By Charlie Greenwald, Contributor, Emerson College
In its heyday, the mustache was truly magnificent. There was nothing else in the world that was as cool, calm and collected as a man who wore one. Decades ago, it was the embodiment of testosterone; the thicker the ‘stache, the manlier the man. It swept the world during the mid-20th Century, and much like Woodstock or the Rubik’s Cube, almost everyone wanted to be a part of it.
Some grown-ups will tell you that when they were kids, they wanted to be astronaut or a fireman when they grew up. But they really wanted something else when they got older. Teenage boys all across America wanted more than anything to become men and to be able to grow a thick, perfectly trimmed line of hair just above their upper lip. They’d take that honor over a hot fudge sundae or a pretty girlfriend. And who could blame these wishful, pre-pubescent boys, when everyone from your lowballing uncle to your nextdoor neighbor in a biker gang to your sophisticated English teacher had one?
Famous people flaunted mustaches like it was their job. In the media, you couldn’t escape it. You saw mustaches proudly displayed on Jacques Clouseau and Salvador Dali. You had inspirational figures like Martin Luther King Jr., who wouldn’t have marched for equal rights without it. Albert Einstein needed it to discover that E=MC2. Rollie Fingers and Wade Boggs showed all aspiring athletes that a mustache was crucial to success on the field. Kurt Vonnegut showed all starving artists how it’s done. In a moment of masculine glory, Tom Selleck perfected it on Magnum P.I. The mustache was everywhere, and you couldn’t stop it.
Furthermore, the ladies loved mustaches. Ask your mom if she ever had a pinup of Burt Reynolds—I bet she did. Chicks dug men with facial hair—the alpha men of old all wore the stache like a pro. Clark Gable was an American icon. Even Alex Trebek had one. John Oates, Lemmy Kilmister and Ron Jeremy have probably had more combined women than China has people—and all thanks to their mustaches.
You see, my friends, there was something about a mustache that gave a man confidence. But not just with women—with overall self-esteem. It wasn’t anything like a beard, which suggested gruffness but also sometimes portrayed a disheveled appearance. The mustache gave men swagger because it was manly and coiffed simultaneously. It showed our tough side and our sensitive side all at the same time. It defined everything we stood for and represented. Even women like Freida Kahlo experimented with it.
However, as time wore on, so did the mustache. Slowly but surely, starting in the early 1990’s, the mustache became less and less common. Nowadays, growing a mustache is a negatively viewed practice. If you aren’t experienced and trademarked with your mustache and are experimenting with the idea for the first time, things might not go well. Many people think it’s amusing, while others think it’s disturbing—but few think it’s normal. If you, like me, are wondering why, there are various explanations. Goatee scholars have claimed that the ‘stache became so popular, so mainstream, that it no longer was “in.” Other soul patch academics claim that the mustache gave some irresponsible men over-falsified confidence, and subsequently became too closely associated with criminals who thought they were invincible because of it.
All I know is that my friends and I are tired of being scorned. We want the same amount of respect Ron Swanson gets, but we don’t. One of my mustache-wearing friends from high school said he had been called a “pedophile from Iowa.” Paul Rudd was recently on the TODAY show and criticized his own mustache (that he's growing for a film), embarrassingly admitting he thought he “looked like Yanni” when he first saw it. I even tried the mustache myself for a brief one-day trial period, until somebody told me that I looked like a “serial killer.”
Does having a mustache automatically mean you’re a creeper, especially if you have blonde hair? Or is it that mustaches are out of style? If they are, who decided it? I wasn’t aware that there’s a committee who decides when facial hair is in or out.
I’m putting my foot down. I say that if people can still get away with the five o’ clock shadow and the scraggly sideburns, then the Fu Man Chu should not send us running in the other direction! I say that Americans should have the right to channel our inner Mark Spitz every day of the year, and not just during No Shave November, Movember, or when in solitary confinement!
I say enough is enough. We are more than the facial hair we wear, dammit!
I’ll leave you with this: I normally shave three times a week, for about ten minutes each time. I spend nine of those ten minutes shaving my beard/sideburns and one minute shaving my mustache. So, if you do the math and subtract the time I spend shaving my beard, I spend over two hours and a half each year shaving my mustache. Instead of wasting all that time, I could grow out my lip-warmer and use those minutes to, say, watch a few episodes of “Dr. Phil.”
And guess what? Phil McGraw has a mustache.
In its heyday, the mustache was truly magnificent. There was nothing else in the world that was as cool, calm and collected as a man who wore one. Decades ago, it was the embodiment of testosterone; the thicker the ‘stache, the manlier the man. It swept the world during the mid-20th Century, and much like Woodstock or the Rubik’s Cube, almost everyone wanted to be a part of it.
Some grown-ups will tell you that when they were kids, they wanted to be astronaut or a fireman when they grew up. But they really wanted something else when they got older. Teenage boys all across America wanted more than anything to become men and to be able to grow a thick, perfectly trimmed line of hair just above their upper lip. They’d take that honor over a hot fudge sundae or a pretty girlfriend. And who could blame these wishful, pre-pubescent boys, when everyone from your lowballing uncle to your nextdoor neighbor in a biker gang to your sophisticated English teacher had one?
Famous people flaunted mustaches like it was their job. In the media, you couldn’t escape it. You saw mustaches proudly displayed on Jacques Clouseau and Salvador Dali. You had inspirational figures like Martin Luther King Jr., who wouldn’t have marched for equal rights without it. Albert Einstein needed it to discover that E=MC2. Rollie Fingers and Wade Boggs showed all aspiring athletes that a mustache was crucial to success on the field. Kurt Vonnegut showed all starving artists how it’s done. In a moment of masculine glory, Tom Selleck perfected it on Magnum P.I. The mustache was everywhere, and you couldn’t stop it.
Furthermore, the ladies loved mustaches. Ask your mom if she ever had a pinup of Burt Reynolds—I bet she did. Chicks dug men with facial hair—the alpha men of old all wore the stache like a pro. Clark Gable was an American icon. Even Alex Trebek had one. John Oates, Lemmy Kilmister and Ron Jeremy have probably had more combined women than China has people—and all thanks to their mustaches.
You see, my friends, there was something about a mustache that gave a man confidence. But not just with women—with overall self-esteem. It wasn’t anything like a beard, which suggested gruffness but also sometimes portrayed a disheveled appearance. The mustache gave men swagger because it was manly and coiffed simultaneously. It showed our tough side and our sensitive side all at the same time. It defined everything we stood for and represented. Even women like Freida Kahlo experimented with it.
However, as time wore on, so did the mustache. Slowly but surely, starting in the early 1990’s, the mustache became less and less common. Nowadays, growing a mustache is a negatively viewed practice. If you aren’t experienced and trademarked with your mustache and are experimenting with the idea for the first time, things might not go well. Many people think it’s amusing, while others think it’s disturbing—but few think it’s normal. If you, like me, are wondering why, there are various explanations. Goatee scholars have claimed that the ‘stache became so popular, so mainstream, that it no longer was “in.” Other soul patch academics claim that the mustache gave some irresponsible men over-falsified confidence, and subsequently became too closely associated with criminals who thought they were invincible because of it.
All I know is that my friends and I are tired of being scorned. We want the same amount of respect Ron Swanson gets, but we don’t. One of my mustache-wearing friends from high school said he had been called a “pedophile from Iowa.” Paul Rudd was recently on the TODAY show and criticized his own mustache (that he's growing for a film), embarrassingly admitting he thought he “looked like Yanni” when he first saw it. I even tried the mustache myself for a brief one-day trial period, until somebody told me that I looked like a “serial killer.”
Does having a mustache automatically mean you’re a creeper, especially if you have blonde hair? Or is it that mustaches are out of style? If they are, who decided it? I wasn’t aware that there’s a committee who decides when facial hair is in or out.
I’m putting my foot down. I say that if people can still get away with the five o’ clock shadow and the scraggly sideburns, then the Fu Man Chu should not send us running in the other direction! I say that Americans should have the right to channel our inner Mark Spitz every day of the year, and not just during No Shave November, Movember, or when in solitary confinement!
I say enough is enough. We are more than the facial hair we wear, dammit!
I’ll leave you with this: I normally shave three times a week, for about ten minutes each time. I spend nine of those ten minutes shaving my beard/sideburns and one minute shaving my mustache. So, if you do the math and subtract the time I spend shaving my beard, I spend over two hours and a half each year shaving my mustache. Instead of wasting all that time, I could grow out my lip-warmer and use those minutes to, say, watch a few episodes of “Dr. Phil.”
And guess what? Phil McGraw has a mustache.