Dare to imagine a faux-medieval fantasy with somewhat accurate hair

[cimorene]

Like, if the hair was even on the same level as the costume design, which is to say, recognizably alluding to multiple places and times in the general time period, or more accurately, body of cultural memes and ideas associated with it. And yet in spite of a wide variety of creative and fancy styles of braids and updos on show, mostly on the side characters but occasionally the main characters, like Egwene and Nynaeve... there's still a plurality - majority? - of female speaking characters wearing their hair unbound, or half unbound, in completely implausible situations.

I mean, it's possible that I'm too suspicious, but I think hair and makeup design are casualties of the need for women to look fuckable and pretty at all times, just like body hair. And dirt. And non-modern eyebrows. And, all too often although not in this show, practical shoes.

Comments

[hebethen]

I don't think you're being too suspicious. I don't know how actively aware they are that this is what they're doing, but I 100% believe people are motivated by those factors at some level.

[cimorene]

That's a decent point. To an extent they probably can't help it. I mean, evidently they can't, considering that we're going on about a decade of HD faces on film wearing clearly visible flick eyeliner - like not even an attempt at no-makeup makeup, an actual flick! - when the character is supposed to be from another era or not wearing makeup at all.

[mecurtin]

I remember watching a documentary about the making of Doctor Zhivago, and Julie Christie saying you can always tell when a historical costume drama was made by looking at the leading lady's hairstyle.

For medievalesque shows, there's an additional confusion because so many surviving paintings depict the Virgin Mary. She's often shown with unbound, flowing hair to signify her virginity, to be different & remarkable--but since so many of the pictures are of her, we tend to read it as normal for the period.

[cimorene]

Hah! She's so right. But I'd add wardrobe and makeup. It's really funny, but even the best episodes of, say, Poirot, or BBC Jane Austens, still have costumes and hair AND MAKEUP that's recognizable to the decade. It's not like the knowledge of this stuff doesn't exist, either. The field of research into medieval costume at least (which includes hair although makeup only to a lesser extent - since before the advent of realistic paintings there's a lot more guesswork) has an INCREDIBLY rich body of knowledge and even from the eary medieval period, there's a huge quantity of available depictions of women and their heads.

It's not ONLY Mary who would be shown without a veil - and for that matter she's often depicted with one too - but saints and queens, occasionally, but probably for the same reason (purity). And that's probably why the 19th-century-on historesque depictions of - I hesitate to confuse their subject with the actual period, so perhaps I should say the Age of Chivalry - typically feature the Eowyn on the Battlements hair. And of course, these latter-day depictions are the roots of the modern fantasy genre.

[stranger]

I get irritated by the similar distortion of body types, mainly where women are all extremely slim in current-day depictions, regardless of original appearance or historical standards of beauty. Remakes especially highlight this -- compare Nichelle Nichols and Zoe Saldana. why are we constantly being shown a body type which is natural to maybe 1% of women?

And you are completely right about hair and cosmetics. Maybe in one sense it's analogous to the script being in modern English instead of (say) Tudor-accurate vocabulary and accents. Viewer understanding of the story, or what the lead character is supposed to be like, is a factor. Even so, a serious drama wouldn't use modern slang, and shouldn't have this year's make-up quirks on display.

[cimorene]

Ugh, yeah, that pisses me off too. I follow a couple of hanfu blogs as well, and almost all the modern photos and models are like this, even though modern hanfu mostly comes from artistic depictions from the past that clearly demonstrate the very different ideals of beauty in these periods.

Wax has been watching a show that's supposed to be prestige TV and there is all this stuff in the 1960s with these tiny little sad "80s teen at a 60s party" hairstyles.