I remember (from way back when I used to teach this stuff) that Roland Barthes had some interesting things to say about haircuts. He was fascinated by the uniformity of the hair-styles given to characters from ancient Rome, in Hollywood movies. They all had to have short hair (if I remember correctly) cut with a rather severe fringe across the forehead. So consistent was this that Barthes believed that it must have encoded a specific message. (Well, as a structuralist he would, wouldn’t he?)
It is a long time since I read Mythologiques, but I think that the conclusion he reached was that the hair-style was a symbol for discipline and control. The Romans stood for order and authority, in contrast to the undisciplined flowing locks of the Celts and Gauls. Their hair gave away the fact that they could not be relied upon, and certainly didn’t merit the term “civilised”. You could tell immediately, from their shaggy locks, that they were a complete shower!
How did I get onto this? Well: for some reason it came to mind as I walked back from the deli this morning, with my own “Celtic Fringe” blowing into my eyes as it has come to do these days, to my continuing irritation. The situation has become so annoying that I have taken, on occasions, to the use either of hair-spray or a rather raffish ’60s bandana in the attempt to manage my hair. Why (I was wondering) do we find the lack of a hair-cut to be so very unwelcome? Let’s face it: as a student my hair was a great deal longer than it is now. My mother (who was a trained hairdresser) managed to get her scissors to it only once a year. This is where Barthes comes into the picture. I realised that our discomfort with our overgrown hair does indeed have to do with a feeling of the loss of control over our bodies more generally. It is almost on a par with incontinence when it comes to measuring our loss of the sense that we are able to manage effectively our own selves. Well-disciplined hair can be, as Barthes spotted, a powerful symbol of something more general in our lives. Well-managed hair:chaotic hair is as civilisation:barbarism. Next time you watch Ben Hur, or some similar classic movie, remember to check out the hair-dos.
This is at the heart of our discomfort during the current period of isolation because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In one way or another we are all suffering from a diminution of our control over our situations. That’s the heart of the matter.