On Facial Hair and Other Hairy Situations

During the presentations in class a few weeks ago, one group spoke about hair removal. Hair removal has become a part of people's daily repertoire whether it's shaving or plucking or waxing. I'm not sure when hair removal started, probably when people started seeing it as "un-hygenic" I guess, but I don't think that then they knew how it would affect our daily lives now or that it would be such a moneymaker.

Today, women have to go through so much to keep every hair in place. We get trims, we shave, wax, pluck, laser it off, spread smelly substances to melt it off and more. (Has anyone heard of threading?) I don't understand why it's acceptable for some parts of women's bodies (yes I'm talking about the part between the legs) to look like they did when we were in kindergarten. 

I'm not saying it's just women that have to go through this. Men have the option of waxing their chest and back, men who aren't lazy take a razor to their face and shave every other day, I'm sure men pluck their eyebrows too. I'm not saying it's unfair that women have to go through more hair removal, but it does kind of suck that dark hair that grows on a woman's inner thigh is seen as unattractive when men who wear flipflops are allowed to sport hairy cave man toes and no one says anything. 

In class we also discussed why women and men go through hair removal and who they're really doing it for. Personally, I have been waxing since I had noticeable body hair at age 12. My mother tells me that the hair wont grow back by the time I'm 35 so I still have 16 more years to go. But I'm not always walking around with completely hairless legs, the hair does grow back and there is an inbetween period before its long enough for some asian lady to rip it out of my skin again. Who do I do it for? Well if I seriously think about it, I don't want (noticeable) hair on my legs because I somehow think it is seen as unfeminine. There goes that internalized sexism. I mean, if I saw a guy walking down the street and I noticed that he had no hair on his legs, I would probably question his masculinity. But he could be a swimmer, or maybe he just isnt a hairy guy or maybe he just doesn't like hair on his legs either. 

Speaking of masculinity, facial hair to me is just gross. I have an issue with facial hair on men. I think that men under the age of 25 should NOT let their facial hair run wild in whimpy little patches on their faces. To me it just looks like face pubes. I also think that men who let their face pubes run awry are just lazy. I mean COME ON. Women go through so much to have smooth skin, hairless armpits and legs and a neat bikini line, but young men can't keep their scraggly beards in order?? 

When I express my views on facial hair to men my age, they just shrug in agreement. They are lazy. But you know what, fuck it, maybe this summer I'll be lazy. I mean, I'm going to work at a summer camp that is miles away from a nail salon that offers hair removal services, and no way am I going to waste 6 years of waxing by shaving my legs. Besides, I don't think my cute hairless eight year old campers will care if my legs are hairy or not. So there.

Pixar's Issue with Sex/Gender

During our class discussion on tuesday about men and feminism, Pixar's gender/sex issue came up. I am a huuuuuuge Pixar nerd, but I never really thought about how unbalanced their films were in terms of the male to female character ratio.

This article I found really breaks it down into detail, but I'll give you the basics here.

Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, Monsters Inc, Ratatouille (kind of) and Up are all "buddies" movies that focus on two male characters that are friends that have to go on some kind of quest or mission or something. Yes, they do include female characters, but only Toy Story 2 and 3 include a more important female role (Jessie) who has personality and stuff. Ratatouille has Linguini's love interest (blah, boring) and thats about it for female roles in that group.

Finding Nemo is a father/son movie and yes, they've got Dory who is pretty much there for comic relief but thats it.

What's interesting about Bugs Life is that they completely flipped gender roles in the ant world for the sake of the film. All male ants really do is eat and fertilize eggs, while female ants do all the work. What's up with that Pixar? It's similar in Wall-E. Wall-E and EVE are both robots, but why do they even have sex/gender? Why couldn't Wall-E be a feminine character? Why did he have to have a gender at all?

Cars was the worst. The only female characters in cars were the love interest of the main character and the car groupies. I wonder if in Cars 2 it will be different.

The Incredibles did have a few good female characters like Helen (Mr. Incredibles wife) and his daughter too. We also had the quirky E who made costumes and Syndrome's minion girl. But still, the movie focused on Mr. Incredible.


I've read in a few places that Pixar may have made these choices in character because males are seen as the neutral role, while females are "particular". I've also read that Pixar mostly have male writers and that it would be difficult for them to write a compelling female role. Oh please. If you're a good writer, you could write any kind of character no matter what sex/gender they are.

Now, we all know Pixar is coming out with Brave in 2012. We're all thinking, finally a Pixar film with a female lead! Don't get excited too soon. Keep in mind that Brave is also Pixar's first fairy tale which also takes place in mythical Scotland. Gee thanks Pixar. So not only is Pixar being completely unoriginal by making their first female lead in a film be a princess, they are making it take place in a mythical setting. Because having a female lead is so outrageous, people wouldn't see it if it took place in reality. It makes me mad because even though not all Pixar films take place in the "real" world, they still go above and beyond with creativity in terms of filling out their fictional settings to model them like the real world. (see Nemo, Monsters Inc, Cars, Bugs Life). Hopefully they will at least do the same for Brave in "mythical Scotland".

It could be that Pixar is totally aware of their gender/sex issue, but in the end it's about money and maybe the films with male roles just sell better. Which also sucks. When I think about it that way, not only is there negative connotations that go with the word "feminism" but there could be some kind of negative connotations that go with lead female roles in movies as well. Maybe negative is the wrong word, but as I've learned in film studies, people go to the movies and know what to expect depending on the genre of the movie. I mean what would have happened if Finding Nemo was about a mother looking for her daughter? What if Up was about an old woman who's husband died? Would they have been as successful?

And the mother of the year award goes to...

So I read here that there is this mother in San Fransisco who is trying to prepare her daughter for a life of stardom, fame and success. No, she's not sending her to performance schools or letting her taking voice lessons. Instead she chose the fast and surefire way of getting your kid to be famous, yeah you guessed it, botox injections and virgin waxes. (which kind of worked, since now she's in the papers, theres a start!)

excuse me? She's eight years old. She should still be playing with dolls, not worry about when she's going to get her nose done! What has this world come to?

What baffles me most is that this mother isn't even giving her daughter a chance to reach for goals of her own. And that issue doesnt just apply to girls, it applies to boys as well. It's (almost) the same as a father forcing his son to play football so he can become a football star... minus the extremely unhealthy beauty treatments. It makes me sick.