The Man Bob Craze: From the Renaissance to Shrek's Lord Farquaad and Snow White
- Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank
- Mar 20
- 4 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
For the past year, many people have bemoaned the hairstyle chosen by Disney for Rachel Zegler as Snow White in the movie Snow White (2025). It seems that her bob reminded people too much of Lord Farquaad, the original villain in Shrek. But what does an art historian see, you ask? The Renaissance Bob.
The Renaissance Bob Craze
The l500s were a time of considerable change in Europe. You might expect me to discuss the usual suspects, like Renaissance humanism or Michelangelo. But there is something far more important that needs to be mentioned: the man bob craze of the 1500s.
That's right. By the 1500s, in parts of Europe, the bob was all the rage for men. A blunt cut with bangs or a straight, single-length bob became the fashionable cut for any well-to-do man. This was a time when portraiture was exploding again, so how one was portrayed or fashioned was very important. What I am trying to say is that men consciously chose to show themselves with a bob (or what occasionally looks like a bowl cut).
Why?
To them, shorter hair was a sign of a person's sophistication. First and foremost, it was a practical cut. It was easier to maintain and less messy. People weren't bathing as regularly as we do today. If you were a man wearing armor or a helmet, shorter hair would have been an asset.
It was also fashionable, and it had associations with intellectuals and courtiers. Even the lothario artist Raphael (he was such a playboy!) rocked the bob, as you see in his self-portrait. In fact, Raphael painted many male portraits, most of whom also have their hair cut into the bob.
If you've heard of the pageboy cut, this is the same type of bob. In the 14th to 16th centuries in parts of Europe, this hairstyle had associations with scholars and young men. It also was loosely based on ancient Greek and Roman hairstyles; they didn't prefer the bob, but they did like clean, cropped, well-maintained styles, and with the increased interest in Greco-Roman antiquity in the Renaissance, the bob was in line with such clean hair. The bob was considered refined.
Fun fact: My husband accidentally got a bad haircut once, and it was a dead ringer for the Renaissance man bob. I was amused, he was not. How times have changed!
Lord Farquaad and the Renaissance Bob
The bob would eventually pass out of favor, only to be resurrected again as a fashion statement before, once again, falling out of fashion. But! Enter Lord Farquaad from DreamWorks's Shrek (2001). The diminutive tyrant has the sharpest bowl cut in animation history. While audiences laugh at his cartoonish proportions and even more exaggerated (yet glorious) bob haircut, Farquaad’s look isn’t entirely an invention of DreamWorks’s imagination. I am sure that animators adapted his distinctive, blunt-cut bob, with its razor-sharp line and straight-across bangs from the Renaissance bob worn by late 15th- and 16th-century elites, such as we saw in the portraits above.
It adds to his character's humor. In the 1500s, it was associated with refinement and intellectual seriousness. Lord Farquaad thinks he possesses these qualities when, in fact, he's just a petty, insecure antagonist. The film pokes fun at the hairstyle's original meanings.
So, when audiences today joke that Rachel Zegler’s Snow White resembles Lord Farquaad, they unknowingly point out the shared historical root of this hairstyle—a style that once carried real social weight.
Rachel Zegler, Snow White, and the Great Bob Controversy
When Disney released promotional images of Rachel Zegler as Snow White for the 2025 live-action remake, the internet had a field day (to put it mildly). People couldn’t help but compare her short bob haircut to Lord Farquaad. The haircut became the butt of many jokes, many of them intended to be unkind. But what was missing from much of the conversation (if we can even call it that) was the awareness of the deeper historical roots in the hairstyle choice.
Were Disney animators aware of the fabulous Renaissance man Bob? What does it mean to associate a Disney princess with a common male hairstyle of the past? Is this all just pure coincidence? The answer to the last question is perhaps, but given the broader conversation that connects Snow White to Lord Farquaad, these questions are fun, if not critical, to mull over. And let's face it:
The Man Bob Craze
So, while the internet sees Farquaad, an art historian sees the Renaissance. The bob was once a symbol of intellect, status, and practicality—a far cry from modern memes making fun of Lord Farquaad. Whether on a Renaissance courtier or a fairy-tale princess, the bob reminds us how styles from the past can still shape stories we tell today—or participate in pop culture controversies!
CITE THIS PAGE: Kilroy-Ewbank, Dr. Lauren. "The Man Bob: From the Renaissance to Shrek's Lord Farquaad and Snow White." lkilroyewbank.com <Insert date you accessed> https://www.lkilroyewbank.com/post//the-swing-disney-frozen-nods-to-art-history.
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