Hair is
important in our society. It is a measure of physical attractiveness. A great
deal of time is spent searching for the hairdresser who truly understands our
hair and knows how to cut it in exactly the right way. Hair color is also
important. As women grow older, many tend to agonize over the onset of grey
hair. At some point in their lives, they arrive at that watershed where they
must decide whether to dye their hair or surrender to greyness with all that
this implies.
This is a momentous
decision because men with grey hair are distinguished and attractive (e.g.
Richard Gere or George Clooney). However, women with grey hair are generally regarded
as old or ageing. For movie actresses, grey hair is the kiss of death unless
they don’t mind accepting grandmother or wise-woman roles. Only if a woman is a
librarian or a university professor is grey hair a sign of prestige and of
wisdom.
Nevertheless,
hair is far from being a sex-linked worry. Men also fixate on their hair as
though losing it is a sign of diminished power or strength. Goliath and Donald
Trump are prime examples. However, instead of hair color, men tend to agonize
more about losing their hair or about growing it back again. Baldness is the great
male nemesis.
Men address
incipient baldness in a variety of ways.
Some men conceptualize baldness as a disease and try to cure it with
different lotions and tonics. (In the Prohibition era, the most popular
hair-growing tonic was composed of lead, borax, smashed ladybugs, silver
nitrate, arsenic, and heavy doses of alcohol.) For bald men with a lot of
money, there is the option of having hair transplants or implants. Before the
coronavirus, Turkey had various all-included medical tourism packages for bald men
desirous of a head of hair.
Men, who feel
ashamed of their baldness, try to disguise it with toupees. Alternatively, they
can artfully arrange their remaining hair in elaborate patterns to hide those places
where hair is sparse or non-existent. Unfortunately, this means staying inside
on windy days. Finally, the ‘proudly bald’ adopt Yul Brynner as their role
model and shave their heads completely. After adopting this radical solution,
they then disdainfully gaze at their partially bald friends, who are too
cowardly to follow their example.
In times of
coronavirus, hair has not lost its importance, far from it. In fact, the coronavirus
has become the great equalizer. Now, all Spaniards, regardless of social class,
age, or condition have strange, outlandish hair. Everyone deals with it the
best that they can.
In the first
confinement decree, hair salons (along with pharmacies, supermarkets, and drugstores)
were initially regarded as essential businesses. As I mentioned in a previous post, essential
activities are undoubtedly a sign of cultural identity. In Florida, for example, golf courses, gun
shops, and even female wrestling matches are regarded as essential activities. If this is truly representative of state
priorities, then perhaps state leaders should do some soul-searching.
When the initial
confinement decree was issued in Spain, there was a great hue and cry regarding
this list of essential activities. Although many of us secretly hoped that
hairdressers would remain on the list despite all logic and common sense, anyone
with half a brain could see that this was not going to happen. The opposition
maliciously attributed the inclusion of hairdressers in the essential activity
list to the long ponytail of Pablo Iglesias, one of the vice-presidents in the
Spanish cabinet, as well as to the high percentage of female cabinet members in
the current government.
To be fair, the
government soon realized that they had made a mistake and quickly rectified their
momentary lapse in judgement. Evidently, during hairstyling, social distancing
is impossible, even in the case of a hairdresser with exceptionally long arms.
The decree was thus modified and hairdressers were regarded as superfluous. Although
in this case, the government made the right choice, in doing so, they condemned
the Spanish population to an endless number of bad-hair days.
After one month of
confinement without access to a barber or beauty salon, everyone is beginning
to look somewhat strange. In virtual encounters on Zoom or Skype, one of the
first things said when faces appear on the screen is “Look at my hair. Isn’t it
awful? ”. This comment is usually accompanied by resigned laughter interspersed
with a sigh or two. However, the underlying feeling is not despair, far from
it. Bad hair has become a symbol of pride and perseverance.
My neighborhood is now
populated with women who have tri-color shaggy locks and with men who no longer
care that they are balding. Some have even braided the little hair that they
still have left or have finally taken the decision to become proudly bald and
have shaved their head. Others have cut their own hair. The results depend on
the innate talent of the self-hair-stylist. Cutting one’s own hair is like
pruning bonsais. One must have infinite patience tempered with Zen and a dose
of mindfulness. I am told that the results improve with practice.
In times of
coronavirus, people with normal hair are viewed with suspicion. Anyone that
appears with their hair trimmed and styled must justify it in some way. It is
like being well fed in times of famine. In the grocery line, such people are
interrogated and asked why they look so well-groomed. (Everyone, of course,
thinks the worst.) Usually, the excuse is that a family member works or used to
work in a hair salon. Others say that they have followed one of the many
tutorials on Internet on how to cut bangs or color hair. But no one believes
them. Everyone thinks that they are lying, and they are probably right.
Those of us who have
weird hair with a few inches of grey roots feel like heroes because this
reflects that we have adhered to the rules, have not cheated, and are stoically
suffering the consequences. A strange coronavirus hairdo is a badge of courage.
It signifies that we are capable of weathering all the bad hair days that fate
has thrown at us,
According to the Cambridge
Dictionary, a bad hair day involves
much more than merely having bad hair. It is “a day when you feel that you do
not look attractive, especially because of your hair, and everything seems to
go wrong”.
This definition is
doubtlessly accurate because since bad hair has become the rule, things have
not been going very well here. Yesterday all of the statistics were so bad that
the government had to stretch its imagination to come up with a way to justify
them. According to the daily press conference, the spike in new cases of
Covid-19 (2638) was merely because more tests had been performed. The increase
in new deaths was justified by saying that now the regional governments had begun
to count them more accurately (no, I am not joking). It is no wonder that many
people no longer bother to watch the news.
These press
conferences are made even less believable by the hair of the people who deliver
the (usually bad) news. The men’s hair is suspiciously well-trimmed whereas the
hair of the women still miraculously conserves its ombré look with no roots
showing, grey or otherwise.
Their appearance is thus
radically different from that of the citizens that they supposedly represent.
The only one that has perpetually
bad hair is Dr. Fernando Simón (the Spanish Dr. Fauci). It is obvious that he
is not cheating and sneaking out to a black market barber. Perhaps that is why,
of all the members of the coronavirus task force, he is the most credible. His outlandish
hair is proof that he is an honorable man.
