• Home
  • News
  • Top Picks
    • Movies & Films: Top 25
    • Documentaries: Top 25
    • Films For Students: Top 10
    • Music Videos: Top 10
  • Categories
    • Film
    • Documentary
    • Shorts
    • Blog
    • Calendar
    • Links
    • About

Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World

Libertarian Movies, Films & Documentaries

Hair (1979)

Tagged: Anti-draft, Anti-war

A country boy on his way to Vietnam experiences the 1960s counterculture, and is inadvertently saved by it. [ Hair credits: Dir: Milos Forman/ Treat Williams, John Savage, Beverly D’Angelo/ 122 min/ Musical-Dance, Drama/ Anti-Draft, Anti-War]

“Part flower-child musical, part social commentary, this is an often entertaining film, with good choreography and a sense of humor. It also serves as a useful criticism of war, the draft, and unquestioning obeisance to societal dictates.”

Hair opens with a close-up shot of some New York City hippies burning a draft card. It’s a significant moment because the draft is at the center of this story, as indeed the antidraft movement was at the center of the 1960s counterculture.

These draft-card-burning hippies are typical free-loving, rebellious types. They spend their days bumming around Central Park having a good time. By chance, they run into a young, patriotic innocent from Oklahoma. He’s on his way to the draft board. Partly just for fun, and partly with the hope of diverting him from the draft, they give him a taste of the easygoing hippie life—hanging out, partying, skinny-dipping, drugs, etc. He’s tempted by it, but he ultimately joins the Army anyway and is sent to a training camp in Nevada.

Some months later, the hippies drive out to save him; they succeed, but only at a terrible price to themselves, a price symbolic of the real-life sacrifices such social rebels played in ending the Vietnam War.

Like the ’60s era itself, however, the message here is mixed. On the one hand, the main characters have a healthy irreverence for authority and abhorrence for war and the draft. On the other hand, their frequently irresponsible behavior sometimes violates the personal boundaries and property of others. Most of that behavior is, of course, just part of a broader no-holds-barred attack on the vast, detached, voting middle-class that (at least in the beginning) backed the war. However, a more troubling aspect of the film is its carefree attitude toward hard drugs, which (the question of legalization aside) is dangerously naive, to say the least.

Hair is told almost entirely through music and images, with just a few minutes of dialogue between songs. Many of these songs are ’60s classics, including “Aquarius,” “Hair,” “Easy to Be Hard,” some twenty-odd tunes in all. Part flower-child musical, part social commentary, this is an often entertaining film, with good choreography and a sense of humor. It also serves as a useful criticism of war, the draft, and unquestioning obeisance to societal dictates.

How to See It

Netflix
Amazon (DVD)
Amazon (Instant Video)
YouTube Video Search
Online Video Search

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia

Share this:

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email

Related

Featured Post

covid response

Covid Response Pitch Meeting: Harrison Hill Smith

This hilarious skit by Comedian Harrison Hill Smith reimagines the government's initial Covid response pitch meeting among experts. If you're wondering how authorities could have made their response so haphazard and contradictory, this is one scenario. h/t Instapundit … Continue Reading

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace (2006)

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS Inspired by Christian teachings against slavery, William Wilberforce leads an arduous but ultimately victorious life-long battle to abolish the slave trade. [ Amazing Grace credits: Dir: Michael Apted/ Ioan Gruffudd, Benedict Cumberbatch, Albert Finney/ 111 min/ Drama, … Continue Reading

victimless crime spree

Derrick J’s Victimless Crime Spree (2012)

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN DOCUMENTARIES Libertarian activist Derrick J. Freeman chronicles his arrest and incarceration for five "crimes" -- videoing police, dancing in a public place, smoking cannabis, wearing a hat in court, and riding a bike -- in a civil disobedience spree that demonstrates just how … Continue Reading

Themes

Abuse of power American revolution Anti-draft Anti-regulation Anti-slavery Anti-socialism Anti-taxation Anti-war Ayn Rand Corrupt government Creator as hero Democide Econ 101 Eminent domain Equality & law Escape from socialism Freedom of speech Free press as hero Government as bigot Government as torturer Government enforced morality Government healthcare Government schools Incompetent government Individualism John Stossel Law & liberty Legalize Drugs Libertarian heroes Libertarianism 101 Power corrupts Power worship Pro-capitalism Pro-immigration Propaganda Psychiatric coercion Resistance to tyranny Right to secede Search & seizure Second amendment Sexual liberty Social tolerance Unions & monopolies Voluntarism Working for government

Genres/Categories

Action-Adventure Animated Biography Blog Comedy Documentary Drama Family Featured Film Foreign History Horror Music-Dance Netflix News Romance SciFi-Fantasy Shorts Thriller Upcoming Western

About Miss Liberty

This site is a collection of films and documentaries of particular interest to libertarians (and those interested in libertarianism). It began as a book, Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film: Movies for the Libertarian Millennium, where many of the recommended films were first reviewed. The current collection has grown to now more than double the number in that original list, and it’s growing still.

  • RSS

© 2025 Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World. All Rights Reserved