The Surprising History of the Mullet

foreign [Music] George Orwell famously wrote that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it and those of us who live through the turbulent difficulties of the 1980s recently saw a stark example of the world repeating the mistakes of the past Illustrated in a July 2022 headline in the newspaper the mirror which proclaimed mullet back in style this popularity of 80s haircut soars among men and women that Grim news have left many of us understandably confused is how we could so repeat the mistakes of the past and bring them back to the president in the in the interest of protecting all Humanity the history of the haircut that is business in the front and party in the back deserves to be remembered there is a fair degree of question over how the haircut that is short on the front and sides but long in the back can be known as a mullet most sources agree that the term was popularized by the Platinum selling hip-hop rock group The Beastie Boys in their 1994 song mullet head the song which is not so much about the haircut as a satirical look at the people who stereotypically wore it describes the style as number one on the side and don't touch the back number six on the top and don't cut it whack Jack and more succinctly cut the sides don't touch the back but in their fan magazine Grand Royal the group admits that they themselves are not sure how they came to coin the term for the haircut writing we're not sure where the term mullet came from and suggesting that band member Michael Mike D Diamond who apparently suggested the name for the song might have confused the fish called mullet with the rodent muskrat the article goes on to be well charitably put as politically incorrect as possible in its insults of various celebrities and ethnic groups that sported the haircut but it does seem to surprise many who survived the 1980s that the name for the cut might not have been coined until 1994. the Heyday of the hairstyle began in the 1970s when Rock icons like David Bowie Rob Stewart and Paul McCartney rocked the cut but the peak was during the Reagan years the alternative style and Culture magazine Dazed and Confused noted in 2019. welcome to the glory years of the mullet the 1980s this is when the in your face statement style from the 1970s became well normal teens had posters of Patrick Swayze and Dirty Dancing no doubt contemplating a bullet of their own they drooled over Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys marveling At His short spikes on top and horse-like tail at the back there's zero irony in these looks just pure distilled cool a Terry on top of a teen's Rebel iconic look the style didn't represent any single group of people Dazed and Confused continues whether you were metal or country Yuppie or Punk jock or biker the mullet was a Mainstay of hairdos notably the haircut was popular among both men and women supported by the likes of Joan Jett and Cher Mike D quipped in Grand Royal in the same way the Rolling Stones created a new rock by misinterpreting the blues so the mullet may have been born when a Midwestern youth brought his shopping mall Barber a picture of Rod Stewart and told him to get to work but the Heyday of the hairstyle faded in the 1990s by the time the Beastie Boys were lampooning the hairstyle that's a way of life the shine had definitely worn off days to confuse rights it's hard to pinpoint what caused this shift in opinion but the emerging stereotype had taken shape it depicted low-income families in Backwater towns rednecked dudes and dive bars who clung to the Beloved Country Music and so the reputation of the hairstyle had changed before the Beastie Boys said coined that title and that alone suggests that possibly the Beastie Boys didn't coin the term mullet after all while it is unclear whether anyone was using the term bullet to refer to the hairstyle prior to 1994 the term mullet head is much older the online Etymology dictionary dates the use of the term mullet head to refer to a stupid or dull person to the year 1857 and Mark Twain used the tournament Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when Tom Sawyer says that his parents are so confiding and mullet-headed that they don't take notice of nothing at all so the Beastie Boys who Associated mullet heads with adult people won Beastie Boy associate said in Grand Royal that to me the militis is American is pickups with rifle racks tractor poles a Walmart wet t-shirt contests slapping your girl upside the head with a frying pan and living in the woods might simply have applied the classic meaning of mullet head to a haircut than associated with well mullet-headed people and author Ellen Henderson writing in his 2013 book mullet Madness suggests that the term mullet head might have actually been derived from the earlier British term mole-headed meaning a dull or stupid person Henderson writes at linguist John algayo concludes that the American word mullet head May derive from a Corruption of the English word molehead and it became linked to the word for the fish by clang Association meaning words put together because of how they sound instead of what they mean but the Ann Arbor Michigan Daily contends otherwise asserting that the connection to the fish is both deliberate and coined not by the Beastie Boys but by Samuel Clements writing in 2002 that the term mullet was coined by American author and wit Mark Twain who believed that the haircut resembled the mullet fish as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first published in the US in 1885 if Twain was actually comparing fish and haircuts that suggests the style had roughly the same reputation in the mid-1880s as it did in the mid-1990s when the Beastie Boys upon that we don't have anything better to do than scrutinize other people's hairstyles as in this case that hairstyle threatens the very fabric of the Free World and that might come as the biggest surprise the iconic hairstyle of the 1980s is in fact a classic how classic in The Iliad thought to have been written in the late 8th or early 7th Century BC Homer described the fierce Spearman of the abantes a proto-grip tribe as their foreheads bear down their broad shoulders slowed a length of hair the second century Greek author polinius explained that the hairstyle had originally been adopted from Theseus legendary founder of Athens and Slayer of the Minotaur who in his battles always used to have the four part of his head shaved so that the enemy should not have the opportunity of seizing him by the hair polinius goes so far as to say that long before the term mullet that sort of haircut was called Theseus some argue that the great sphinxig Giza is wearing a bullet although it's too worn to be sure whether it is simply hair pulled back or even a hair cover but without doubt there are many depictions of sphinxes often considered to represent the power of a king or Pharaoh wearing hairstyles that are business in the front and party in the back Henderson further notes that cutting the hair shorter in the front also kept hair out of the Warrior's eyes and the helmet fit better over it while the longer hair in the back would have kept the neck warm and dry noting evidence of malt style hair among the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia Syria and Asia Minor depictions of Assyrian Egyptian and hittite warriors often represent a mullet-style haircut the style is in fact so practical that some anthropologists speculate that it may have been worn commonly in pre-history Henderson writes the truth could be that the mullet was an evolutionary Improvement for a modern primate but the Romans generally preferred close trimmed hair perhaps a symbol of their orderly Society Henderson appines that the Golden Age of Roman civilization might have been the dark ages of the mullet although their various Rivals such as Gauls Huns and vandals are often depicted with what could be described as mullets but the hairstyle was significant to the Eastern Roman Empire of the 6th century Chariot racing was extremely popular in the Byzantine Empire and groups of hooligans formed supporting various Chariot teams among those were the veneti or the blues whom the Greek scholar procopius of caesaria says were supported by the emperor Justinian and who so undermined order as to threaten the empire in his secret history procopius writes so at this time while they kept Fanning the flames and manifestly stirring up the blues the whole Roman Empire was agitated from top to bottom as if an earthquake or a deluge had followed upon it as if each and every city had been captured by the enemy for everything was thrown into confusion in every part and nothing thereafter remained fixed but both laws and the orderly form of the government were completely overturned by the confusion that ensued and Central to this confusion was their hair which procopius describes in the first place the mode of dressing the hair was changed to a rather novel Style by the factions for they did not cut it at all as the Romans did for they did not touch the mustache or beard at all but they wished always to have the hair of these grow out very long as the persons do but the hair of their heads they cut off in front back to the temples leaving the part behind to hang down to a very great length in a senseless fashion this is the misogative indeed for this reason they used to call this the hunnic fashion and so just like the Beastie Boys warned in 1994 The Hooligans of 6th Century Byzantium threatened the very fabric of the Roman Empire with their mullets if mullets represented rebellion in Byzantium the hairstyle became downright common in medieval Europe often represented in portraits of knights and kings writing in the transactions of the royal Historical Society Robert Bartlett of the University of Saint Andrews notes that the treatment of hair is a prominently socially visible act and that in the case of status an equation of long hair with high birth is found in many medieval societies men of higher status are quite commonly portrayed with hair cut short in the front but long in the back particularly obvious in the portraits of the Frankish Kings of the maravinian dynasty which ruled from the 5th to the 8th century by contrast men of lower status Often by law had their hair cut short and 13th century Bavaria bartletts explains the law prescribes that peasants and their sons shall cut their hair to the ears other times however it was quite the opposite an 11th century fashion craze among Nobles in England and France to grow long hair race criticism in many ecclesiastical Chronicles because long hair was associated with femininity Bartlett notes that some important Church officials were so offended that they went so far as to deny holy sacraments to men who grew their hair long and carried scissors or knives with them in order to cut the hair of offending parishioners 12th century Monk and chronicler William of malmsbury described effeminates with flowing hair who tried to outdo women and who were unwilling to remain what they had been born monthly went so far as to blame the Norman Conquest on long-haired Nobles running at those who are ashamed to be what they were born and who copy women in their flowing hair will be no better than women in defending their country against overseas people but if long hair in the time of Harold aided William at Hastings in 1066 William's son William Rufus who held the English crown from 1087 to 1100 seems to have not learned the message they're particularly vehement denunciations in the 11th century Historia ecclesiastica written by Bennett nictine monk ordric Vitalis a chronicler of Anglo Norman England writing about a trend of men wearing long hair on the court of William II Vitalis explained after the deaths of Gregory VII and William the Conqueror the decent customs of our forefathers were almost completely Swept Away and while some of the offending medieval hippies merely had he explains long and luxurious locks like women others he wrote shaved the front part of their head like thieves and let the hair grow very long in the back like harlots and so it seems that an 11th century Benedictine monk saw the same threat to society coming from the mullet that the Beastie Boys did in 1994 a century later it was not the English but the Irish who were notable for their mullets Bartlett notes the hairstyle called the coulon described as heads half-shaved and grown their hair long at the back was a Gaelic Irish hairstyle during the long period of the English conquest of Ireland it became a problem it's an anglo-norman occupiers began to adopt the Irish style in 1297 English law prohibited the degenerate practice of the king's loyal subjects wearing these Irish mullets because as Bartlett explains Englishmen were being mistaken for Irishmen and killed as Irishmen these laws not only persisted but two centuries later Henry VIII added to them by making a law against Irishmen cutting their hair short like an Englishman there is a curious historical anomaly however while the Scandinavian sea Raiders generally called Vikings are often depicted as having had long hair the website Scandinavia facts notes that multiple historical sources reveal that the most common hairstyle for men was not what most people imagined the fact is that many Viking men had long hair in the front of their head and wore their hair very short in the back of the head and thus the feared Raiders of the Middle Ages were what historians today often referred to as a reverse mullet and mullets were not just a European thing Edward Winslow was among the pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Colony in 1641 and in his description of events he describes the first Native they met Samoset of the Abenaki people as a tall straight man the hair of his head black long behind only short before not on his face at all mullet-style hair remained popular among Native Americans partly because it represented spiritual purpose but also likely as an act of political protest against missionaries who are continually trying to civilize them by cutting their hair mullet Styles remain popular in the modern era in popular men's hairstyles of the 17th and 18th century tend to be very mullet-esque Ben Franklin's hairstyle contrasting with the High wigs in fashion and European courts is sometimes described as a skillet and George Washington's powdered wig style is at least something approaching a mullet the legacy of the mullet styles of the 17th and 18th century persists today in British courts where traditional benchwigs worn by judges and Court wigs worn by barristers are essentially business in the front and party in the back and while the popularity of long hairstyles faded through the end of the 19th century and into the mid 20th century well it started appearing on the heads of popular musicians in the late 1960s and reached the peak of their popularity in the 1980s part of the draw seemed to be specifically that the molitism androgynous hairstyle that mixes the traditional hairstyles of both men and women while some seem to think that the cut is quintessentially American the trend is actually much broader in Canada the cut is often called hockey hair Australia called it the lion's mane before the Beastie Boys popularized the name mullet Germans use an abbreviated term vocila nicknames include the North Carolina neck warmer the SNL crisis the Tennessee Top Hat the Kentucky waterfall the Missouri Compromise the back job the lobster the Achy Breaky big mistakey a reference to Mullet famous musician Billy Ray Cyrus who having given up his mullet at the third of the century in 2006 released the song I want my mullet back the mud flap the ape drape the Camaro crash helmet the schlong portmanteau of short and long and the Beaver paddle if you have more feel free to list them in the comments the style today is often called a wolf cut I could probably spend an entire other hour just listing the names of celebrities of the actors and actresses of the musicians of the sports stars who have gained mullet-headed Fame in the past or present not to mention it's weirdly showing up in voyeur journalism with the likes of Larry fortensky and Joey buttafuco but for being so controversial the moment seems to just keep coming back saw a Big Revival in the United States around the turn of the 21st century owing to the 2001 release of the David Spade movie Joe Dirt where the main character was said to have had a mullet permanently attached to his head as a baby as the top of his skull never formed and just this year British GQ Magazine wrote a story entitled how the mullet became the must-have hairstyle of 2022. and while that might downright terrify some of us who are trying to live down our mullet wearing past you have to admit that the hairstyle has a surprisingly long and Noble history worn by Kings and warriors a symbol of rebellion it seems that the human race is destined to see the cyclical return of business in the front and party in the back I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide check out our community on the historyguyguild.locals.com our webpage at thehistoryguy.com and our merchandise at teespring.com or book a special message from the history guy on Cameo and if you'd like more episodes of Forgotten history all you have to do is subscribe [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 148,147

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, mullet

Id: twBENpDzt3E

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 21 2022