Ahem!
The Captain Marvel trailer dropped a last week. I’m not terribly interested in another superhero movie, but it’s a lady superhero so I’m sure I will take my daughter who lost her mind over Wonder Woman.
The trailer opens with a spaceship plummeting through the sky and an alien body crashing into a Blockbuster Video. Not an abandoned Blockbuster, mind you. It’s a Blockbuster open for business, stocked with videos and nonpariels. My nostalgia meter pinged. It’s the mid-nineties, a time when I was wrinkle-free, discovering Stila make-up, and ten years away from paying off my student loans. Good times!
The Marvelous Ms. Marvel pops up in her rigid superhero jumpsuit and finds her way to a DC Metro station, confused and wearing…beachy waves? In the words of Samuel L Jackson, HELL NO, MOTHERF*CKERS!
Beachy waves was not a hairstyle in the nineties.
Please Google Anachronism
Captain Marvel wants to build its world during the Bill Clinton’s first term. They give us Blockbuster Video and Coulson with hair. Cops driving Chevy Impalas. Pagers. Nick Fury with both eyeballs. And then they completely pull me out of that world with those stupid beachy waves that are currently ubiquitous but were NOT A THING in the nineties.
Sure, beachy waves could be the hairstyle of the moment on whatever planet Captain Marvel comes from. Aliens might love a “straight on the top, sectioned waves pulling back from the face” look. Maybe it’s a crazy coincidence that the ladies of planet Hala also enjoy the most recognizable style on 2018 planet Earth. Or maybe Hollywood is lazy. Who can tell?
Maybe Marvel loves this style because it seems to hold up during intergalactic battle? I can’t get a beachy wave to last more than 1.5 hours in zero percent humidity while standing perfectly still, but I’m not a super hero. I’m just a gal who was 22 years old in 1995. I had Aussie Sprunch Spray because Not Your Mother’s Beach Babe did not exist.
But doesn’t a superhero want to blend in? Be as unnoticeable as possible? Put that girl in the Rachel. Or give her a piece-y bob or perhaps a face framing fringe. If you are trying to evoke the last decade for of the 20th century and your characters are wearing beachy waves, you are being lazy and ruining your fictional world. Bad styling distracts. And if someone could please pass this message along to the stylists of “This Is Us,” that would be great.
If you want your character to look like the latest Bachelorette or the gals from “Vanderpump Rules,” carry on. If you want a more realistic superhero lewk, give the lady a scrunchie and climb up on this hill with me.
Captain Marvel images courtesy of Marvel Entertainment
“This Is Us” images courtesy of NBC
