My haircut makes me look like a Mohenjo-Daren

[vovat]

I got a haircut at Hello Gorgeous on Monday. It cost $20, which is more than I usually pay for a haircut, and I don't think it was really any better. Generally, I like my haircuts all right as long as they don't make me look like a prepubescent boy, which often seemed to be the case when I'd get them at local barber shops.

After getting the haircut, I went with bethje and Dorothea to Longwood Gardens. A lot of their usual plant displays aren't available in the winter, and we came too early in the day to see the Christmas lights. We did see the stuff in the conservatory, but we spent most of our time there wandering around in the meadow. We ended up leaving the beaten path and taking too much time to find a way back.

On Tuesday, my dad and his wife Barbara came by to visit, and Beth and I went out with them to the Olive Garden. (There's been kind of a garden theme to the places we've gone so far this week, hasn't there? {g}) I got the five-cheese ziti, which I thought I'd had before, but I didn't really remember what it was like. For a dish that advertises the presence of five cheeses right in its name, it wasn't really that cheese-intensive. Honestly, while I always like the Olive Garden, none of the entrées that I really like are currently on the menu. They no longer have the shrimp and crab ravioli, or that one dish with the sausage that I can't remember the name of. I remember the seafood alfredo being decent, but nowhere near as good as other seafood dishes they've had in the past. I did, at Beth's urging, order a Limoncello, which was good, and not at all boozey-tasting (I'm not a big fan of alcoholic beverages where you can taste the alcohol). It mostly just tasted like lemon ice.

One thing I'd been wondering about recently that doesn't have anything to do with the rest of this post but fits in pretty well with the title is how ethnic stereotypes become widespread. I get the impression that they usually start with people in a particular place making fun of their neighbors. In my junior high school German class, my teacher told us a joke about Ostfrisia, which is apparently the brunt of a lot of German jokes. As I remember it, the joke was that Ostfrisians take three things to bed with them: a match, a candle, and a rock. They throw the rock at the lightbulb, and then light the candle to see if they hit it. Gee, those Ostfrisians sure are stupid, huh? :P But I don't think these jokes have really spread outside of Germany, while jokes about stupid Poles are pretty common in many parts of the world (or of the United States, anyway). I have to wonder about that. I don't know. I get the impression that the reason New Jersey is the butt of so many jokes is that New York (where I'm sure most of those jokes were invented) is such a cultural center. But who started the Polish jokes, and why did they gain more success than other ethnic jokes? The other group that gets a lot of "gee, isn't that entire group of people stupid?" jokes, at least in this country, is blonde women, and I'm not really sure where those came from either. I remember discussing this issue before, and coming to the conclusion that it might be a combination of the idea that blondes are more attractive with one that women can't be both good-looking AND intelligent. And I'm sure Hugh Hefner's Girls Next Door aren't helping matters.

Comments

[1womp.livejournal.com]

Greetings from The World of Monkey to the Land of VoVatia! As always, you've sprinkled provocative thoughts with day-to-day life. I have some thoughts for you about stereotypes as the butts of jokes. Let me break it down for you like this...

NEW JERSEY - New Jersey is actually pretty terrible. I lived there. In my experience, NJ residents are vastly grouchier and more unpleasant than people from any other corner of the country in which I have lived or visited. That having been said, they have the disadvantage of being, literally, in the shadow of not just New York City (and state), but the mass media empires therein. New Jersey jokes stem primarily from popular media. It's no surprise that most have first been heard on TV. Strangely, though, New Jerseyans take pride in their status as surly malcontents. If they have a collective "charm," it is in this attitude (and don't get me wrong; while they are 90% uncouth jerks, they are still, under it all, just as decent as anyone else).

POLES - Poland suffers from being surrounded by "the great European powers." As such, they've suffered many cultural setbacks, either by conquest or by overwhelming cultural influence. In centuries, they've seldom had a period that didn't include the suppression or destruction of a unique Polish identity. Once Poles came to America, they were free to extol the virtues of what traditions they had left...much to the amusement of other transplants, who descended from Aristotles, DaVincis, Rembrandts, Monets, and so forth. What is often lampooned, even unwittingly, in a Polish joke is the Polish pride in their own simplicity.

BLONDES - I think that this is a much more modern construction. Blondes used to be seen as whip-smart. Then Jean Harlow happened. Her platinum-blonde, virtually white hair "read" in black-and-white films as a sort of shorthand for the vacant space underneath (of course, this was just an act. Harlow was as smart as she was cute). Still, like white hats on good guys and black hats on bad guys, blonde became the symbol of sexy-but-stupid. Marilyn Monroe cemented that. I think you're on to something with your guess that it's popular perception that "women can't be both good-looking AND intelligent."

I experienced something like that myself as I learned that one of my favorite up-and-coming young artists, whom I have only known by reputation and works, is smokin'-hot! She had worked on a very recent comic book based movie, so she attended the Premiere. I happened to come across photos from the event, and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw her amongst the cast and crew. Yowza! I was less "knocked out" by her hotness than I was utterly, and prejudiced-ly, upset that such a great artist should also be so freakin attractive. So silly. Yes, I know it...but I still truthfully felt that way at the time. In that feeling, I can imagine finding a self-inflating ego boost in discovering some flaw, somewhere, in either her appearance or character. No-one likes feeling inferior, and there is no easier way to feel big than to make someone else feel or seem small.

New Jerseyites, Poles, and blondes have in common that they are small groups who take pride in what makes them different. There is something about proportionally inordinate pride (a category in which I would include the extra attention that blondes often enjoy) that makes others jealous, or even upset. Stereotypes being the butts of jokes (as opposed to stereotypes being victims of prejudice) seems to stem from a need to belittle those minorities who have some perceived edge over the rest of us. Also, at some point these jokes take on a life of their own anyway, far removed from their origins. How many people repeating a New Jersey joke have ever even been near New Jersey?

OOPS! I sorta went nuts with this response, didn't I? Originally, all I was going to do was ask you for your actual address (as opposed to your e-mail "address" or just "in care of Oz"). It's a little weird, but I actually have a gift for you! If you'd like to keep your address secret from LiveJournal readers, please e-mail it to me at contact@johnmundtesquire.com. Thanks!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I moved from Pennsylvania to New Jersey last year, and I didn't notice any particular difference in attitudes. Besides, I thought grouchiness was also a stereotype of New Yorkers, so it's kind of weird for them to use that same stereotype on someone else. But then, it's usually easier to recognize certain traits in others than in yourself.

I might have to agree with New Jerseyans that they're better drivers than Pennsylvanians, or at least Philadelphians. People in Philly seem to always drive with as little space as possible between the cars (making merging practically impossible), and frequently stop in the middle of the street. I've never had the courage to try driving in New York City, but I don't know that the drivers there could be much worse.

What is often lampooned, even unwittingly, in a Polish joke is the Polish pride in their own simplicity.

Makes sense, although I'm still not totally sure how you get from "pride in simplicity" to "submarine with screen doors."

A related issue is that I've noticed that some people seem to WANT to act according to stereotypes, which I'm sure is a contributing factor to the stereotypes living on.

Originally, all I was going to do was ask you for your actual address (as opposed to your e-mail "address" or just "in care of Oz").

So I guess "35 Custard Court, Emerald City, Oz" isn't acceptable? {g}

Seriously, I sent my real address through e-mail.

[arfies.livejournal.com]

Ooh, good responses, all! Makes a lot of sense. As a blonde, I took offense when I was little when people told "dumb blonde" jokes, since I was pretty darn smart, if I do say so myself. "You're making fun of people because of something they were born with. How's making mean jokes about people of a certain hair color different than making jokes about people of a certain skin color?"

But yeah, most people said, "Don't worry. This doesn't apply to you, since they're really about stupid, artificial girls who dye their hair bleach blonde."

Then I felt better. :p

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I, growing up a sometimes too-brainy blonde female (too brainy in general, not too-brainy-for-someone-who-is-blonde-and/or-female-- and I have to clarify that, you see what the stereotype does?), always assumed that the blonde stereotype was meant to refer to fake blondes, the ones that bleached their hair, because that's a shallow, superficial thing to do, and (I added this part later) the chemicals from their bleach and/or hair dye possibly destroyed some brain cells in the process. Which is why I never then got the jokes about someone not-blonde doing something ditzy being told "Are you a natural blonde?"

I use the icon that is not only seasonal but is a picture of me as a blonde. Of the intelligent variety. I knew my whole alphabet by the time this picture was taken.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard the theory about the hair dye causing brain damage before, although I have no idea whether it's scientifically accurate.

Which is why I never then got the jokes about someone not-blonde doing something ditzy being told "Are you a natural blonde?"

If you're right about the dye, it's probably a case of the joke getting corrupted over the years, so that people remember the "dumb blonde" part, but not the part about how it's UNNATURAL blondes who are supposed to be stupid.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I just had a possibly brilliant theory on Polish jokes. Maybe they stem from stories about the village of Chelm which happens to be in Poland, and when people who weren't Polish Jews wanted to pass on the stories, they didn't know enough about Poland to say where Chelm was exactly so they just broadened it to Poland in General, and then even short jokes rather than stories about foolish people ended up being about Poles. Theory?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

That's a possibility. I know other countries also have particular towns that are stereotyped as being foolish, like Gotham in England (as in "The Three Wise Men of Gotham"). I'm not sure anyone had these stereotypes about Gotham when they nicknamed New York and named Batman's hometown, though.

[travspence.livejournal.com]

Generally, I like my haircuts all right as long as they don't make me look like a prepubescent boy

Wait. What hair are you having them cut?


;-)

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

picture! I want to see the hair cut.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I don't really have the ability to post pictures to the computer just now, unless I borrow Beth's camera. Maybe I'll get my own camera after Christmas, but by then my hair will probably have grown out somewhat. Sorry about that.