10 Movies to Watch Before Getting Bangs

The scene is all too familiar. The spin of a chair, the sweep of a brush through knotted curls. A swipe of gloss on plump lips, the cinch of a waist from a 21st century corset. Another unassuming, definitely brunette girl transformed from a deviant sputter of femininity into a graceful, magnificent butterfly.

The movie makeover rules our consciousness—or, at least, mine. It began in a community theater production of Oklahoma!. At 12 years old, playing the hero’s mostly irrelevant fiancé, I found myself in the dressing room with the older girls, lining my lips with $6 Maybelline in the shade “coquettish.” I felt quite the opposite of “Coquettish,” but I remember flirting with the lyrics to one of the numbers, singing it backstage under my bated breath: “I'll snap my fingers to show I don't care, / I'll buy me a brand-new dress to wear. / I'll scrub my neck and I'll brush my hair, / And start all over again!"

It was practically a vow. I hummed it in the shower, in my room before bed, cuddling up with my mom to watch the Hannah Montana movie (a pinnacle of movie makeovers). Like Oklahoma!’s promise to start over, movies promise us change: transformation of a character from one person into another. Save the cat. Wield the hair dryer. They show us that we too can change. A technicolor Parker Posey can become a pearl-clad librarian in Party Girl. Alt Brittany Murphy can become the dreamgirl of a Beverly Hills high school in Clueless. Anne Hathaway can not once, but twice, be taken from frizz into glamour in The Princess Bride and The Devil Wears Prada. While often adherent to notions of the ideal woman, these metamorphoses really just laud a Bordwellian Hollywood plot structure. In plain English: the girl gets the haircut, the guy, the job. The movie makeover is an easy plot point, a feel-good cheat sheet. How could we resist the ease of a physical transformation, rather than the begrudging process of changing our inner selves? We heard about caterpillars and butterflies before we did talk therapy and Zoloft.

I know all of this. I call myself an evolved woman. But why is the movie makeover still so satisfying? Perhaps it is knowing that one day, someone could do it to me. Or better, I could do it to myself. I’ve purchased the claw clips, the gua sha, the compact mirror so I can reapply my lip combo before walking into a room. But I don’t mean to make some tired point about female beauty standards. What I mean is that in the movie makeover, I see another version of myself almost breaching the surface, waiting to be awakened by the right gaggle of femmes or some sassy but well-meaning gay men. It’s a promise that the better version of myself could be activated at any moment. I’ve spent ten years waiting for my Cher and Dionne, for my Nigel, for my savior. In every romcom that Netflix dumps into my algorithm, I search for the moment of vision. Eyes meet, backs turn, someone is seen for the first time by another. It’s a moment of recognition for evenings dedicated to Vogue Beauty Secrets, Ben and Jerry’s, and 10 Things I Hate About You on for the 5th time. It’s an affirmation that it was all worthwhile.