MovieChat Forums > A Christmas Story (1983) Discussion > The mother's hair, but also why is she d...

The mother's hair, but also why is she dressed like...


a modern career woman on the movie poster?

Why have her dressed in something she didn't wear in the movie?

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That poster is a train wreck. They are done by some art department artist at the studio by someone who didn't know what the movie is about.

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Yeah, probably.

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I think everything seems to be right for the 40's, the clothes, the school, the furniture, the kitchen and everything except Mrs. Parker's hairstyle. If you had curly, frizzy hair you pinned it up. It looked more like the 70's.

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Yeah, it was a comedy made in the 80s, so they wanted the main female character to have more of an 80s hair style, even though the movie takes place in the 40s. They weren't going to plaster her hair down like Miss Shields.

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Because if she had a 1940 hairstyle, the movie wouldn't have been funny. Logic.

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i think both parents were heavy boozers, hence their rumbled appearance & the old man is slugging back A.M. wine on Christmas morning!

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I find the mother's hair to be more late 70's/early 80's which to me isn't nearly as dated as women's hair of the late 80's/early 90's.

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Turns out Melinda Dillon’s anachronistic curly perm in “A Christmas Story” was authentic after all:
https://imgur.com/a/Xhhl3xr

A real example of a 1940s woman with a curly frizzy perm.

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Who is that woman?

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Yep, curling hair came up in the early 1900s, and hair curling has been common ever since.

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