Moustache Movement Update

Just an update on the Moustache Movement. I did some online research only to find out that I did not discover what was going on. I am relatively late in studying the scope and timeline of this phenomenon. I'm still quite fuzzy (no pun intended) on the foundations--maybe that is something that we won't be able to see for years to come, but I think that I have discovered the flash point. Brad Pitt grew a moustache in 2008, reputedly for his film Inglorious Bastards, but he wore it proudly off set, even out to Hollywood social events.

And let's face it, Brad Pitt is like the Queen of England. Not so much Elizabeth II, but Elizabeth I. If any of you have taken a college Shakespeare class you probably know that the Queen was the trend setter in terms of fashion. Men's and women's fashion changed in "Elizabethan England" depending on what the Queen wore. Who knows, maybe someday historians will call our time Pittian America. Okay, so that's going a little too far, but seriously, Brad Pitt is a force to be reckoned with.

Okay, so the moustache has had no credibility for over a decade, and during that time you risked looking like a pedophile to wear one. But put one on Brad Pitt, the man who consistently wins "Sexiest Man Alive" (and is a family man to boot)and some of that pedophile exoskeleton begins to be chipped away.
So what happened after that? That's right, George Clooney--bosom pal of Mr. Pitt and another Sexiest Man Alive emeritus grows one. When you have that kind of credibility behind a moustache people are going to start questioning those negative assumptions that they had. Since the Pitt-stache, Mel Gibson, Matt Damon, Orlando Bloom, and Jude Law have been caught with Moustaches. I predict that once the entire cast of Ocean's 11 (including Julia Roberts) has had one, moustaches will be fully embraced by American society.

There is still an element of humour behind this movement. I still maintain that no one is wearing one in the same spirit that they would wear Prada, though it certainly is a statement either way. Wearing a moustache is also a sign of supreme confidence. You have to be very secure in yourself, and your appeal, to disregard the usual connotations. But now people can say, even if it is only subconsciously,"Well, Brad Pitt had one; why not?"

I typed in "moustache comeback" into Google, and there is no end to people with pictures of themselves who are bravely "reclaiming the moustache." This grassroots movement smacks of freedom and is marked by bold self-expression. Again, I find myself being seduced by the message. I have been appalled in the past by the negative connotations that have unfairly been attached to lip-hair, and it is high time we stopped discriminating against and porn-profiling those who choose to have a push-broom on their face.