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When hair is more than hair: Finn's style in The Rise of Skywalker
Looking at Finn's material in TROS, I am very excited and emotional how he grew his hair longer and is finding his own style in clothing as well.
Not only does he look amazing, it’s meaningful to his character and the worldbuilding as a whole in a way few style/design changes in SW have been, except maybe Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader or Kylo’s unmasking. Both Anakin's and Kylo's visual changes marked changes for the worse and made the universe a darker place, but Finn’s change is the opposite. Obviously he was not allowed individual style as a cadet and Stormtrooper–all the Stormtroopers had very short hair regardless of gender, and their hair like everything else about them was strictly utilitarian. They couldn’t even take off their helmets without permission.
Against this background, Finn growing and styling his hair in ways that he would never ever have been allowed to in the First Order indicates how he is becoming more settled in his personhood and individuality, despite a systematic decades-long attempt to stomp both out of him. According to the pre-Force Awakens novelization Before the Awakening, Finn felt distinct pleasure he felt at seeing the unhelmeted faces of his teammates during mealtimes. That stolen pleasure at the affirmation of individuality became a full-time reality as Finn sought out expressions of his individuality, in his hair, his clothes, perhaps his bearing and more. (1) He is truly coming into his own as a character, away from a lifetime of forced conformity.
Finn’s development also implies, on a larger scale, that the Stormtrooper program itself is a failure. You can’t turn people into machines no matter how they are “programmed from birth,” as Hux revoltingly put it. “We know that a man is not a thing,” as James Baldwin said, and “We know that a baby does not come into the world merely to be the instrument of someone else’s profit.” Finn’s entire being, from his life story to literally the tips of his hair, is a testament to that truth, the fundamental indomitability of people’s spirits.
(This is an edited version of a post originally made on Tumblr.)
1. It seems to me Finn also carries himself very differently from his newly-defected days in the first two movies; he seems more assertive and confident, but that's a different subject and for now there is too little available material for this to be more than speculation.
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I mean maybe Anthony's publicist should have physically tackled him before letting him make some of those comments for public consumption; the nuance of a loving uncle being concerned for his nephew in a racist society do not translate well to the public square. Many take his words in the spirit they were given, though: a Black actor/filmmaker friend in the States tells me Anthony was just stating the reality. My friend wears dreads himself and when he auditioned he couldn't get anything but bit roles as various criminals. (He has more luck with behind-the-camera work like editing.)
Against this background it seems all the more meaningful that a Black hero in a major franchise like Star Wars is shown with his beautiful hair, and for it to make an antifascist statement at the same time. I find it amazing that Black and nonblack viewers will get to see Finn's hair as a testament to heroism and individuality, not the stigma that's been attached to it by antiblackness.
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