Beauty standards are so named for a reason. Eventually, we grow so used to the depictions of one type of person onscreen that we forget to question it. So it goes with the freshly shaved armpits we see in every superhero movie. Luckily for us, actor Zazie Beetz, who plays Domino in Deadpool 2, realizes that if superheroes were real, they would barely have time to shower, let alone shave. (Not to mention, Wonder Woman certainly wouldn't stand for the Pink Tax.)
Beetz rectified this illogical oversight with her role in Deadpool 2, all by accident. She revealed to The Independent that she didn't realize she had let her armpit hair grow out until it was time to shoot. It was allegedly her boyfriend's idea to keep the hair, to which said to herself, "'You know what? That’s kind of a good idea.' So I just kept it."
She worried at first about the "Internet reaction" the decision might cause. "It’s interesting how strongly people really do feel about armpit hair on women. They have very, very strong opinions about that. But I felt, you know, like that’s not about me, right?" she said to The Independent. "That’s about social conditioning and about people’s perception of what women should look like. And, you know, I felt if people got offended by that, that’s not something I really have to worry about."
Body hair is a fact of life, a personal choice, and, as she describes it in the interview, "not something that is gross or shameful." She acknowledges that the connection between hairless skin and sexuality may come from internalized ideals of perfection. "It depends on how I am, but I feel very sexy when my legs are shaven, right? Where does that come from?" she says. “So I, sometimes intentionally, will let my body hair grow out so I don’t feel beholden to that.”
Aside from her visible underarm hair, Zazie Beetz's casting itself is barrier-breaking for the Deadpool franchise. In the comic books, Domino appears as a light-skinned woman with long, straight hair. In the film, Zazie wears her natural hair in an afro. She credits the decision to the team behind her styling for the film: "I think having my hair look like this in this movie is kind of a huge statement that didn't even come from me. That came from production, Ryan [Reynolds] and Dave [Leitch] the director, that they wanted that for Domino, and I really, really respected that so much and was so excited to do that with them."
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