Fighting the future with mustaches

I've been waiting for mustaches to make a comeback, and I think this recent Rolling Stone cover just might help its long awaited return.



I've always been amazed at Brad Pitt's chameleonesque hair. He can go all Legends-of-the-Fall in weeks, shave it for his next film, then appear days later with George Clooney's very fashionable 1950s look.



I wonder if there's some magical Hollywood secret gel that allows celebrities to grow their hair out more quickly than the rest of the plebeian masses.

Anyway. Mustaches: why did they wander in the cultural desert for so long, collecting all kinds of sleazy connotations, like some creep in a windowless van (Michele associates mustaches with child molesters, which pretty much disqualifies me from ever growing one, even though I really really want to)?

I'm also waiting for body hair, in general, to make a comeback. Americans are obsessed with shaving everything, but I just can't keep up; what is it about body hair that so reviles us in one era, while being completely acceptable in others? I mean, Burt Reynolds used to be considered, like, a Greek God or something.



And then a mere 10 to 20 years later, this would completely repel 99% of women.

I think there must be an aesthetics of smoothness that's very active in the human brain--that makes us believe that rounded, consistent shapes are some kind of surface-manifestation of inner purity. I don't think that it's just sexual either. There's evolutionary reasons for why men are attracted to curves--they are supposedly the outer reflection of healthy reproductive capability (or so I read).

Yet, why is it that so much future-oriented design is almost inevitably sleek? For example, take the two robots from Disney's recent movie, Wall-E.



The old design is baroque, gothic, broke-down. The new design is exceedingly simple and egg-like. If you'll recall Terminator 2, the old design, occupied by Arnold Schwarzeneggar's smoothly shaved skin, is nevertheless a collection of intricate humanoid parts on the inside, while the new design is liquid metal.

In addition, if you compare the spaceships in the first three Star Wars films, they are much more complex and labyrinthine than the ships in the latest three.





My question is, why does new always equal smooth? Because in each case I actually prefer the old design, and yet I've always somewhat fetishized the new as well (hence my taste for Modernist literature). With the exception of home design, painting, and literature, in which I certainly prefer modernist straight lines and minimalist flourishes, the clunkier, more gothic-church like design of the "older" models registers more "soul", even if the object rendered is a machine.

So I think there's also something in us that rejects the aesthetic of smoothness at times, and lets us enjoy the sloppy effectiveness of the Millenium Falcon, the simple tasks completed by the squeaky but soulful Wall-E, and the human-in-waiting of the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101.

My next step must be to convince Michele that my desire to grow a mustache simply stems from my yearning to reject the onset of a featureless future that we humans can only seem to envision as a plain free of the scars, blemishes, and accretions that pock reality and erupt through the curvature of our utopias.

Think she'll buy it?

On Favre and Ledger

Two of the most prominent sports/entertainment stories this summer have been Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight and Brett Favre's non-retirement. Is there a more perfect example of fate's sick sense of irony that when Ledger died, he was effectively denied (or denied himself?) the chance for a graceful exit, while Favre, when given the perfect chance for a well-deserved and celebrated adieu, instead insists upon simply being annoying?

I have no problem with players playing as long as they want; but for the past three years, Favre has insisted that he's retiring, and then finally come back. Last year, he stated very plainly that he was definitely retiring. And now he's everywhere again.

On the other hand, there's Ledger, whose Joker completely overcame what was already a pretty wonderful version of Batman. I would go so far as to say that his Joker is the film's protraganist, in the same unintended way that, about 350 year ago, John Milton's Satan became the hero of Paradise Lost. Christian Bale is a delightful and talented actor, but in comparison to Ledger, his Batman came off as churlish, arrogant, and even tyrannical (especially given his penchant for ubiquitous surveillance a la the Bush regime), only a certain part of which I think was dictated by the director and script.*

I highly recommend this film, and like most important films during this decade, it will surely be classified by history as "post-9/11" (but what isn't classified as "post 9/11" these days?).

Ledger and Favre are also interesting for a different reason: they are icons for early twenty-first century American manhood/masculinity. It's been a staple of every Sunday for the last fifteen years, to hear the fawning of the nation's collective sportswriters and commentators over how boyish and fun and manly Brett Favre is.

Why is it acceptable for mainstream American men to openly express their man-crushes on Brett Favre and to regale over his fun-loving boyishness (often celebrated for his love of the risky, inadvisable throw), while for the same people Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain, which represented a true professional risk, produces so much squeamishness? And yet, what Ledger accomplished for American culture in that role was to show that "manliness" isn't as simple as enacting a few telling characteristics. Manliness, at its best, contains strength and warmth, substance instead of empty posturing.

Favre is undeniably talented, and was very fun to watch. But Ledger is the man.
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*Bale's and Ledger's talent can also be compared in they Bob Dylan pseudo-biopic I'm Not There.

*NFL quaterbacks must fit into one of the three following categories: 1) cerebral/professional (Peyton Manning, Steve Young), 2) hunky and perfect (Tom Brady, Joe Namath), 3) boyish and free-wheeling (Brett Favre, Terry Bradshaw).