I do have my fellow blogger, Michael, to blame for this one. He brought the mullet back to my attention. If it were not his sharp eye for the bad fashion sense of the 1980’s and the south, then I might not have noticed it this past weekend. Instead, I noticed this eye sore all too often. And it was not just the men who sported it, it was their children and their women as well. God help us if the mullet ever actually makes it back to the “popular” hairstyle.
While I can forgive the mullet on men as simple poor fashion advice, I have a harder time forgiving the women. Children get an automatic pass, but the parents should be condemned for subjecting their children to such a hideous hairstyle. What is even worse than the original mullet is when it is allowed to grow, providing the person with the shaggy appearance.
A mullet was originally designed as being a haircut for those people who are interested in having a “business” look in the front and a “party” look in the back. This made it a man’s hair cut. The business look meant a very short and well kept. The back, or party side, was meant to be long but well trimmed. This side could easily be pulled into a low pony tail and tucked under, providing the appearance of short hair. While the theory behind this style is commendable, it was never applied right and never went off like it was thought that it might.
Instead what typically happened was that the front was cut too long and the hair was allowed to curl up. This gave it the appearance of a cheap perm. The hair in the back was allowed to come too far forward and the hair was allowed to go too long without a trim. This gave the person split ends and damaged hair. This was made worse if the person tipped their front hair or dyed their hair at all.
Women have the benefit of not needing to wear the short front and still looking professional. Most people expect women to have long hair, although the short hair is also very professional. The mullet gives women the appearance of being unable to decide what they want to do with their hair. If a woman cannot make a decision about her hair, how can she function in a professional environment? If you have a mullet, cut the hair in the back to a modern pixy and get out of the 80’s please.
Children should never be subjected to the mullet. Even in the 80’s the mullet was thought to be a bad idea for children. It used to be common to allow the kids to grow out their hair during the summer and have it cut again at the beginning of the school year. To send your child to school with a mullet is only opening the child up to teasing and torment by his or her fellow students who are a little more fashion aware. Please parents, spare your child the pain of the mullet. It does not do them justice. And really, please quit the hairspray in your kid’s mullet to make it “bigger”. It is not the ‘80’s any more. No one wants the big hair and the mullet was never cool.
Okay, I already touched base upon the Mullet and why this horrendous-looking hairstyle is somehow still widely in use, and for a plethora of reasons that are unbeknownst to me, and that for the life of me I will never truly understand. But, it does make for some great hair style fashion blogger fodder; for certain it does! The reality is that if—and whenever I do—see a person sport a mullet, I have to try and not laugh. (They remind me of this monkey picture I have added to the upper left that has a primate mullet.) Generally when this occurs, I do end up laughing. I am coy enough not to point and jeer. But seriously: I think of seeing a person sporting a mullet like I would the worst NCAA mascot hopping around the field (a few choice teams come to mind here that just have ghastly-looking mascots, like a pickle, for example, but I will refrain from mentioning such collegiate teams for the sake of no legal liabilities—and also because I love NCAA football).
Living in the great ‘Wild West’ state of Arizona, there are so many fashion faux paws that I see on a regular and daily basis that bewildered is a vast understatement of my perception of this hair style dilemma that most people here face. What I am talking about is the existence of the most trashiest of all hair styles ever to be fathomed, one that had to be brewed in the vats of a moonshine, rusted-out bathtub somewhere far out in the desert—in a trailer park nonetheless—where some dude, somewhere, on some sunny day decided that a mullet was the way to go.