December 2019 saw the release of the latest big screen version of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan, Eliza Scanlen and Florence Pugh as the four March sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, the film both adheres loyally to the much-loved novel and injects energy, fire and depth into the richness of what was already on the page. Written into the lines right from the very beginning were a number of iconic beauty moments. From burnt hair, too much rouge and a crop that caused tears, it was all there.
We're used to seeing conversations about hair and make-up in films and novels portrayed as frivolous, but just as Phoebe Waller-Bridge acknowledged passionately that 'hair is everything!' in this year's second series of Fleabag, so too Gerwig allowed the poignancy of these beauty moments their well-deserved screen time.
Meg, Jo And A Whole Lot Of Heat Damage
'Meg wanted a few curls about her face, and Jo undertook to pinch the papered locks with a pair of hot tongs.
'Ought they to smoke like that?' asked Beth, from her perch on the bead.
'It's the dampness drying,' replied Jo'.
Just reading those lines sends a shiver down the back of any avid curler or straightener. Jo is not as au fait as she would like to think with a pair of tongs and sure enough taking off the tongs, and vowing to all that they would see 'a cloud of little ringlets', Meg's hair instead breaks away with the metal 'and the horrified hairdresser laid a row of little scorched bundles on the bureau before her victim'. Predictably chaos ensues with Meg exclaiming 'I'm spoilt!' and 'My hair, oh, my hair!'.
Amy proves herself of consoling use when she suggests 'tie your ribbon so the ends come to your forehead a bit and it will look like the last fashion. I've seen so many girls do it.'
The beauty of this scene is that it resonates with so many. The situation is timeless, and evocative of every beauty blunder we've ever made.
Meg's Makeover
When Meg is invited to spend some time with Annie Moffat and her high society family for a 'fortnight of fun' she can't wait to indulge in the grandeur of it all, until she finds that she and her relatively dowdy ball gown are both a tad out of their depth. Annie swoops in with her friends to dress Meg up for a ball, dubbing her 'Cinderella' and herself her fairy godmother. The primping and preening commences.
'They crimped and curled her hair, they polished her neck and arms with some fragrant powder, touched her lips with carolline salve, to make them redder, and Hortense would have added 'a soupcon of rouge,' if Meg had not rebelled. They laced her into a sky-blue dress, which was so tight she could hardly breathe, and so low in the neck that modest Meg blushed at herself in the mirror.'
The makeover leaves Meg feeling as though she is playing a part, but hyped up on being 'a little beauty' nonetheless; that is until Laurie takes her down a peg or two and asserts 'I don't like fuss and feathers'.
As well as providing a detailed and fascinating (to a beauty editor at least) insight into the beauty habits of a 19th-century lady of American society, this scene once again holds a resonance for anyone who's attempted a beauty overhaul, trying out something that might reel in the compliments, but still feels a little like wearing someone else's shoes. It's a rite of passage.
Meg's Wedding Day
Bridal beauty is one of the most Pinterest-ed topics around. Its importance was no less relevant back in the 19th century, and like many betrothed today, Louisa May Alcott's Meg has reached that point in her life when the makeovers and beauty experiments are behind her and for perhaps the most wonderful day of her life, all she desires, is to look the best version of herself.
On her wedding day Meg eschews the balms and ringlets of Annie Moffat's ball, and its her happiness, not a strange shade of rouge, that lights up her face. Louisa May Alcott describes it beautifully: 'Meg looked very like a rose herself: for all that was best and sweetest in heart and soul seemed to bloom inter her face that day, making it fair and tender, with a charm more beautiful than beauty'. Meg herself says, 'I don't want to look strange or fixed up to-day', 'I don't want a fashionable wedding, but only those about me whom I love, and to them I wish to look and be my familiar self'.
Jo Goes For The Chop
When Marmee receives news that the March girls' father has been taken ill, she gets ready to leave and help him convalesce. Restless and eager to contribute to his recovery, Jo marches herself into town and sells her hair for a precious 25 dollars that she then gives her mother. When she reveals the crop to the girls and her mother, there's an outcry.
'Your hair! Your beautiful hair! 'O Jo, how could you? Your one beauty.'
Proud and brazen as ever Jo retorts 'my head feels deliciously light and cool, and the barber said I could soon have a curly crop, which will be boyish, becoming, and easy to keep in order'.
Few are fooled by her chirpy demeanor, and sure enough, later that night, Meg hears a stifled sob from her bed.
'Jo, dear what is it? Are you crying about father?'
'No, not now'
'What then?'
'My - my hair!' burst out poor Jo, trying vainly to smother her emotion into her pillow.'
It is this moment, along with a good many others, that lifts Louisa May Alcott's novel, and Greta Gerwig's adaptation, away from the feeling that these are four sisters being held up to saintly acclaim. Jo has made a sacrifice for her family, and this is admirable, but we are told in no uncertain terms, that she still mourns the loss of one aspect of her appearance, in the same way many of us would had we done the same. Scenes like this lend a timeless humanity to the novel and every one of its characters.
Amy's Transformation
When Amy is taken to Paris by Aunt March, she comes across Laurie and sees him in a whole new light. When she is getting ready for a ball that she is certain he is due to attend, she takes extra care with her preparations. 'She was conscious of a very natural desire to find favour in his sight. Amy knew her good points, and made the most of them, with the taste and skill which is fortune to a poor and pretty woman.'
'Her hair she had the sense to let alone, after gathering up the thick waves and curls into a Hebe-like knot at the back of her head.'
'It's not the fashion, but it's becoming, and I can't afford to make a fright of myself,' she used to say when advised to frizzle, puff, or braid as the latest style commanded.'
Amy knows what she likes to accentuate, and when to rely on classic styles, rather than going the whole hog with something more a la mode. 'If only I had a classical nose and mouth I should be perfectly happy.'
Whilst still critical of herself, Amy has quite noticeably transformed into a decisive and confident young woman, angled precisely at this moment in time, to impress the man that will later become her husband. It's an age=old situation that, once again, rings true today.
Whilst there are so many moments in Little Women that weather time when it comes to their relevance, the scenes involving beauty blunders, a preoccupation with appearance and that innate sense of self, are those that endear the March girls most to a 21st-century audience. We might not know what it is to write by candlelight, or huddle by a fire for warmth, but who hasn't felt the deep-rooted distress of a bad hair day?
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