would yet stoop so low as to make entertainment out of cutting hair off of a man who wasn't a willing participant (or want to risk the criminal assault and battery charges I'm sure an unwilling subject would sooner or later bring against him). I'm sure the subjects, in order to appear on TV in the first place, had to sign rather elaborate releases. I'm sure they knew perfectly well what they were doing -- and somehow I think it is less likely that someone getting a haircut he really doesn't want under pressure from a "S.O." or boss would choose this means for doing it. (Not that some or even many participants weren't pressured by girlfriends or wives or bosses into getting the haircuts; I still think it more likely that they were among those who chose to yield more willingly...it certainly can happen that way, and I think it less plausible that a man really doing it under protest would choose to have this presumably painful decision play out before an audience.) In the end, the former longhairs who signed up for these makeovers must accept responsibility for what happened to them -- and for doing the rest of us more committed longhairs a disservice by participating in trashy "entertainment" that ridicules us.
(As it happens, I have never yet gone so far with a woman as even to go out on a date. I have long known, however, that with my extremely independent personality I could never ethically get serious with any woman without making certain she could put up with my refusal to shave or cut my hair, both of which are so rooted in my internal life philosophies that I regard them as lifetime commitments, and my various other lesser eccentricities. I would never even think of allowing any aspect of my life to become a thing to be broadcast on TV.)
Yeah, the best handles come from somebody else. I had a client here in San Francisco once remark, "Bill looks like he came out of the Ozarks," and in fact I grew up in the Illinois Ozarks, so I said, "Well, I did!" Though I tend to use my name instead of a handle, when a handle is cool, I use "Ozark". It has a special cachet because someone else gave it to me.
When the hippies had their heyday, I was two thousand miles from here, a student in Champaign-Urbana. The closest I got to the Grateful Dead was to play their records as a jock on WPGU. Now I live in San Francisco and tourists flock to this town. One thing they really want to see while here is "an old hippie". They take my picture all the time! And I've learned what they want is smiles and peace signs. :-) So I do my part for the local tourism industry and enjoy it while obliging. But my identity with real old hippies is about like yours.
Once when someone said I looked like an old hippie in a bit of a negative tone, the perfect come-back flashed into my mind in an instant: "Better that, than to look like an old yuppie! 'Old' is not a variable I can filter out of the equation." And I smiled.
As for "makeovers", the longhairs on them surely are willing. TV producers could find a black man who'd let them drag him behind a truck so he could get on television. But because of events that have happened, doing that would be terribly insensitive.
Similarly, longhairs have suffered discrimination, and younger longhairs have suffered violence. Makeovers disrespect us and encourage those who would commit those acts. I cry when I see a makeover because I know that night because of it, some longhair boy will get beaten.
Some people actually have a sexual fetish with watching haircuts. But they are a tiny minority and are no more what fuels makeovers than does the S&M crowd fuel violence against racial minorities. These acts are fueled by hate.
They are not portrayed because they do not play into people's hate. What a significant part of the population hates is longhairs. What you point out illustrates that indeed, showing what is "interesting" or "diverse" is not their goal.
I concur. There are a few million adult male longhairs in America. All they have to do is find one.
They of course were longhairs who had little identity with being a longhair. As such, they would have felt little responsibility toward other longhairs.
We have a very similar identity and outlook on life. Drop me a line - bill@choisser.com - and let's talk more.
Bill
An old Ozark hippie in San Francisco
Two miles from Haight & Ashbury, where it all began.
I agree. All, but one of the panel of guests were women and it really sickened me to watch the whole thing. The women had tears in their eyes as their hair was being cut. A couple of the women's family members were "allowed" to cut their mane off, including one of the women's husbands. Her husband had been wanting to cut her knee length hair off for a long time. It was torture for me to watch. The man who had his hair cut did it for his daughter because she was embarassed by the laughter and ridicule of her school peers every time he went to pick her up from school. I thought it was interesting that Maury said to the young girl, something along the lines of, " You should tell your classmates, "this is my father and he is a good father, no matter what he looks like and how he chooses to wear his hair". Ya right Maury, you are the imbecile hosting this freak show!!!! I hardly think he gives a damn about the feelings of the guests. I too, would LOVE to see a show in which they showcase long hair and give it the respect it deserves!
P.S. I forgot to add that the hair WAS going to "Locks of Love" which is hair donated to cancer patients of whom lose their hair during treatment, I think. So I guess that was one good aspect of the show, although a little manipulating. I found myself feeling guilty for having long hair and was wondering, for a little while, If I too should cut my hair off and give it to this organization.
Leslie, locks of love has been discussed often on other boards. In the first year of their existence they have gathered more then 10000 ponytails and delivered 50 wigs (after their own statements, there exist also some newspaper articles I stored on my hard disk).
They get money for the wigs (how much I don't know) and they sell hair for money, so it is not clear how the spended hair ends, very long hair maybe as an hair extension to someone. They need 12 ponytails to create one wig, so a very long hair is not enough to create a wig.
They gather hair for people who have lost their hair through alopecia, not for cancer patients. This comes from their own letters.
I think what they do is a a great waste of beautiful long hair.
The odd thing is that they have already enough hair and that they don't stop gathering or telling that they need money. Every months thousands of ponytails are denoted and the hair disappeares somewhere.
I don't understand this why already tons of hairs fall down each day on multiple hair dressing saloons and there is a great business activity for extensions and wigs. I thing it is a bad thing to create a "benefit organizations" that is founded on the tears of many people, results in social pressure and waste most of the spended hair.
The social pressure is evident. Whole groups of young girls cut off their hair and women are attacked to be guilty or self fetished if they don't cut their hair. I have read a lot of this stories on different message boards.
wolfgang
I'm sorry if this seems so long, but it may explain some things viewers don't take the time to figure out.
From the show's point of view, it's a matter of money. Advertisers pay millions to increase the sales of haircuts, new clothes, makeup, dieting, plastic surgery, eating disorders, behavior counseling, etc. Companies who advertise tend to grow and prosper while others fail. The TV characters say it's a "good" thing because they see the dollar signs. Advertisers buy the show; and the viewers are sold to the advertisers. I guess 75% of the "makeover" episode viewers are indifferent but are habitually trained to watch the show anyway; another 10% may hate the show and I guess still watch even when pissed off. But, it's the 1% or 2% of viewers who make the advertisers rich by asking loved ones to get haircuts, by maxing out the wage earner's credit cards, by buying one brand of soda instead of another because the label looked familiar, etc. Obviously the suckers who liked the show buy the haircuts and new clothes. But what's not so obvious, the viewers who hated the show probably buy one brand of widgets instead of another, not being consciously aware of the commercial they saw on a Maury Povich makeover show. I have a hunch that people most susceptible to the unconscious persuasion are those who hated the show.
Why cut hair? Short hair means more haircuts and more money. For most people, short hair probably requires a haircut every 6 weeks while long hair probably never needs to be trimmed. A shorthair may get a haircut when the hair starts falling into the eyes, while a longhair can easily tie the hair back and not have to spend $20.00 on a haircut. Now for example, if a TV viewer who saw the makeover show gets two members of their family to cut their long hair short, the family now has to spend $347.00 MORE per year getting haircuts every 6 weeks. If 10 million viewers watch the makeover show, and only 2 percent of the viewers cause a longhair to cut their long hair and become addicted to haircuts when they otherwise wouldn't have, the yearly total sales of haircuts would increase by 69 million dollars. And don't forget, the viewers who have been getting haircuts all their life may someday have to find a new barber/salon, and end up choosing the advertised barber/salon instead of a barber/salon who doesn't advertise.
Years ago when I used to watch TV, I "boycotted" one of the shows that had makeovers, and then another show had makeovers. It's not just Maury Povich--apparently ALL the daytime talk shows do the makeovers and they all cut hair. I don't watch any commercial TV and I don't know why people still watch TV.