Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x09 - "Project Daedalus"

Sarek's an Ambassador to another planet--yeah, he's going to be home a lot...

 

Not sure if you're being facetious. You know it's not (supposed to be) a wig, right?

 

Kind of surprising Tuvok wasn’t obliged to have the bowl cut.

 

Vulcans aren't enamored of fuzzy logic.

 

Keeping with your disdain with "monocultural aliens," then we also can't say that all brown skinned Vulcans have the same type of hair as similar humans, right?

 

But hey, Spock did like Tribbles.

 

some "black" vulcans have straight hair. some don't. T'Pel had the same Bowl Cut burnham sported in when she was first on Shenzou. Its pretty clear they show her that way just to demonstrate how assimilated Burnham had allowed herself to become but in this regard i think it was also just her fitting in with the family, trying to look like step-dad, not with Vulcan culture at large.

 

I didn't notice it before, but Admiral Terral didn't have the Vulcan hair either. Conrad Coates is a good-looking guy and the wig would have looked ridiculous on him.

 

I really don't remember about all pale skinned Vulcan hair.

But if we have dark skinned Vulcans who don't have "Vulcan hair," it seems a little strange to say that Burnham's straight hair is only due to some racial or cultural ignorance. I think XCV330 put it best that Burnham's hair was probably more due to Sarek's influence on her and less (if at all) about Vulcan society itself. I mean, I think Burnham would have probably used that hairstyle if she were white.

 

Another thing to note is that Vulcans don't always do the bowl-cut even if they have naturally straight hair, especially females. Saavik didn't, T'Pau didn't (through various eras of her life, though she did change it up now and then), Surak didn't, Mirror T'Pol. Spock abandoned the bowl when he was going through his kohlinar practice. Big Brother Sybok certainly didn't seem to influence Michael's hair choice. T'Pring.. nope. Amanda's not Vulcan but she certainly had time to assimilate, never let the spaghetti bowl and shears come near her raven locks. The Syranites, except for maybe T'Pol's mom seem to have ditched the bowl.

It's a popular hair cut, to be sure. I don't think the Vulcan Cosmetology Academy has a very long syllabus when it comes to hairstyles, but it's not the only option.

If it weren't for just the logistics of actors and makeup and the time period it all started out in, it might have been more interesting to show Vulcan as a truly ethnically homogenous culture. They've been more or less culturally monolithic for a few thousand years, so its more interesting that there are still ethnic types there. Why didn't they homogenize? (that'd be good book fodder. On a side rant, N.K. Jemisen's Broken Earth series gives some interesting ideas of why developing certain ethnic traits in harsh circumstances would be desirable. Can't wait to see the TNT series and how they handle ashblow-hair)

I digress. I don't think it it was ham-fisted or culturally insensitive.

 

Do share.

And I think it's telling that you used snark to respond to that part of comment, when ignoring the rest.

 

Maybe Burnham grew up on the "white" part of Vulcan, where the bowl-cut was much more universal. Tuvok, in contrast, grew up on a different continent.

 

And that is a good point. I couldn't remember those. However, thinking about it, T'Pol also wore her hair long and pulled back in "Twilight" in the alternate future where the Xindi destroy Earth.

 

It just occurred to me that those squiggly little ships they used to dart around asteroids in "Brother" would have been quite useful in avoiding mines.