it happens in movies because it happens in real life too. when in crisis, often there is sense of loss of control or autonomy. for most, something that can provide an outlet for such a frustration is one’s appearance. and, while men do too, women broadly tend to have the more intimate relationship with their hair. so: haircut (or hair dye, or both).

As a guy with audhd and long hair, when life gets extra tough, cutting all my hair off is simple way to remove extra self-care steps from my life. This allows me to focus on other more pressing tasks. And it's completely reversible

Speaking as a man with no hair now -- it's very freeing. It is physically cool, it is less bullshit to deal with. No waking up & being like, ooo, gotta work with my fucking hair. Others are saying it's autonomy & control, probably not wrong, but it's also just plain smart. Practical.

Also a defensive strategy. If the hair is kept short, people can't grab you by the hair & force your head around. Yank your head back & slit your throat.

Name the phenomenon... No hair don't care. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Trauma cut, a distancing from the identity that experienced trauma

I'm not a doctor or psychologist. I'm also aware that I'm replying to a greentext, but hear me out.

I think it's simply "exercising agency and bodily autonomy." Being able to modify one's own body is a way to establish that you have the most basic form of control over yourself and your environment. It can help arrest the sensation of being out of control or under complete control of outside forces; an answer to feeling totally vulnerable. Cutting your hair off is an easy and quasi-socially-acceptable way to do this.

Were you not able to do this somehow, of your own volition, you're probably in a very bad way and have much bigger problems to solve.

i haven't named it but always considered it "the sudden awareness that i do not want an easy to grasp handle on my head that someone could grab me by if i'm under attack"

Important Haircut

Chopensation.

Not at all a woman only thing, and it's even been portrayed in movies by men, for example the suicide attempt scene in The Royal Tannenbaums.

Short or no hair means better ventilation, which speeds up neuron activation.

As a guy with long hair I did this once.

First breakup. We were both young and toxic to each other, and let the other be toxic.

After some reflection I cut my hair for a variety of reasons.

I've seen the studies and speculation that it's a control thing, related to exercising bodily autonomy. Personally I don't feel like this was part of my decision. This might be more of a gendered thing- I felt like growing my hair as a cis male in the first place was already exercising my bodily autonomy and defying society's expectations around me. I was somewhat hesitant to cut it because it felt like giving up, conforming to what others wanted me to be.

One was just that I was in college for business degrees- I always kind of knew my career would be better off with short hair anyways. Once I graduated, got a job, and got established at my company I grew my hair long again. It's still long now, probably longer than it was originally.

Another was that I wanted to be a different person. I looked back on who I was in that relationship and thought hard about who I wanted to become. While on a vacuum I preferred the long hair, and I objectively knew my hair could stay the same while my personality changed, on a subjective level I think yhe change helped. It was a visual boundary in time- when I go back and look at pictures of myself it's very easy and obvious to see that change. It helped me to think about my long-haired self as the "old me"- younger, less experienced, more raw and flawed.

Another was the emotional connection between her and my hair. While I liked the long hair and grew it before we had started dating, she really liked my long hair too. It hurt to have the same hair she used to run her fingers through swinging in front of my face. So in a sense, cutting my hair felt like cutting my connection to her.

Finally, I also started growing my beard. I had always wanted facial hair, but she didn't like it so I shaved. This seemed like a good opportunity to see what I could grow, but having long hair AND a beard seemed like a lot at the time. Now I have both of course.

I always assumed there was some tradition to cutting your hair short before going to war, because long hair would present numerous liabilities - more maintenance, potential visibility issues, potential to foil cover/disguise, and potential vulnerability in hand to hand combat. And there is a lot of military tradition to a short haircut, though I'm not sure how much is based on the above reasoning. But I'm not a historian so maybe this is just a bad interpretation of Mulan or a random teacher passing on low quality education.

I've been watching Battlestar Galactica (2004) and noticed a case of the opposite. It makes sense in context, but it's an inversion of the trope. (And when things went back to normalish she cut it short again)

It's called "not getting scalped"

I'm a dude with long hair, long hair is a burden. It fucks up your vision, can be irritating, requires lots of maintenance. When you are under pressure for any reason id say it's nice for it to just be gone

It's called a french woman in 1945

I'm surprised the screenshot is from a movie or something because I only noticed this in anime and thought it was a japan thing.