A Close Shave

~ WAXING LYICAL ABOUT FEMALE ON-SCREEN BODY HAIR ~

When disaster strikes in a Hollywood story, what does a fierce, female protagonist require in order to survive? Water, food, shelter, transport…and a waxing kit?

On-screen female-identifying heroines always seem to find the time, and resources, to remove their body hair while also trying not to die!

This irks me for two reasons: feminism and realism. 

Immersive story-telling is part of what makes film and television so appealing. It’s an easily accessible escape from everyday life. We can insulate ourselves in the intimate confines of someone else’s skin, and steep ourselves in other worlds, all with the simple push of a button. To feel immersed, however, a level of authenticity is required both visually and via the narrative. We need to ‘believe’ the story as it unfolds, no matter how fantastical its underpinnings.

Shows likeThe Handmaid’s Tale, V for Vendetta, Mad Max Fury Road, Outlander, The Walking Dead and The Blue Lagoon do a brilliant job of transforming their fictional worlds into something with a level of fidelity. However, none of these settings—post-apocalyptic landscapes, dystopian countries, deserted islands, antiquated Scotland—are conducive to body hair removal, even at the best of times.

Actors understand their obligation to authenticity and many will undergo extensive transformations to better capture the ‘truth’ of their character. Losing or gaining vast amounts of weight is common, as well as practically ‘living in’ uncomfortable costumes and prosthetics for the duration of shooting. Inexplicably, the effortless process of growing out a bit of body hair doesn’t seem to be a prerequisite in the pursuit of realism. 

Similarly, with hair and makeup it seems all too often attention is only paid to hair situated above the neck.

A lapse in a story’s authenticity can catch you like an undertow. Poor production design, surface-level acting, dated visual effects, an ill-fitting music score: these are just a few instances capable of hoisting you, unceremoniously, out of the narrative and tethering you back to reality. For me, witnessing hairless female forms in situations where hair (or at the very least, stubble) would likely be present, has exactly the same result.

Why is female body hair considered so offensive that it must be removed, while men’s hair drapes proudly from whence it grew? Shows, like The Walking Dead, bombard their viewers with graphic violence—complete with guts and gore—but then conclude we cannot stomach a small, wiry, crop of female armpit hair. It’s clear a lot of these stories are fantasy, and art does not have to imitate life, but then why all the other attention to real-life detail? And whose fantasy is it, anyway?

Hair, in storytelling, has been synonymous with power ever since Delilah cut off Samson’s locks, robbing him of his herculean strength. So is Western (and other) society’s hairless beauty standards an attempt to nullify a woman’s power? Hairlessness homogenises women. It also infantilises them. ‘Standardised’, child-like women are, in theory, easier to control. Sigmund Freud claimed that a grown woman’s sexuality was, “veiled in an impenetrable obscurity.” Perhaps, felling the forest that grows all across a woman’s landscape is an attempt to lift that veil? After all, knowledge is power.

I’m not saying every woman in Hollywood should suddenly grow out their leg hairs. And I’m not saying that a feminist cannot, or should not, have a manicured lady-garden. But how about, at least, having body hair represented when it would probably (or definitely) be there? Let’s start changing the narrative around body hair—for the sake of authenticity of both the story and of womankind. 

Cover image by @suckertom