Everybody loves William and Kate. She's pretty, somehow reminds people of the late great Diana and has not yet been featured in a sex tape. He, similarly, is disappointingly clean. He also turns every man green because he's so damn good-looking. Except in one area-that area being around the middle of the head. The "hair to the throne" is lacking in the crown department. It is not just in the middle; William is follicularly challenged to the front as well, which leaves just a fringe to the side.
Surely if anyone can make such an eyesore fashionable, a Prince can. But the rate at which that fringe might also recede would make for only a fleeting fad.Willy better do like granny and invest in a collection of hats.The public scrutiny speaks to our obsession with hair-even men's hair. Everyone looks at William with pity. For those of us who boast of an insanely thick mass of a mane, like me, it's so devilishly pleasing. It's the one area where we rule over the prince-and boy do we treasure it.We flaunt it, transform it and abuse it, all because we can.
Pencil erasers and jheri curls
Man has always been obsessed with his hair-as much as woman. From wigs and faux hawks to perms and pencil erasers (think Kid and Play), man has dyed it, teased it, shaved it and frosted it. Let's not forget the jheri curl. On second thought, let's forget that.Owing to biblical and other silly inhibitions, however, man has suffered with shame when he tried to make his puff posh:
"Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him?""They shall not shave their heads or let their locks grow long; they shall surely trim the hair of their heads."Well, I would certainly be put to death by those standards.When it comes to men messing with their hair, there's a double-standard, to be sure, and a strange one at that. On this male-dominated planet, where men could do far more things with impunity than women, men aren't supposed to obsess over their crowns. It is somehow emasculating. After all, we already wear the pants. Even women make fun of us by the same sexism that is prejudiced against them.
I started using gel on my Rick Astley brush-back when I was in Standard Two. The teacher's daughter told me I'd get licks. I didn't, but Miss did make me stand in front of the class for everyone to laugh.In Pres, I was the first boy to streak his hair. The other boys went to town on it. It was just so gay: Indian boy with black hair and blond streaks. It made me a pariah...and a legend.By the next school term, every other Indian boy had streaked his hair.It began their own obsessions with hair: another way to be cool and different. It led to an awakening that it was their hair, so they could do what they wanted to with it. As young men, they could justify such unmanly behaviour because, well, men make the rules.
Carnival colours
It even extends beyond the hair on one's head. Later on, I slashed my eyebrows. I even once relaxed my very straight hair, in the process burning off piece of my ear. But the ear was not as important to me as my hair.When I entered the world of mas, I wasn't going to be just any plain masquerader. So, to match my costume, which was the "colour" of water, I tried dying my hair blue. It didn't quite work out.
At first it came out orange. Then it was dyed black, bleached again, dyed blue again, and came out green. I settled for green. By Carnival Tuesday, it was orange again.Then it all fell out.William dare not try that lest his hair, or ear, fall completely out.Today, I am far less crazy about the things I do to my hair, but I still obsess over it; it's the one physical feature that I truly love. I refuse to wear hats, even in winter. I style it however I want and feel confident that, even if someone makes fun of it, he will probably go home and try it himself.
And that's the whole point: that even as men we can do whatever we want to our hair: not because men make the rules of society, but because it's our hair and we can make our own rules. Such an attitude, too, might even kill the media's obsession with hair: that we can look however we want to and not, rather, like how we're supposed to.Men aren't "supposed" to look a certain way. Think of Prince William and his thinning top. And then think what's so wrong with that.
THOUGHTS
Willy better do like granny and invest in a collection of hats.
The public scrutiny speaks to our obsession with hair-even men's hair.
We flaunt it, transform it and abuse it, all because we can.
n Man has always been obsessed with his hair-as much as woman.