interlude

You have to wonder--does Pompo have the same tape recorder as Carl?

Open Interlude 

[A few minutes pass behind the curtain. Then it is pulled open by someone on the other side. Pompo comes through the curtain. He now has a shaved head. He feels his head repeatedly during the monologue, as if this is a new style for him.] 

Pompo: I've been thinking a lot about hair lately. You might be able to guess why. Anyway, there's a certain... Don't laugh! There's a certain politics of hair... And I don't mean this in the sense of why I really like how hair becomes a metaphor for expression in Lady Gaga's song... "Hair." Har har har—don't laugh! Think about it! Hair is important, hair matters, and hair says things. If we're talking about Wonder Woman, let's think about her hair: there's this, well, I think it's a joke. Laugh, it's okay now. There's this joke that Superman's hair does all kinds of dumb things... Sorry, judgmental. All kinds of... silly things. It's so strong, how does he even shave? Laugh. It's okay now. (This telling you when I'm joking bit is funnier when Vonnegut does it... I'm kidding. I'm not kidding. I'm kidding that I'm kidding—a line from Das Racist, "We're not joking; just joking, we are joking; just joking, we're not joking.") My dad says to me yesterday in connection with a commercial for the film: "I don't remember Wonder Woman having super-strength..." I want to say "That's because she's a woman," just another expression of a misogyny that I admittedly have perhaps largely created in my view of him. (Later, I will find out that he probably thinks that because Wonder Woman's super strength was basically written away during the seventies. Delany refused to write the character with super strength because it just made her less like real women.) My father and I have a joke that physically our only difference is our hair color—if I dye my hair [he begins to rub his hand over his scalp again] I could go into work and do his job and who'd really know the difference? And people call me his brother all the time, so who knows? [Pompo puts a hand to his chin. He looks reflective. You can see that he doesn't really love this train of thought.] So our hair separates us physically and metaphysically we are so different that he's convinced that if he calls the sky blue, I'd say it's green... Our hair and we agree about oh so very little... [Pompo clears his throat. He looks uncomfortable, but if it is based on his hair cut or on his subject matter, we cannot be so sure. He seems to be cold on stage but does not shiver.] So... Do I keep saying "so"? Er... Wonder Woman, her hair, it's just a few scribbles on paper until, of course, suddenly, it isn't! Wonder Woman's hair becomes corporeal—can I get an etymology there? Am I saying "the hair made flesh"? Does that make sense? Anyway, so, [sighs] repetition, her hair is Lynda Carter's hair. Her hair is the hair of a million trick-or-treaters the world over, her hair is a paid cosplayer's hair who doesn't really like comics that much, but still becomes her. These are different people with different hair styled in different ways for different reasons. Do these differences in their hair underlie the same stark division as between me and my father? Hair har hair. Of course not; you can laugh. But what of Lynda Carter? She makes a commitment to a role and becomes (for a somewhat indefinite length of time) Wonder Woman through her acting, but, in another sense, Wonder Woman becomes her because the character is forever tied to her outfit, her lasso, her performance, her image, and, yes, her body and hair. The hair made flesh. Maybe that was right. Halloween costumes mean something completely different to everyone—reminds me of me and my father—one girl might want to grow up to be Wonder Woman, another might want to make a political statement about girls being powerful, yet another just to impress a boy or girl. A cosplayer could fall either way along this spectrum—a labor of love, a lifetime allegiance to the character, or a temporary acting job, not meaning all that much on its own. [He looks to the audience.] I see you seeing me and thinking "He's losing the track of it." This might have been the part of this race where the hare takes a nap and the tortoise takes the lead, but let's wake up the hair, get back to the hair—I'm struck with the notion of the hair made flesh being just a bunny rabbit—how do these various Wonder Women style their hair? How should they? Doesn't it seem a bit contrary to Wonder Woman's character that we even ask a question like this? "You have to do this a certain way," Wonder Woman hears this and lassos the speaker forcing him or her to speak truth, and she sings along as they say... [Pompo removes a tape recorder from his pocket and clicks a button.] 

Tape Recorder: [Lo-fi recording of Lady Gaga's "Hair" plays] I just wanna be myself/And I want you to love me for who I am/I just wanna be myself/And I want you to know, I am my hair. 

P: But note the pronouns. I, my, possessive. Lynda Carter's hair, Gal Gadot's hair, millions of women's heads of hair (that's a strange image), each different and yet represented by the same few lines sketched on a piece of paper. Think of the pressure H. G. Peter would feel if he were a time traveler sent back in time to draw those lines... Yet what is the pressure? Here's the crux of my point. [Pompo holds his head.] Why can't her hair change? Is it as strong as Superman's? If Diana Prince gets cancer will it fall out like my stepmother's did? Does she wear it long and then decide it's not worth the work and cut it short for a few years? Why can't it be blue this week, blonde the next? Where's the surprise? Shouldn't her hair make us wonder? [Pompo pauses. He begins pacing the stage.] 

P: I have visions of Wonder Woman's hair, but I'm no artist; it's still tied to the hair made flesh. Why is Laverne Cox's hair darker than she usually wears it when she poses as Wonder Woman? Is she her hair there or is she alienated? A part of her taken away and given to the character. I see an image of Amber Rose as Wonder Woman: she wears a red, white, and blue hoodie over most of her face, but it doesn't cover all of her hair, somewhat like mine... [Pompo reaches up to his head again; he begins to blush.] She claims it completely. I am drawn back to high school and a classmate dressed like Wonder Woman at lunch on Halloween and why was I so taken with her? Did she look more or less like herself? I can't remember what all she had done with her hair. [Pompo paces the stage.] Slow and steady... Slow and steady... Without the hair, I guess that's what I am. [Pompo exits.] 

End Interlude