Since time immemorial, hair stylists have been accorded a certain respect that is unique to their craft. These people, who cut our hair -- often strangers -- usually end up privy to our deepest, darkest secrets and most secret ambitions.

With a sympathetic ear and sage advice, they make up for a lack of fancy degrees from prestigious universities with the type of people skills that can only be cultivated through years of experience. So much so that in 2004, Liz Mermin filmed a team of New York hairdressers, who travel to Afghanistan to introduce their styling techniques to women once oppressed by the Taliban regime, in the documentary Beauty Academy of Kabul.

Adam Sandler also explores styling in this week's release, You Don't Mess With The Zohan. Sandler plays an Israeli agent, an ex-Mossad member, who tires of all the espionage and geopolitical warfare, opting instead to pursue his one true passion: hair styling.

When he puts down the gun and picks up the shears, Zohan finds that he is able to make a significantly larger impact on people's lives and quickly becomes a hit with the neighbourhood ladies. In fact, what he could never accomplish as an agent -- brokering peace between Palestinians and Israelis -- he manages to do as a humble hair stylist, by appealing to the best intentions inside combatants on both sides of the struggle.

This is but one way that Hollywood has explored hair stylists. We look at earlier films in this vein.

Shampoo

The movie that started it all, Hal Ashby's Shampoo (1975), starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn, showcased how the salon could serve as the perfect setting.

Though ostensibly about a debauched celebrity hairdresser, the film looks at 1960's sexual and social mores as well as Nixonian-era US Politics. To date, it remains the greatest movie revolving around hair.

Steel Magnolias

Then came Steel Magnolias (1989), which uses a small-town Louisiana beauty shop as a vehicle to explore some unlikely yet touching friendships, where six women (including Dolly Parton, Julia Roberts and Sally Fields) get together to share stories, tears and laughter.

Caramel

Caramel (2007) is an Arabic movie set in Beirut, Lebanon, which uses the same formula as Steel Magnolias.

It uses the salon as a prism through which to examine the different lives of the shop's many workers and customers, particularly the difficult realities of being an Arab woman in a rapidly modernising world.

Edward Scissorhands

Zohan is not the first misunderstood hair stylist with good intentions. Spawned from the genius of Tim Burton and brought to life by Johnny Depp, 1990's Edward Scissorhands again took the hair-cutting motif and ran with it.

The beloved Edward, with his hands of blades, though despised by society, still did his best to liven up people's lives, through his immaculate hair cuts, ice sculptures and trimmed hedges.

And though he showed a proclivity for all three, it was cutting hair where he seemed most happy, providing his client and himself an almost orgasmic experience.