Bearded lady
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A bearded lady or bearded woman is a woman who has a visible beard. These women have long been a phenomenon of legend, curiosity, ridicule, and more recently, political statement and fashion statement. A small number of women are able to grow enough facial hair to have a distinct beard. In some cases, female beard growth is the result of a hormonal imbalance (usually androgen excess), or a rare genetic disorder known as hypertrichosis. Sometimes it is caused by use of anabolic steroids. Cultural pressure leads most to remove it, as it may be viewed as a social stigma. Notable exceptions were the famous (and usually fake) bearded women of the circus sideshows of the 19th and early 20th centuries, before so-called freak shows became unpopular.
In fiction
- In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, the Weird Sisters have beards, among other strange facial attributes.
- The female dwarves in fantasy fiction are often depicted as having beards; examples include dwarves of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, and dwarfs of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.
- In the movie Dirty Work, one of the first acts of the main characters' revenge-for-hire business is to shave a bearded lady at the behest of a circus midget that she has been tormenting.
- In the movie SpaceBalls the antagonist Dark Helmet's escape pod is stolen by a bearded lady from the three-ring circus alluded to as being on board the Spaceballs' massive ship.
- The HBO series Carnivàle featured a bearded lady as a performer in the carnival.
- In the Blackadder episode "Born to be King" Blackadder hires a bearded lady as part of the entertainment for the festuval, only to find that she has shaved her beard off. Baldrick is then called upon to wear a dress and wig and pose as a bearded lady.
- The character Babara the Turkey in Strassburg opera The Rake's Progress is described as a bearded lady.
- In Angel, females of Lorne's species, including her mother, are bearded.
- Eleni.
See also
- Jane Barnell as Olga Roderick in Freaks
- Hirsutism
- Annie Jones
- Jennifer Miller
- Wilgefortis
- Julia Pastrana
- Helena Antonia
