So just hair?: Bob Haircut

So, the Ascetic Aesthetic?

Yes, it's part of that.

Should we have 3 different tropes for bob cut or should we just give this a soft split?

I'd say three different tropes. A soft split means that we'd need a general name, which would be prone to people smooshing in all examples of the hairstyle, plus we'd have the ugly "of the ___ type" in example lists.

I'd say split into:

Twenties Hair (customized as 20's Hair and including any other examples of time period specific styles, if any exist - maybe the glamorous, long, wavy style)

Feminine Bob

Sci Fi Bob

edited 8th Feb '12 7:36:34 AM by ccoa

I only hope that names like Sci Fi Bob don't get confused with astronauts called Bob.

Well, we could make it Sci-Fi Bob Haircut, but that seems like really treating the editors like morons.

Would Hotaru Tomoe◊, who is currently listed as an example of Bob Haircut, fall under Feminine Bob?

I have no idea what the character is like, but maybe?

Anyway, does anyone have a better suggestion for splitting? Should Twenties Hair just be Twenties Bob, and we can trope any other 20s styles separately if they're tropable? Someone started a YKTTW for the 20s ringlets style as Girlish Curls. Are we ready for a crowner?

edited 24th Feb '12 1:06:25 PM by ccoa

I think that the styles we've identified are:

• Twenties Bob
• Feminine Bob
• Futuristic Bob

Yep, those are the three I outlined earlier.

However, should Twenties Bob be broadened to Twenties Hair, a sister trope to '80s Hair and '70s Hair?

edited 24th Feb '12 1:12:37 PM by ccoa

Maybe just Twenties Bob, because I think the only 20's haircut that is actually iconic enough to be recognized as such (other than to fans of the period) is the bob, in either the early-20s fluffy mode or the mid-20s neat mode or the late-20s heavily brilliantined spit-curl mode. The "long hair sleeked back into a bun" look doesn't seem to have permeated the popular consciousness at all and none of the other popular styles of the decade is particularly specific to the 20s.

The bob is a 20s style that has survived from being a fad to becoming a fashion. I see no reason to split. It started with flappers, came to be associated with a certain chic, and has been used virtually the same way since.

I'd say the glamorous wave style, both in a bob and in long hair, is iconic of the 20's, although probably not as much. Like so◊.

^ Why no reason to split? There's three different uses for the trope. "All bob haircuts in fiction" is not a trope. "Bob haircut as part of an Ascetic Aesthetic" and "bob haircut to indicate the 20's" are tropes, and not all that related.

edited 24th Feb '12 2:17:58 PM by ccoa

Long hair loose like that shown in your image was not fashionable in the 1920s, except for very young women in the first year or two of the decade (long hair in a bun was popular at various points in the decade, but like I said above most people wouldn't associate that with the 20s). Long hair loose actually isn't really a thing for adult women until the 1940s or later.

The bob in water waves / finger waves was very popular later in the decade, but that would be covered by Twenties Bob. (If you want to get totally technical, that's usually done with a shingle rather than a plain bob, but most people don't know or care about the difference.)

edited 24th Feb '12 2:28:04 PM by lebrel

Bob as an Ascetic Aesthetic, as a 20s modern hairdo, and as a science-fiction haircut all indicate the same thing: a certain level of chic-ness, not unfeminine but playing with femininity. It is splittable, but it is also lumpable; how many specific hairdo tropes do we want?

edited 24th Feb '12 9:40:42 PM by pawsplay

It's not lumpable because lumped it's not actually a trope. It's lost it's meaning and it's become the current confused mess of anyone with this hairdo.

So we could create three separate tropes, and then someone asks, "Okay, what is a bob and why does it mean X?" and we end up with Useful Notes About Bob Haircuts.

If someone wants to know what a Bob hair cut is, that's what wikipedia is for. The trope meanings and reasons for them will be listed on the trope pages. Pictures of the hair style will also be listed on the pages. There is no reason for a useful notes page at all.

edited 26th Feb '12 1:57:31 PM by shimaspawn

^^ Or a note on the analysis page for the appropriate trope. That's what Trope analysis pages are for.

I see this better lumped—the Bob's been equally popular in the 20s, 60s, 80s, and throughout 00s-10s.

In all eras it's had the following in common: cleanliness, simplicity, practicality, and above all else edginess. Even today, woman are generally expected to have hair longer than a bob, whereas the Bob style is a very clear and explicit defiance of that norm. This is why it's so common in sci-fi settings—it's never commonplace so it's always on the cusp of trendiness. A recent variant is to have it asymmetrical, which is just a logical extension in that direction—being edgy.

I think there's enough meaning inherent to the Bob itself for it to be trope without being split.

edited 1st Mar '12 12:46:59 AM by illegalcheese

I've been thinking about this one a bit.

I think the visual characterization of a bob haircut, at least in settings that aren't scifi or the 20s, is that the character is tough and spunky, probably an Action Girl, but also has a more vulnerable, feminine side.

I wouldn't say probably an action girl. I see this hair styles 9 times out of 10 on women who aren't in any way action like. Lawyers, doctors, business women, mothers, that's who I tend to see it on in fiction. Not what I'd call spunky.

I've been seeing it disproportionately often lately on girls who are... well, hard to explain in one word. An action girl, but a toned down version of one. Not an invincible badass, but a normal person who can also fight if she has to, but may also make mistakes or freak out if the situation is bad enough.

I think there's more to the haircut than just feminine, in other words.

Perhaps a better way to put it is that it indicates a competent, tough (either emotionally or physically) character, who is also feminine with a softer or more vulnerable side.

This is only for the modern ones, though. The older examples (Snow White, Velma, etc) seem to have a different connotation.

On the one hand, it seems very practical, comfortable, and easy to style. That says smart. But on the other hand, it requires seeing a stylist frequently. So in all times and all places, the bob tends to come across as a sophisticated, practical person who necessarily has a touch of style and perhaps a hint of class. Often a little pretentious, but not too pretentious.

I've gotta say that the original, early 1920's bob didn't have any of the implications people are discussion (masculine, high-maintenance, sleek and futuristic). The original bob was just whacked off at chin level, and could be very bulky or fluffy and messy depending on the ladies' hair type. I think the overall effect is of youthfulness; I don't think it was coincidental that it looked a lot like an established girl's style. The sleeker shingled bob that most people think of as "the 20s' look" came in later, towards the middle of the decade (here's a film of a bob being converted into a shingle in 1924, just as the shingle became popular), and the heavily brilliantined Anita Baker type of shingle came in in the last few years of the decade.