Kyle back in the house to address a very serious topic: Hair. Caution: Joy hairdo spoilers ahead.
The extent to which certain moments of David O. Russell’s Joy are deliberately soap opera-y is an open question. The movie’s latter scenes, in particular, draw on clichéd images of toughness: pleather jacket, sunglasses, and, of course, newly shorned hair. It seems that nothing says a woman is serious quite like taking matters, i.e., her hair, into her own hands.
I’ll happily debate the merits of having a narrative arc reveal a woman to be a badass—since most already are in my book—but I’d rather hear what some of your favorite DIY hair-cutting scenes are. Here are three of the most dramatic that leap to my mind after the jump...
Savvy businesswoman Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) saves money on an expensive makeover by styling herself.
Kate the Great did what had to be done as Jo in George Cukor’s 1933 Little Women.
The Mirror Cracked: Cutting her own locks made Barbra Streisand’s Yentl (1983) so distressed the mirror cracked to suggest her new duality!
Demi Moore, then Hollywood's highest paid actress, showed in G.I. Jane (1997) that she was willing to play by men’s rules.
What's your favorite DIY hair makeover as character arc in the movies?