Honors Theses
Date of Award
2011
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
English
First Advisor
Deborah Barker
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
In this thesis I explore how the beauty shop provides economic and social power to the women who own, operate, and patronize the fictional beauty shops over a seventy Petrified Man," Robert Marling's play Steel year time span in Eudora Welty's short story Magnolias, and director Bille Woodruffs film Beauty Shop. 1 have researched historical and sociological studies on American beauty shops and hterai*y studies of these works to discover common themes between fictional and actual beauty shops. Within the beauty shop, women often create a space independent of gender, race, economic, and class barriers present outside the shop walls. Women create relationships in the beauty shop that result in information exchange enabling the beautician powerful insight and knowledge about her clients. The shift from an all-white 1930s beauty parlor in Depression-era, segregated, rural Mississippi to 2005 beauty parlor with a slightly more diverse racial make-up in urban Atlanta suggests continued struggles in the beauty shop male role within the traditionally female space and to integrate black and white women within the historically segregated space. The authors allow outsiders a look at an exclusive space, which allows readers or viewers to see the opportunities women have to create more than hairstyles in the beauty shop. The beauty parlor creates an isolated world of its own that outsiders can view through popular fiction, drama, and film. Larger sociopolitical problems, be it a depression, segregation, or feminist movement, can be marginalized or contested within the walls of the beauty parlor.
Recommended Citation
Ray, Leslie Johns, "Under the Blow Dryer: A Study of Three Fictional Beauty Shops" (2011). Honors Theses. 2403.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2403
Accessibility Status
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