MovieChat Forums > The Magdalene Sisters (2003) Discussion > The Hair

The Hair

posted 13 years ago by Ghasters
8 replies | jump to latest

I was just wondering what was the significance in the girls having their hair cut when they tried to escape?

Analog players in a digital world

[–] rorychampion 13 years ago

this is an old idea.shave the hair to fight pride,embaress the person and make them obvious as sinners.their hair was their connection to normalcy and cutting it took even that away

[–] ricky_says_hi 13 years ago

long hair was often valued as a sign of a woman's beauty. nuns cut their hair when they enter the convent as a sign of giving up their feminity to serve God. cutting it off was a way of attacking their person. it would grow back but the girls would remember the traumatic experience

http://betterwithbob.blogspot.com/

[–] RosieT20 11 years ago

After Bernadette was caught, and there was that horrific scene with the scissors, her hair was as long as ever. We never saw Bernadette with a shaved head. Was a significant amount of time supposed to have passed? It seemed that the next scenes were very soon after.

[–] supergran 11 years ago

I think about four years passes. Remember how Margaret berates her brother for taking so long to fetch her?

Who knows where the time goes?

[–] ricky_says_hi 11 years ago

After Bernadette's hair is cut there is a montage to show the passage of time. We see Bernadette with her hair very short as she's doing her work. But after that montage is over her hair has grown back so probably two or so years. And another two years have passed when we see Bernadette's hair is even longer

http://betterwithbob.blogspot.com/

[–] velcronewsletter 10 years ago

it's always to humiliate a woman as hair is the sign of beauty and even being virtuous. female collaborators after ww2 were gathered together and had their heads shaved for example, just a way of 'marking out the whores'

[–] Venus-25 10 years ago

Oh, yes. The film Five Branded Women was where I learned about that one.

The Fabio Principle: Puffy shirts look best on men who look even better without them.

[–] swlabr 9 years ago

Yes the women who gave "comfort" to the Nazis during the occupation of France had their heads saved or cut very short as punishment after liberation.