So just hair?: Bob Haircut

Wikipedia says

While part of its aesthetic appeal might have been the resemblance to a child's haircut, I think from the beginning it signalled a woman's ability to engage in unrestricted movement, and is closely associated with the increasing presence of women in the office and factory. It is also associated with hat-wearing. Shaggier versions obviously have less of the Ascetic Aesthetic, but I don't think that's central to the bob look in the first place.

Ok, so here's the thing: I collect early 20th century fashion magazines and hairstyling manuals, I can give you a season-by-season summary of hair and dress changes from 1910 through 1930. The 1920s was, if anything, associated with a decrease in hat wearing (the 1910s being the unquestioned champions of really big fucking hats◊).

When the the bob came in, skirts were still very long, after going down in the first couple of years of the 1920s (from a high circa 1918); skirts started to rise as the neater, more closely-cropped shingle took off. The overriding esthetic of the early 1920s was youthfulness; the idea of "teenagers" and "youth culture" was starting to gain traction, and the high-Edwardian esthetic of the regal, curvaceous mature woman was giving way to the slim, straight-hipped "flapper" (which originally designated girls in their mid-teens and only later became a general term for the modern young women). The bob certainly had practical appeal in being lighter and lower-maintenance than the elaborate, sculptural beehives popular at the very beginning of the decade, and I agree that it was symbolic of freedom and unconstraint, but one of the major implications at the time was that it was a young woman's fashion, in an era when the late teens/early 20s age range started to have specific connotations as a life stage.

I agree with that, but even with such a genesis, it was clearly a move away from the decorative woman and toward a younger, modern-looking, active woman. Specifically, it was never a look associated with youthfulness and deference, or youthfulness and reserve, or youthfulness and traditionalism.

Also, the pre-1920s prototypes of the bob were often associated with independent society women and entertainers, not the teen and young adult ascendent demographic.

edited 2nd Apr '12 2:35:26 PM by pawsplay

"Also, the pre-1920s prototypes of the bob were often associated with independent society women and entertainers, not the teen and young adult ascendent demographic."

The first few leaders like Irene Castle, yeah, but when it spread to the masses it started with teens and college girls. Young working women got on board a year or two later, in part because of resistance by employers, who often required workers to maintain a "respectable" appearance.

I would argue that it carries about the same message today: social aspiration, physical and sexual liberation, and a subversion (rather than rejection) of traditional femininity, youthful-seeming, and strongly associated with urban chic. I think its appearance in sci-fi probably suggests modernity to futurism, physical and sexual liberation, transcended (but not obsolesced) gender roles, healthful wholesomeness, and chic.

I can't think of instances were the bob suggests something else. Occasionally, it shows up on ice lady/evil bitch types, but I think the associations are still very similar, with the idea of youhtful vanity being replaced with a more pure kind of narcissism.

"social aspiration, physical and sexual liberation, and a subversion (rather than rejection) of traditional femininity, youthful-seeming, and strongly associated with urban chic."

For the early 20s bob I think that would be projecting what we now associate the 1920's with onto a point in the culture that hadn't got there yet. Small-town teenagers getting bobbed in 1921 were not all that sexually liberated and probably not all that aspirational either. I would suggest that the bob initially connoted youthfulness, a break with adult culture, and being up-to-date and in sync with your (real or imagined) peers; for a while it was a youth fad, like the unfastened galoshes that coined the "flapper" name. The sophisticated-urbanite associations came later in the decade.

Most fashions do not gain currency from conscious symbolism, but from imitation. I think they at least had some sense of what a bob was culturally, even if their intent was mainly faddishness. Which goes into what I said before about a tinge of pretense. In media, a bob is probably there to say something about a character; the People Sit On Chairs version is probably only going to show up mostly in superficial 1920s period pieces.

edit: There was a bit of a "Kansas City" or Manhattenite effect going on, I think; people do generally aim to look sophisticated rather than rubish. The bob was not palatable to everyone of that time, but a great many people took it to be a forward-thinking fashion of the moment, and probably the future.

edited 2nd Apr '12 3:40:58 PM by pawsplay

Clocking due to lack of activity.

Trope name needs to be more specific. First, which Bob? Side sow Bob, or another one who has a distinctive haircut.

"Bob haircut" is pretty specific.

Like the eye tropes, we like our hair tropes to be expository in some way. Just "character has a bob" is not a trope.

The problem is we can't seem to decide what the exposition is.

I'm thinking maybe "feminine but not traditionally so", but that's kind of vague. Hmm. Practical, often working character in a non-traditional line of work (doctor, cop, lawyer, etc) who still has a feminine side?

Hard to pin down. May be more than one meaning.

I never thought that the bob haircut had a specific meaning. I've seen it on pretty much every type of female character - from The Chick to the most hardcore Action Girl you can think of, and everything in-between. I think this is, as much as I am loathe to use the phrase, People Sit In Chairs.

Well, it can be a visual indicator of The Flapper, so it isn't chairs in that context. But it may be in any other. Crowner ahoy! Add options if I missed 'em.

I'm with 32, personally. Can we just redirect it to the hair tropes index so we don't lose inbounds?

I do think there are some valid tropes in it. The ones that really stike me as deliberate though are the flapper one, and the Ascetic Aesthetic one. Those tend to be the works where it's highlighted the most as something deliberate.

Is there any difference between The Flapper and any 1920s/Prohibition-era women? I think I know how this trope was named.

^ No you apparently aren't familiar with the phrase "bob haircut". Very frequently people just say "bob", but that would be ambiguous.

Yes of course there is a difference between "flapper" and "all women in the 1920s". That word refers to a particular type. May as well ask if there is any difference between mobsters and Prohibition-era men.

Bumping for votes.

Calling crowner.

We have two tropes here: A bob haircut that indicates a 20's aesthetic, and a bob haircut that indicates an iPod-like scifi setting.

Now, do we want to merge these into the articles that describe those, or have Twenties Bob and Scifi Bob as separate tropes?

Hello? Any opinions on creating two tropes vs. merging into Ascetic Aesthetic and Roaring Twenties?

While we're at it, we need to decide where we're redirecting Bob Haircut to.

edited 19th Jul '12 7:49:51 AM by ccoa

Ascetic Aesthetic was the reason it was popular in the 1920s. Not seeing a distinction.

edited 19th Jul '12 2:59:35 PM by AceOfSevens

Even if true, just because it's the reason it was popular 90 years ago doesn't make it the same trope. One is used to visually establish a Roaring Twenties setting or The Flapper, and the other is used to establish a certain kind of scifi setting. The modern connotations are very different.

edited 20th Jul '12 7:20:07 AM by ccoa

Okay, since no one seems to care, I vote we make Scifi Bob and Twenties Bob their own tropes.

Anyone have any feedback at all on this action or the names?

edited 24th Jul '12 10:48:05 AM by ccoa

Maybe Flapper Bob?

seconded