The Reverse Mullet

What does it all mean?

Make no mistake: the cutting edge of fashion, to me, means you wear a belt with a knife tucked in it when you stomp around butt-naked at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Fest.  One passing glance at me, my Mrs. Beasley glasses, Manson Girl hair, and strangely menacing  huge black oxfords bears this out: in the House of Fashion, I have no room to talk.  At all.  I’m not even allowed on the porch of the House of Fashion anymore ever since that thing that happened with the bottle rockets and that little dog that lives in a purse.

But all self-deprecating disclaimers aside, I just do not know how to take the Short-In-The-Back-Long-In-The-Front hairdo.  The SITBLITF, let’s call it, because we’ve all given up on the hard work of the English language and only talk text these days.    But the SITBLITF: it is troubling.  And popular, which is even more troubling.

Hair crazes are cultural signposts.  They manifest some significant element of the times, easily taken for the chuckle-fodder of yearbook nostalgia.  Remember the Farrah ‘do?  You can choose to chuckle at the memory of those chicken wing bangs flopping up a frenzy in at your Senior Prom or you can opt to see its lush sexiness as an exotic plant grown in a cultural hothouse that also cranked out herpes.  I know I do.  Similarly, the flat top speaks of the “uptight is all right” flavor of the 50’s and the 90’s Rachel ‘do says “I like to watch ‘Friends’!”

So what does the SITBLITF say about These Modern Times?  Does it speak of a radical contrast between the facade (the face, or front, if you will, the form) what lies behind it (the, um, back, the substance)?  The SITBLITF is almost laughable in its extremes. Coming and going, its wearer actually looks like two different women: the pleaser whose face is framed like a pretty picture with long bangs, followed in hot pursuit by the broad who chased some anti-anx pharmies with a couple of stiff margaritas and slept on a box fan.  It’s disconcerting: the schizo contrast seems to say “I CAN HAVE IT ALL AND IT’S KILLING ME”.  Or is it a sly reversal of the mullet‘s “Business In The Front, Party In The Back” credo?  I doubt this, though, because merely acknowledging the existence of the mullet is grounds for House of Fashion banishment for life.  (Guilty as charged, your Honor.)  Or have we forgotten the lessons Edward Scissorhands taught us about the idiocy of craze-behavior?

I’ve seen two variations of the SITBLITF in my suburban journeys, mostly centering on the short back part: there’s the the teased-to-puffy-bubble and the shocking spike.  The overall effect calls to mind a bird of paradise either presenting or pissed off.  This is a telling distinction and consider myself warned in my dealings with the SITBLITF.  So far, this rule of thumb seems to hold up:

The Bubbleback: Flattery will get you anywhere!

The Gosselin Hackleback: Fuck off!

Perhaps the SITBLITF, and by extension These Modern Times, are best interpreted via its most famous proponent, TV’s own Kate Gosselin.  Over bred, over extended, a shrill victim of its own hubris–These Modern Times are barely clinging to the edge of the abyss with its salon-styled nails.  What’s more: it’s a bitch.

Tags: Edward Scissorhands, Farrah, fashion, Friends, hair styles, Hedwig, mullet, social commentary