Why Do Haircuts Signal Trauma on Screen? | Racked 

"Your one beauty" dang child calm down

I strangely always felt that is also signified strength, because you have nothing to hide from, but of course letting go of baggage but also convince.

I reach for the scissors every time I go through a significant change in life or am stressed out. For many, cutting hair is giving the person a sense of control in their uncontrollable lives. Same with dying hair.

My abusive ex loved my long black hair and my other ex liked me in bangs. I was always pleasing them so I've decided to finally cut my hair short to regain control again. It helps with healing but obviously not actually solving the problem

Can you really use mulan and gone girl as examples? In both situations, their decision to chop was a step in literally disguising themselves from public view, rather than a response to trauma or enlightenment.

I shaved off my eyebrows and was in the psych ward a week later 😂

Lol whenever I have an existential crisis I cut or dye my hair.

Schools should let students style and cut and dye their hair however they want and not force them to hold back from expressing their true selves. Hair is part of our body and we have a right to do whatever we want with our body so long as it doesn't harm others. Schools are are already controlling enough without the unnecessary control on young people's appearances

If you wanna cut Cut your hair If you wanna die Dye it too Just always know I love you

Everytime I had a breakdown, I trimmed my hair and covered my sink in it. Then I threw it away. I felt better. It was also a way for to cut something when I wanted to cut my skin but after I promised my parents not to.

- It really looks terrible - *Good.* My two personalities talking to each other

Normally when a college class is incredibly hard for me, I go and get a hair cut and somehow everything goes a whole lot better from that point on. I think it's a moment of self pampering in difficult times that really pulls one together to get through the crazy

It's amazing how many different meanings cutting hair has for the people in the comments. I think for me, if I ever cut my hair short, will be a symbol of how I don't care about how others view me. That's because my hair has always been the way I found to stand out and feel beautiful, since it is curly and full, wich is still not very common where I'm from.

Personally, I cut my hair when I start to think I’’only pretty because I have long hair or I use it to hide my face. I did that a lot in middle school. I wanted to hide, thinking people would not gossip about me and leave me alone if they didn’t see me. That of course was not true so I cut my hair to force myself not to hide.

Well I cut my long hair off twice while I was dealing with shitty issues. Nop it didn't help solving problems, in fact I felt quite awful and worse!

Like Marina and the Diamonds in her “Fear and Loathing” music video

The night I got a call from my abusive mother telling me she doesn't support my life choices, I decided to cut all ties with my family home. Grabbed scissors and dyed my freshly self-made bob black. It felt so natural and liberating.

There was a time where I wanted to trim my bangs and it went from 1-100 really quickly. I was in a bad place and I was at home and saw how long my bangs were getting. I went to the bathroom, got out my moms hair kit and trimmed my bangs. While I was in there I had a depressive episode and I had chopped one side of my hair short like a bob short. I cut the other side and I had realized what I just Did and I had an anxiety attack. My mom didn’t like me cutting my own hair and I got so scared I tried to even it out, tried to tie it back and threw on a beanie. It was time for dinner and my mom was home so i had to eat. My mom noticed and told me to take off my beanie. She saw my hair and made me untie it. My hair went from my waist to above my shoulders. My oldest sister started laughing and my mom called me a stupid idiot for cutting my hair. I grew my hair out for a year and then I dyed it. I still felt stupid and depressed and I felt like I was being taken advantage of at home. The summer after, I went to a salon and asked them to give me a bob/pixie cut. Lemme tell you getting that hair cut was so freeing, no one pulled at my hair and they stopped bothering me (except my mom )and I got a spike of self-esteem. (Which soon got better when I moved out and lived with my dad) Nowadays, I cut my own hair just for trimming.

I have cut my hair when I was depressed. But cutting your own hair in real life, is about control. Control of identity , control of your life, control of your emotional state. For me cutting it occasionally simply because it was too long. As you know I have a difficult twin sister that was twisting things to get ahead, that I was unaware was still a rival after age 18. That has lead to emotional situations where the hair gets it. I have never shaved my hair bald through.

I felt the sudden urge to cut my hair short after i graduated school. (well, it was also necessary). It looked horrible and I'm glad it's grown back, but I still think it was right for me at that time. I needed to "let go of the past and find the strength to restart (regrowth)", and that kind of symbolized what I was going through at that time.

Usually I tend to cut my hair when I'm going through a shitty time because when I cut my hair I have complete control of it and when I'm done I'm a slightly different person appearance wise, which tends to help me separate myself from my problems for a bit and look at things objectively.

I was in an abusive relationship and they used to pull my hair and they would compliment me on my long hair after beating me so I chopped it short myself, my mom was pissed but when I explained everything was okay.. I feel in control again

i think it’s great this showed up on my recommendations. i have the tendency to cut my hair even when i tell everyone im growing it out long. it helped me understand my situations and how i take control. although this isn’t the case for everyone, this has been a question i could never come up with but am thankful for hearing he answer. this channel has actually answered a lot of questions i have never thought of.

And then in Asian culture,characters like Mulan,Korra,Sakura,or Zuko cut their hair because it shows a change or a new stage in their life.

Who else sometimes dreams of going completely bald? Or is it just me?

When my close friend died, i was devistated. The morning of the funeral i got up (well, i hadn’t slept that night) and i grabbed some blunt kitchen scissors and hacked off all my hair to the length of a buzz cut. It made me feel more in control of the way i was feeling and the reaction people had helped distract from the deep pit of sadness i was in. It helped me a lot, to say the least. I understand why it’s a popular trope to heal or start that journey to getting help or recovery because for me, it was 100% related to mental health.

I’ve gotten a pixie cut 4 times now and I’ve had people assume that something bad happened to me every single time. I just like the way short hair looks and feels. Why do they even care? Not wanting to look identical to every other girl there must mean there’s something wrong with me I guess lol

You forgot the scene from it when beverly cut her hair

Seriously the most underrated RU-vid channel. Such great content!

Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite is a prime example

Also (at least in an occidental society) couldn't cutting hair be linked to the old and significant haircut people would get before getting in the abbey or nunnery ? Hair has always been linked to societal acceptance even back in the Middle Ages so maybe we still see someone drastically cutting their hair as removing themselves from society or at least taking a step away and more towards independence/spiritual quest even ? Just an idea :D (history nerd)

My reasons for chopping off my hair is logical and calculated. I love having long hair as much as I enjoy having short hair, so I thought instead of paying a lot of money to get my hair cut or trimmed regularly and waste the amount of hair that I could be donating, I'd grow my hair to waist length, then cut it down to a long bob then let it grow again. This way I only need to cut it once every 5 years or so, and donnate the hair I chopped off to organizations that make wigs for people with cancer

I hope my experience can help all the people that are understanding hair are freedom and not a bond. I always did and it feel so good. They grow back like nothing else on the body or in life, they just come back and the freedom of choice they give is priceless. My hair are dark, silky, strong and they are so much that I was constantly asked if I was wearing a wig even in kindergarten cause my mother used to just trim them a little and give me the Cleopatra bang. At 5 yo I just chopped that bang in a micro and she screamed. I felt controlled. They kept having me with hair below my butt, I couldn’t even sit without pulling them on the seat so in middle school, when told my mother I wanted to cut them, she forced the hairdresser to chop the braid first and I went for the Halle Berry’s Catwoman pixie look, leaving with her crying for the braid wrapped in aluminium foil. Such a huge family horror, they forced me to grow them back but I went for a long spike and they wanted to kill me with their disappointed eye stare. When they reached half back I shaved the sides and they were crazy but “at least no one can see it”. At 16 yo, in the middle of a litigious moment, I went in the bathroom, grabbed the scissors and gave me a chopped, uneven shoulder bob to shock my mother and she just died inside... I was so happy to have this “weapon” even if at first I had a scream breakdown. I kinda rocked the psycho haircut look after tho, I felt veteran of image control, like if with hair people could have loved me more but it wasn’t like this, my partner knew me with that and liked it! After, I let them grow reaching the bottom back, then just cut a U shape at half back with a bang because I wanted to kinda “reborn” as if I could have wore that old long Cleopatra bang style just cause I wanted and not cause someone forced me. It really gave me control of my life, of what and how I choose to be for myself and then the others. It gave me strength and it made my family understand that I can still be the same and always beautiful because hair do not define us, they reflect us. In October I was having the Lord of the Rings Arwen look and I just discovered I’m transgender so, even if I loved them, I felt the need to take the “hair-wheel” once again. My mother understood, even in an another disappointment but she just calmed down and ask for the last braid to treasure, wrapped in foil. I told the hairdresser to cut the braid and went for the Lisbeth Salander look since I find myself comfortable in the gender fluid area cause I’m not transitioning yet. I felt me, I felt super. Hair are the freedom of our soul, they express how are we feeling and want to look but nothing more. Since I understood this, I played a lot with them and in February I rocked a crazy priest look for fun and now I have a Valerian/Korean look. I feel happy. I’m waiting to finish the game possibilities so I can finally buzz and live the ultra experience of freedom and beauty. Confidence is my goal. Prooving that we are not “made” of hair is my mission.

It also has to do with seeing a different image. When going through abuse/depression/rough times and trying to recover, you look in the mirror and see the person you were. To cut your hair is to change your appearance without changing completely

I've had short hair for nearly 10 years, I dont know why but to me it represents freedom

personally, i cut off my hair because it helped me feel like i was letting go of everything that was making my life suck

I really like this video, and the way you explained it. Control has always been a major thing in my hair cutting journey, cause it's one thing that I can do on my own and it's also a thing that is easily shown to other people. Like my mother who invalidated all my feelings used to say she loves me with long hair, and the second I was left alone at the hairdresser I convinced him to chop it all off. The same as when she once said she thought I looked bad in bleach blonde hair, and I gave myself a buzzcut cause I know she hates that even more. Though then again more often than not it also breaks guilt, but a part of me thinks the guilt is more for my past self than anything. A sort of "I'm sorry I didn't take care of you sooner, and led it all to this" kind of thing.

Azula from "Avatar: The Last Airbender" would also be a good example. :)

Such intensity!

I just cut my hair down to a shoulder length bob, and must say it felt liberating to get rid of that weight for 4 years. And it was so empowering to watch as the scissors chop all the damaged hair, I already could see a new me in the mirror. If I could i'd definitely try it again 💇

V for vendetta is another example

it's a really common symptom of mania to cut or dye your hair due to overwhelming feelings. so if you personally frequently cut or color your hair due to stress it's probably a good idea to get a bipolar screening. in the video they mentioned trauma quite frequently but if a person in real life does something like this without trauma it's very likely there's an underlying mental illness.

I did this twice, around 9 - long one length to shoulder length and bangs, and an undercut that starts above my ears last year. Can definitely see the connection with regaining some control when such had been taken. Didn't realize this until today.

It signifies leaving the past behind and moving forward. It's a metaphor take a film class.

I seriously never was a drama queen, I got suppressed my whole life. Struggling with Deoression, suicial thoughts, Borderline etc I just fell in a hole when my mother started to fight with me on a weekly family event. So I went upstairs and cried. Looking in my grandmas mirror I realized how "uneven, damaged and shitty" my hair looked. So I cut myself some kind of a bob in half a minute. Since I've got hosptalized shortly after, I define this as a very own chapter in my life.

I wanted to know this reason. Thanks for making this video. I am also a pixie and a depression sufferer.

I donated thirteen inches of hair and when I came to school, my best friend said 'Maeve no!!! Your hair was your beauty and now it's all gone!'. My other friend then stood behind me and grabbed her own hair and muttered in frustration 'Grow! Grow!'. It wasn't even that short, only to my shoulders. Now I have a pixie cut and honestly a hair cut is just that. A hair cut.

I don't have time to watch this video now but I just had to "scribble" down my thoughts about this very interesting topic. I went through a rough time so I went and cut my hair short- not really thinking about the significance then. I heard in one video explaining this, that women's hair had historically been viewed as alluring, which can explain why in some societies older women or married women would cover their hair (or just women who wanted to be modest) They said that cutting ones hair is then a sign of taking control and showing of strength (Maybe sometimes that you don't want to be objectified?) A lot of strong female characters in movies have short or no hair interestingly enough....

Sometimes a haircut should just be a haircut.

I'm going to shave my head but it's really because I want a change in my life and I feel like it will give me more confidence

wow this fits one of my characters so well and I actually have no idea about this trope or their meaning :0 really helpful video!

When the boy I loved in high school led me on and then rejected me, I started cutting off my hair bit by bit, managed to overhaul a significant portion of my personality, and even convinced myself for a long time that I was gay (so it was impossible for me to have loved him in the first place). For me, cutting my hair was part of becoming a completely new and different person, which I felt I had to do in order to regain control of my own emotions.

I lyk a lil make over when im feeling down. Its not essentially abt cutting it short ..... but styling it in a way u feel beautiful.

when i first moved across the country and was starting high school, in the few weeks before my first day, i chopped all my hair off. it just made everything worse. instant regret. i felt self conscious about how i looked until it grew back, and as a result of hating my hair i went down a spiral of bleaching and dyeing it funky colors as a way to reclaim myself

After my traumatic breakup i shaved my head, that greatly helped me move on.

I cut and donated my hair after my break up and it looks really good!

i always change my hair when i have a depression breakdown or when i'm at some happy point in my life, 3 months ago i shaved all my hair off bc this year is a big change in my life

I’ve always had long hair, ever since I was young. In sixth grade my closest friend and I started to drift apart. This was really really just, taking a toll on me. By the middle of the year she had found another friend. I still hung out with them, it’s just my friend had treated me like dirt and I didn’t want to leave her because we had so many good times together and she was my oldest friend. By the end of the year we had a big fight and we sorted things out. When that happened, I realized I no longer wanted to hide behind the long locks of blonde hair everybody adored, so I cut it off. I’m really happy I did that, I don’t regret it at all even though I still got comments from people that they loved my long hair. Let’s just say, I have now been best friends with my closest friend for 8 years.

I was going through sexual avoider through middle school and no one believed me I have suffer for the longest till I got really depressed and I started to cut myself I completely lost myself and I was getting so tired of it I wanted to feel me again till one day at school I was tired of it when to the bathroom and cut it off no one understands me not till this day but I feel better now and seeing this video helps me a lot

Interesting video!! Well done 😄👏👍

When i was depressing i got a boy cut ( im a girl and i used to have pretty long hair) and it helped me, idk why but it made me feel different and free

Cutting my hair felt... relieving in a way? It's quite refreshing. Maybe it's not for everybody but they're aren't always bad results. If you ever do feel like cutting your hair go for it

I did it today and I feel the same as you said thank you and I love my hair cut I feel something new in me maybe it will helps me to forget my past

This was so deep and stuff, but that one child so said "Your one beauty" caught me Off guarrdd damn

if i got out of a tough relationship or just wanna forget about someone or something in the past, i get my hair cut to chop of the hair that was once close to my head so its no longer with me. its like cutting the hair that was there when i experienced that memory that i dont like anymore. my hair betrays me and now its no longer me, its on the floor dead just like my ex is to me.

Now that i think about it, i genuinely believe me cutting my hair super short some years back had to do with the emotional trauma i went through when my brother died. I actually never connected that but thinking back i do remember feeling like this obsessive need to change everything. Like changing my hair and my room. And just my general surroundings. I guess the hair cut trope in movies and TV really does have some realistic grounds lol

1:35 This was Winona Ryder from Stranger things in case you wonder why she looks so familiar. In stranger things she plays Joyce Byers but I will always remember her as Kim from Edward Scissorhands

when I was going through the most stressful time of my life I cut all my hair off. It helped oddly enough. It didn't get rid of my problems, but it helped

Well, you cant really blame depressed people for cutting their hair. They don't feel like doing anything and keeping long hair is a trouble. I think that's why people do it in general. They want to stop bothering about things like hair.

Omg the Felicity one! Everyone got so mad lol

My hair my whole life was past my butt, it was super long and people would always compliment it but also say stuff like “oh I hope you never cut your hair”. I later cut it to my shoulders and now I have a pixie cut, because honestly I just wanted to shock people and do the unexpected. Best decision I’ve ever made with my hair, it’s feels so good and I feel like it was meant for me, and a bonus is that people seem to really like it on me too (although I wouldn’t care if they did or not, it’s just nice)

It's mainly a symptom of a suicidal person due to them feeling lost... Spring last year, I felt like this due to stress and depression and ending up shaving the side of my hair, bleaching, and even when as far to dye it red in one day. It's like an escape, but also a warning sign. I'm better now, but if you suspect anything like this from someone you know, get them help instantly because they could be very close to breaking

I feel like cutting hair makes you feel like a different new person and it helps you start a fresh

I remember cutting my hair short once because the hairdresser miscalculated how much hair I wanted to be trimmed and the next week my teacher asked my parents if I were depressed...

I've actually cut my hair a few times after something bad to mark the time that has passed. When it grows it's like a signal of how much time has gone by since then. I'm attached to my long hair though, so it's usually bangs or layers. Idk why, it's just something I've done in the past.

For me, i cut my nails. Might sound weird, but i regularly grow my nails out (clean and healthy), and it feels good

I was never allowed to cut my hair as a child so when I moved 1,500 miles away from my hometown the first thing I did was cut 8 inches off my hair. It felt like I had broken out of a cage.

Rapunzel’s short haircut might symbolize her getting rid of Mother Gothel and being free

... I cut my hair year ago, and my depression got worse .-. Now I'm letting it grow and I feel great.

I cut off my hair after a bad breakup. I didn't really understand why, I think it was because it was within my control that I felt like I needed to do it.

I cut almost 3 ft of my hair a few days ago bc I was forced to by my mother since it’s her belief of a woman’s grace but I never liked it and after telling her how I felt about the emotional abuse I received from her I told her I was cutting my hair and she isn’t happy about it but she stopped controlling me and I have no regrets of cutting it I love it now and I’m happy with it

I have cut my hair before 30 min and I am so comfort now !

I cut my hair when I get so agressive that I would otherwise cut my arm or my legs. Actually works super good for me, but sadly I cant do it that often

true. I cut my hair off a drastic length every time something so traumatic happened. For example, just yesterday i got kicked out and moved to my mother’s house leaving all my friends behind in another state. I cut my hair myself to chin length and gave myself a mean undercut

The last clip of the girl painting her face, what show/movie is that from?

I was tired of some bad friends and wanted a change without them, I wanted to love my body even more, myself, I cut my hair (34 cm) and it really helped

I have gone through some tough stuff and the reason I would cut my hair is that I wanted to change and be a better and new me it helps with the healing but it does not resolve it but it is a somewhere to start 🤗

i just cut my hair off bc i couldnt do anything with it bc it was too long. too heavy to put in a bun or a ponytail and it iritated me when it just was loose. so i cut it off donated it. got a perm curl bc i thought it was fun and then dyed it

I haven’t cut my hair in 14 years. It’s a little below shoulder-length. I cut it when I was a year old with scissors. It was terrible. But I let my hair grow back. Now, after hitting puberty, my hair is no longer straight, it’s curly. I have red curly hair that has lots of split ends. I hate how people always say split ends and fly aways look ugly. It worries me. I love my hair! I don’t want to cut it... I’m scared it will take too long to grow back and I love long hair. I love my hair the way it is. Red and curly. I just wish my red hair looked more natural. Some parts of my hair, like the back part and the roots look very dark... but it’s natural. Naturally, my hair is different colors in different parts. But I sometimes fear my hair rlly does look gross... If anyone wants examples of my hair, I have photos of me on Instagram. My username is: Smartobsession

What is the last scene from? The one that says "that looks terrible -good".

I’m surprised Beverly Marsh’s haircutting scene from IT isn’t in the sequence

I cut my fairly long hair into a short bob and honestly i feel better not worse lmao

No repuzel hair cutting clip that was one of the most popular.

wow! i thought i was the only one who changed her hair everytime i was tired and wanted to press restart.

For me I always found i cut my hair from sholderblade to over shoulder when I'm ready to move on ... e.g. when I finished college but always kept it long when I'm holding on to something... maybe its my way of littrally cutting my ties?

I'm Native American or Aboriginal as we call it in Canada and my mom says that cutting hair symbolizes grief and a is a reminder of the loss of family and/or friends. Cutting our long hair (Both men and women are encouraged to grow long hair) represents the time with our loved ones , and also symbolizes new growth. So I cut my hair when my father had died it was up to thighs and we cut it up to the chin and donated it same with my brother mom and sister.

I didnt cut my hair for 2 years (i also had depression during this time) so when i choped it all off it felt like a new me yk

1:28 hey look its Winona!

For me, my hair is something I'm 100% in control of. So if I'm feeling depressed or sad or repressed, I can add colour . Or, more recently, shave it all off. I also have an autoimmune disease, and my meds make my hair fall out. Its easier to get rid of the hair than worry about trying to hide bald spots.

I think it's a natural response irl. Any time I've cut my hair it's been because of my circumstances. I think for a lot of people their hair is a huge part of their identity and letting go of that is hugely empowering