Anomie and The Boy with Green Hair

Why does some art move us to act? Is it a perfect shot, brush stroke, or line? Is it a desire to be jolted to action by something outside ourselves? While the question of why is definitively unanswerable, ruth weiss’s experience with the film The Boy With Green Hair provides a case study for how some art moves us to act. (1)

The Boy with Green Hair, 1948, directed by Joseph Losey, starring Dean Stockwell

The story goes like this: in her early 20s, ruth weiss hitchhiked to New Orleans and settled there for a few years. She went to see the film, The Boy With Green Hair with a few of her friends. On a whim, ruth decided to dye her hair green, in honor of the film. While by today’s standards green hair is nothing to balk at, ruth’s decision to dye her hair in 1950 was radical. The bodily autonomy and expressive agency ruth embodied by dying her hair green landed her well outside the societal standards of the day and put her at personal risk. ruth’s choice was courageous and true to her maverick spirit.  Undaunted by the reaction of others, ruth decided to keep her hair teal-her unique shade of green- for the rest of her life in homage to the film’s message that war is bad for children. ruth saw a film that moved her to act.  

To understand ruth’s ostensibly whimsical decision, we must turn toward the art, the artist inspired by it, and the socio-historical landscape of the 1950s. Released in 1948, The Boy With Green Hair is a direct reaction to the tumult of World War Two, providing a thoughtful exploration of the impact of war on children. The protagonist, Peter, played by a young Dean Stockwell, is a war orphan struggling to come to terms with his reality, feeling alienated from others around him who do not empathize with or accept his orphanhood. One day, Peter wakes up with green hair cementing his outcast status. Peter believes his unusual hair is meant to be a beacon for war orphans and that he should use his notoriety as ‘the boy with green hair’ to spread the message that war is bad for children. He is treated as a pariah, despite his benevolent goals and cuts his hair in the film’s climax, surrendering to social pressures. The film ends happily, with Peter changing his mind, growing his hair back, and continuing his crusade.

 The French sociologist, Emile Durkheim first coined the term anomie in his work Suicide. While the word never really took off in our lexicon, its import in terms of the way societies function cannot be overstated. Anomie refers to a state of normlessness and is closely related to the idea of alienation. While alienation pertains to strained social bonds between the self and society, Durkheim defined anomie as a state brought on by a sudden or drastic shift in society that creates a feeling of normlessness among people before new conventions are eventually adopted. World War Two was one such change that shifted American society toward anomie. After years of war, societal standards like traditional labor roles and the role of children as silent observers broke down in America. Peter experiences feelings of anomie throughout the film. He is an outsider looking in on a society that he feels alienated from. When Peter initially grows green hair, his anomic tendencies and otherness are reified. Once Peter grows his hair back and commits to his goal to spread the word about the impact of war on children, his anomic tendencies have finally propelled him to adopt new norms. Rather than feeling lost and purposeless, Peter ends the film determined to spread a new way of thinking about war. (2)(3)

A cinema still from the movie “ruth weiss: the beat goddess” A portrait of ruth weiss with her signature teal hair, a matching teal shirt and jade jewelry.

 In 1950, The Boy With Green Hair’s depiction of unsettled norms and feelings of alienation resulting in a new anti-war pro-human ethos resonated with ruth and her peers who desired to live outside of pre-war norms. ruth’s profound response to the film was catalyzed by her personal experiences as a child on the run from the Holocaust and the subsequent alienation she felt as a result of her displacement from her home. She knew first hand how bad war was for children and felt a responsibility, just as Peter did, to proliferate this message. ruth’s reaction to the film, The Boy With Green Hair, parallels the public’s reaction to Beat poetry of the 1950s. The film and the poems reflect pervasive feelings of normlessness and loss following World War Two. Anomic feelings in society gave way to new standards formed by poetry, art, and later the counterculture of the 1960s. 

The Beats were working out a new way of thinking, of being. They established social norms of peace, truth, and beauty, bucking the hegemony of the military-industrial complex and yearning for free love. Without anomic feelings untethering them from society, the Beats and their successors would not have come about. Art like The Boy With Green Hair and ruth’s poetry, were life rafts in a sea of normlessness, providing refuge to beleaguered war-weary people confronting questions that hadn't been asked before. (4)

(1)  "The Boy with Green Hair: Detail View". American Film Institute.

(2) Durkheim, E., 1897. Suicide: A Study of Sociology. 1st ed. paris.

(3) Robinson, J. P., Shaver, P. R., & Wrightsman, L. S. (2013). Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes: Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes. Elsevier Science. https://books.google.com/books?id=uOtFBQAAQBAJ

(4) Zhang, Yonghong. "On the Beat Generation." International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 3.17 (2013): 205-209.