Hair: peace, love, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll
Autor: Livia | Publicado: 2009-11-20T12:02:00-08:00

Hair is a movie version of the play written by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, the movie is directed by Milos Forman in 1979. This is a musical movie and it reproduces the scenery of the American youth in the Second World War named counterculture.The story is about a group of young hippies whom criticize the individualist and technocratic society they lived in, they dare this model of society living the free love, the free sex, using drugs, long hairs, and so on.These youngs - George Berger, Lafayette Johnson, Jeanie Ryan, Woof Dashund – are happy, lovely, sympathetic and try to be free in the relationships they have to make an opposition against the American way of life. Claude Bukowki, a young man who lived in the country and comes to New York to try to go to the army and to Vietnam war, and Sheila Franklin, a young girls who comes from a traditional family, join this group.In the movie we can see them in the parks and publics spaces singing and dancing with others hippies. During the story Lafayette’s fiancé and her son join the group.The movie central story is about Claude’s draft to Vietnam and his relationship with Sheila; intending to give a last meeting between this couple, Berger pretends to be Claude in the military quarter and unintentionally he goes to Vietnam and dies.The others characters show different ways of the hippie proposal in 1960.We can notice in the songs played in this movie the counterculture’s ideology, these songs are about the racial segregation, the police, the militaries, the private lands and the traditional family.The movie’s title summarizes what was the most evident hippie symbol: the longs and uncared hairs, in a society where the men should have short hair, the fact of using this kind of hair was a way to show they didn’t agree with the rules in the society, and that they were against those rules, laws and traditions, as we can see on the song:(…)Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hairFlow it, show itLong as God can grow itMy hairI want it long, straight, curly, fuzzySnaggy, shaggy, ratty, mattyOily, greasy, fleecyShining, gleaming, streamingFlaxen, waxenKnotted, polka-dottedTwisted, beaded, braidedPowdered, flowered, and confettiedBangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!(…)In this way the movie Hair shows us how the counterculture idea was made of many symbols and themes.The pacifism had the Vietnam war as a target, and it we can see it in the beginning of the movie when Claude leaves his home and goes with his father to the bus which will bring him to New York, and when he arrives in the city he is reading the letter he received ordering him to enter to U.S. army and the letters says if somebody change or damage that paper could be arrested for five years or pay ten thousand dollars; showing the opposition of the idea the hippie group burn the letter.Psychedelics experiments and Astrological elements are shown when the hippies are dancing in Central parks with the song about Aquarius Age.The relations between the people of these group are frequently shown as an disinterested relations, they are there because they are friends, and that is all. By the way, the affections theme shows the love free from the marriages, the dates, and the monogamy situation by the Jeanie and Sheila, Jeanie is pregnant and she doesn’t know who the father is, but they are all happy. Here we can see the breakup with the social conventions, they are just living the moment.It is impossible to say about hair without comment the drugs experiences, in the movie we see a big music festival in the country which make us remind the Woodstock; in this festival there were a lot of hippies, hare Krishnas, rock bands, kids, and in the middle of these people a young man is distributing LSD to people whom receive the drug like the saint bread.The connections between spiritual and psychedelic experience is evident, not only for the act that remember the catholic experience, but the presence of Claude’s vision that is very religious. The movie shows the hippie’s research for the perception’s expansion and the sacred conducted by the drugs.Concluding the counterculture ideas the places where the story happen like the parks, are there to show many socials segments like: bourgeoisies, hippies, black people, children, polices and the Country man Claude, we cannot forget that these spaces represents open spaces where everyone (despite if they are men, women, black, white, old, young, etc.), the public space offers the diversity and the way the collectivity is interlocked.Character analysisGeorge Berger: the leader of the hippie group, a symbol of uncorformism, the voice of counterculture’s ideas like: the war opposition, the free love, freedom, the use of drugs looking for another perception, the disinterested relation for his friend, for whom he cut his hair, goes to the army, and unfortunately to the war and death.