French actors cut their hair in solidarity with Iranian women

There is the 22-year-old Kurd Mahsa Amini died while she was in the custody of Iran’s vice squad for wearing her hijab “wrongly,” protests took place around the world, with women everywhere Cut her hair and combustion their hijabs in solidarity. In Iran, the demonstrations are entering their fourth week, growing bigger, angrier and deadlier. The Norway-based human rights organization Iran Human Rights estimates that security forces have killed at least 154 people, including dozens young woman and nine children since the protests began. It’s one of the most powerful feminist movements in recent memory, with no sign of it slow it down. And it seems like French women — who have been quite a mother in the past prohibitions about religious face coverings in their own country – want to be there attention solidarity too.

In a widespread Instagram video with the label #HairForFreedom, 53 French actors and musicians, including well-known personalities such as Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard and Isabelle Huppert, carefully snipped off a few locks — everything from a small handful of hair to a lone lock — in solidarity with Amini and Iranian women in general. Her clips are interspersed with white text on a black background explaining what happened to Amini while playing a celebratory French tune. But the video lands with the same shallow seriousness as the peak cringe “Imagine” video that Hollywood’s biggest fell during the 2020 lockdown. If there’s one thing actors are bad at, it’s reading the damn room.

The account that posted the video, @soutienfemmesiran, which translates to “support women in Iran,” was founded by a trio of French lawyers who wanted to get involved with the cause. The hair clippings are meant to symbolize the strands of hair that have fallen out of Amini’s hijab. and while these fallen locks do In some contexts — say, street protests — having a special deference, chopping off a whopping two inches of your hair in the coziness of your own home feels a little…opportunityunistic?

“These people hope only for access to the most basic freedoms,” the video’s caption reads. “These women, these men are asking for our support. Their courage and dignity compel us. We have therefore decided to answer the call addressed to us by cutting […] some [our] Castles.” But more Most importantly, that’s what the #HairFor Freedom video feels like putting the Iranian and Kurdish people at the heart of this movement and giving privileged French actors a reason to pat themselves on the back (or run to the nearest hair salon) without doing anything to address virtually identical issues in their own country . At this point, I think I’d prefer some sort of glittery Instagram infographic to this one. Certainly Women’s liberation is worth a little more than cleaning up your dead ends.

Social media users were quick to point out how non-contact the demonstration felt. “All love and respect to the women of Iran who are opposed to a state restricting their physical autonomy,” one Twitter user began, “[But] It’s a bit hard to swallow the support of French actors who have nothing to say about the niqab ban in their own country, including a limitation on women’s physical autonomy.”

Another Twitter user also pointed out the video’s performativity, urging the actors to take more concrete actions: “[They’re giving] visible themselves, they don’t talk about the uprisings on the ground, we only see them, and that doesn’t help them at all in concrete terms. They could have started a fundraiser or given visibility to those affected.”

HHowever hollow the original video may sound, it Has gained a foothold in some attention-grabbing places, such as the floor of the EU Parliament. On Tuesday, Iraqi-born Swedish MP Abir Al-Sahlani finished a speech to the EU assembly cut her ponytail while saying “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi,” which is Kurdish for “Woman, Life, Freedom.”

while wWe’re all about celebrities using their massive platforms to call attention to injusticeFrance certainly has its own problems with Muslim women’s headgear. We would like to see yours activism in times when it is not in fashion take part.