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This post contains 13 Reasons Why spoilers.

In the recent Netflix hit 13 Reasons Why, viewers know that high schooler Hannah Baker recently died by suicide. We’re regularly reminded of the fact that she’s gone in the voiceovers from her titular 13 cassette tapes, each aimed at someone who Hannah says is one of the reasons why she ended her life.

After enduring months of bullying, sexual harassment, and frequent exposure to toxic rape culture, Hannah appears on screen in the most recent flashbacks — just days before her death — with freshly bobbed wavy hair. “I’m giving life one more chance,” Hannah’s voiceover says, and it’s almost as if the haircut speaks for her choice to seek help one last time.

Hannah isn’t the only fictional character whose dramatic haircut is a stand-in for emotional change, often after a traumatic experience, whether that looks like a mental breakdown for Hannah Horvath on Girls, a reaction to bullying in the movie Odd Girl Out, or Jenny’s coming out on The L Word.

TV Tropes refers to this portrayal as the “Important Haircut,” of which there are several subtypes. Women on screen can get haircuts to show that they’ve changed as a character after trauma. Some are repairing their emotional state and becoming empowered; others do it in a self-inflicted moment of passion with a pair of completely unprofessional kitchen shears. The trope may be paired with a serious diagnosis, particularly cancer, if the woman is shaving her head in preparation for chemotherapy.

This trope works because it shows viewers a character’s internal state in a very external way. “In a practical sense, the depiction of a femme character cutting her hair after a traumatic experience condenses a multitude of complex emotions into one simple, visually arresting action,” says Patricia Grisafi, a film and TV critic. “This can be reductive because it eschews all of these complex emotions, but it’s efficient; over the years, viewers have learned to automatically associate hair cutting with a characters’ deteriorating mental state.”

Chase Ogden, an assistant professor in Eastern Washington University’s film department, agrees that the trope works because it’s so easily recognizable. “It’s common for a woman to have long hair in US society,” he says, “so cutting that hair off can symbolize change, leaving behind the old for the new, or subverting social norms.”

Despite the drama often playing out in scenes surrounding haircuts on screen — think back to the last time you saw a woman on screen hack off large chunks of her hair over a dingy bathroom sink — it has its benefits for real survivors. Rachel Kazez, a therapist and founder of All Along, believes there’s something powerful for trauma survivors who choose to get a haircut as part of their healing process. For one thing, hair is an aspect of our lives over which we have complete control, and cutting it has no detrimental effects, other than potential short-term regret while it grows back. “It’s about the choice, not necessarily the outcome,” Kazez says.

If trauma survivors feel empowered after chopping their locks, that’s not a bad thing. What’s important is that their recovery process includes more than just a fleeting change meant as a permanent fix. Kazez worries that some survivors who haven’t had a chance to do any therapeutic work on their own might get all their ideas about what recovery and survival looks like from the media, and think that a haircut is the solution to feeling better. “The road to recovery is cyclical. It’s definitely a process,” Kazez says. “If getting a haircut is part of that process, awesome."

Nora, a writer from Chicago, decided to cut her hair after ending a relationship with an emotionally and verbally abusive partner. “I had never really gone through a breakup of that magnitude before, and it destroyed me,” she says. “I needed to feel like a different person than who I was when I was with him. I needed to feel and look strong.” She doesn’t feel like portrayals of the trope in movies and TV really represent her, though, because women are often shown in hysterics, and the choice to cut their hair is presented as irrational and overly emotional.

“The road to recovery is cyclical. It’s definitely a process,” Kazez says. “If getting a haircut is part of that process, awesome."

Lisa Rowan, a personal finance writer in St. Petersburg, Florida, actually did the DIY chop a la Hannah Horvath. “I was up late, unable to sleep from the shock and shame and other feelings I was grappling with, and I had the sudden urge to do something,” she says. “Maybe I wanted to start fresh from that point forward? I hacked at my long ponytail with the kitchen scissors.” Rowan feels like a drastic haircut can be a cry for help, but she also says that it sometimes works. She didn’t know she was in an abusive relationship at the time, but looking back, she sees the ponytail chop as a sign that something was wrong.

While it may not involve as much flair every time, plenty of women and feminine-presenting people cut off their long hair as a symbolic sayonara to their pasts. For many, these might be traumatic experiences they’ve recently gone through, such as a particularly bad breakup or divorce, rape or sexual assault, domestic violence, an illness, loss of a loved one, bullying, or mental health issues. It can also be empowering for queer women and femmes to cut their hair as a part of the coming-out process, whether as a direct symbol of their queerness or just as a way to present themselves that feels closer to who they are.

“It's weird that people assume the worst because I've chosen to keep hair shaved. I just wanted to cut my hair.”

Dramatic haircuts don’t always come from a place of difficult experience, of course. Plenty of women and femmes cut their hair short simply because they want to, not to make a statement. Naomi Coleman, creative director at Access PR, shaved her head into a fade because it was a functional and simple hairstyle, leaving just enough hair for people to see her natural wave. When she in Mississippi for a family reunion last summer, she was at a restaurant with out-of-state family members when an older woman approached her. She “commended me on my bravery for tackling cancer, shook my hand, and walked away,” says Naomi. “She openly assumed in front of multiple people that I must have been sick based on my lack of hair. It's weird that people assume the worst because I've chosen to keep hair shaved. I just wanted to cut my hair.” Not every woman or femme with a cropped style has a serious reason for the cut, and there can be a lot of unnecessary significance attached to the choice, particularly for those with shaved heads.

“Our appearance is the first thing others see,” says Desiree Marshall, a Brooklyn-based barber who caters primarily to the queer, trans, and gender non-conforming community. “It can serve as a marker for our identities. It's an intimate form of expression that everyone sees. It can leave you vulnerable. When your expression is of your own making, and not one that other people or society dictates to you, your confidence levels can go up.”

For many survivors, the haircut as a symbol of emotional change represents that feeling of renewed empowerment: an indication that the person finally has control over her or his own life again, or at least some small part of it. But it’s often portrayed in the media in much more fraught moments, such as when Maggie in The Newsroom cuts her hair after a traumatic experience in Uganda. Why are so many media representations of dramatic haircuts tied in with the idea of an emotional breakdown, much like Britney Spears’s very public and highly sensationalized head shaving?

When a drastic haircut in media representation stands in for the emotional work of dealing with the aftermath of trauma, what gets glossed over? Hollie Smith, a New York City-based PR professional who cut her hair after trauma, feels that the portrayal in 13 Reasons Why of the hair-cutting trope could have problematic consequences, since the show is intended to start the conversation about suicide. In the series, both Hannah and Jessica are rape survivors who are assaulted by the same person, but only Hannah gets a haircut. “It makes people miss major signs, as they expect a person to make a drastic change,” says Hollie. If viewers see Hannah’s hair as a sign that she went through trauma, what will they assume about Jessica, a character who has long hair but is also dealing with her assault? The show doesn’t present Jessica as suicidal, but she has other concerning behaviors, like drinking vodka at school, that should be the focus of her recovery narrative.

The haircut as a symbol also misses a lot of the internal work that survivors do.

The haircut as a symbol also misses a lot of the internal work that survivors do. Hannah’s haircut is parallel to her final mental breakdown and her loss of the will to live. Throughout the season, she suffers at the hands of rape culture and bullying at her high school, being slut-shamed and victim-blamed by almost every potential friend she meets. It isn’t until her final days when she appears renewed, with a dramatic haircut, trying to give life another chance. Hannah literally presents the haircut, in a flashback in one of her tapes, as a way of saying that she’s starting over. “I needed a change,” she says in a voiceover. “I needed to be someone new. I was going to cut away the past.” As viewers, we don’t see any of the emotional work she did in dealing with or moving past the trauma she’s endured. And just after her haircut, in the span of a few days, she witnesses Jessica’s rape, is raped in a hot tub, and kills herself. Her haircut, so close to the end of her life, seems to suggest that a drastic change is concerning; a potential warning sign for suicide.

If we’re almost always presenting changes in appearance as irrational steps in an emotional breakdown, or as warning signs for mental-health issues or suicide, we’re missing a lot of the conversation. There are survivors who feel legitimate catharsis and empowerment in changing their hair, and the recovery process isn’t cut and dry. It’s also important that we don’t miss other signs in vulnerable people who may be feeling suicidal, but who haven’t made any recent major life changes. And we can’t always conflate a haircut with ongoing trauma; even if the cut is in response to something difficult, the person may be well along in their recovery process, and that haircut can be a symbol of their strength and determination.

What can the media do to add more nuance to the conversation?

What can the media do to add nuance to the conversation? Show survivors doing more internal work, as 13 Reasons Why did by including Hannah’s thoughts and feelings in her 13 cassette tapes, highlighting her creative process, and emphasizing her choice to seek help one final time. Jessica Jones is an example of a series that features a sexual assault and abuse survivor, but focuses on her healing process instead of her haircut.

Basically, we don’t need to see a woman hack at her hair in tears again — we just need to see survivors actually surviving, and all the different things that can mean.