ray guns & Rocky Horror
LJ idol week 30 (1/6): gobsmacked
Shortly before my 21st birthday I shaved my head. This wouldn't have been particularly notable except for the facts that I: a) am a girl, and b) decided to do it on a whim.
You might have heard of a pop culture phenomenon called Rocky Horror, affectionately known as Rocky. Since the last 1970s, this midnight abomination has been home to freaks and weirdos who prefer to spend their evenings dancing around in tatty lingerie and gifting virgins with red lipstick prints on their cheeks. In college I was part of a shadow cast, which means we acted out the movie while it also played on the screen behind us.
For my last show, I got cast as Magenta. It was probably the role I resembled the most, even though she's an alien maid with a crazy poof of brown hair and a gaunt blond brother named Riff Raff. However, given that I had previously played the Criminologist (the narrator who's an old jowly man with very little neck) and Dr. Scott (another old man with a checkered suit and a wheelchair), this isn't saying much. In the final scenes of the show, Magenta's hair evolves from a poof into a beehive with lightning bolts down the sides. Instead of wearing another wig for the beehive, for the final scene the director decided to shave my hair into a mohawk.
The best part was that we neglected to tell the rest of the cast what was about to happen. Shortly before I had to go onstage, the director and I sneaked up to the bathroom and shaved off most of my hair. At the time, I had a pixie cut so it was already about the right length for a mohawk. When I came onstage, it was such a shock to both cast and audience that they almost missed the fact that Riff's ray gun was actually a giant lavender double-ended dildo. After the collective intake of breath, there was a brief burst of applause, and then everything continued as planned. Riff and I menaced everyone with the aforementioned ray gun dildo. Frank and Rocky tried to escape. Surprise glittery musical numbers happened. We took our final bows.
Afterwards, the strangest thing happened: people could still recognize me when I went from pixie cut to mohawk. But when I shaved off the mohawk after about two weeks, almost no one recognized me anymore. People, particularly women, have asked incredulously why I decided to shave it. Honestly, I didn't put too much thought into it: it's just hair, it'll grow back. When I give this response, most people are gobsmacked. They can't imagine a woman who isn't deeply invested in how her hair looks.
[Image: four images in a row demonstrating how my hair has gone from just about chin length to a buzz cut]
I do care how it looks, just not in a traditional way. I wanted something that is incredibly low maintenance, something that I can trim myself, and something that flatters me. Apparently the buzz cut fulfilled all of these requirements, because I kept getting compliments. Now I'm going back to the mohawk, albeit one that's more cleanly styled than the one I had after shaving it in a college bathroom during a time crunch. I like the idea of shocking people with my appearance in a way that doesn't involve stretched nostrils or neck tattoos. I like best to shock you with what you'd least expect.
Deeply grateful to vorsaga for beta-reading/editing and not laughing at how I look with long hair.
♥ pacing while praying ♥ you are beautiful ♥ digging for buried crap ♥ we should all be narcissists ♥ ˌɪnkənˈsiːvəbl̩ ♥ juicy memories ♥ relax. breathe. bupkis. ♥ a gypsy heart ♥ a month of rain ♥ up is the new down ♥ your words, her silences ♥ ground rules for a hairless housemate ♥ the smell of particleboard in the morning ♥ from an aspiring spinster ♥ scarves & sweaters & shawls ♥ on emotional idiocy ♥ fairytale-maker ♥ betrayal by choice ♥ how to age gracefully ♥ San Francisco's smile ♥ not a needle but a drink ♥ Einstein I am not ♥ searching for ballon ♥ of the earth ♥ becoming Cirsea ♥ hanky panky in the redwoods ♥ something happened ♥ an act of apparition ♥