Hating On Bangs

One of my favorite things about Fridays is the Friday Feministing Fuck You, presented on Feministing's Youtube channel. I enjoy some videos more than others, and some of the feminists more than others; my favorite, as usual, is Jessica Valenti. But every single one of them has a trait I cannot stand. It is their bangs. Every single feminist blogger who has presented a Friday Fuck You has had those bangs:


Even as I agree (or sometimes disagree) with what is being said, I sit there only half paying attention to the commentary; I am constantly waiting for the bangs' inevitable descent to be a problem for the commentator, who will invariably shake her head to clear the bangs from her eyes (distracting) or sweep them back up into place with her hand (equally distracting). I long to give each of these girls some hair clips, a bobby pin, a pair of scissors, something -anything- to keep the offending bangs up and out of their eyes. Is this some hip feminist hair style of which I was unaware? If so, I would like for everyone in the world to become as ignorant as I.

I would like to point out that I come by my irritation naturally. My mother ranted for years about Disney characters' hair and how it was constantly in their faces. Moments of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast are forever marred by my mother ranting about how Belle was constantly having to wipe those few errant strands of hair out of her face during musical sequences, and why Simba had to keep shaking his head -that these creatures were animated and the animators were ridiculous for making messy hair. I shook my head and shushed her at the time; but now I understand. Because ridiculous, impractical hair styles are distracting. And these side-swept bangs are very much a problem.

And a special thanks to MediaMaven for making the embedding of videos possible, once I figured out what she was talking about!