Hair

Even today in America short hair (on men) is seen by many as a sign of virtue. The military continues, for absolutely no known reason, to shave all (male) recruits bald and thereafter take a ruler to everyone’s (male) hair from PFCs to generals (who are usually bald anyway). My (male) friends with long hair continue to tell stories about the nasty comments made about their hair from bars to boardrooms. Republicans (male) wear their hair shorter then Democrats (also male) though in no case could their hair be called long. I notice that British writers on the Beatles somehow have never managed to comprehend the shock those “long-haired Beatles” were to every (female as well as male for once) one in America.

By ruler I’m sure the Beatles hair was far shorter, particularly in front, then Elvis’. Although Elvis had been castigated for his coiffeur, it was the grease as much as the length that was seen as too low-class and Southern. The Beatles hair on February 7, 1964, was slightly shorter then mine is at the moment since my last haircut was about three weeks ago. Although the newspapers went on and on about the length, combed differently it probably have been seen as slightly too long in the back. Bangs, most recently seen in the second-most dowdy First Lady (the current holder of that office has far surpassed Mamie) were only worn by women. Even men going bald, combed the last threads sideways in lank strands across their dome then in the more successful forward combing.

How America reached its hysterical (in men only despite the origin of the word) devotion to the idea that only short hair (on men) was moral, businesslike and most important, manly, doesn’t leap to my mind. George Washington, Davy Crockett and General Custer all had quite long hair as did Buffalo Bill and many US presidents. However and whyever it came to be so firmly planted in the national consciousness, long hair is seen to make men look ineffective, inefficient and, most important, sissy (i.e. homosexual). Televangelists, however, seem to be exempt, evidently being either queer or women in drag anyway.

The questions asked of the Beatles at news conferences certainly display how ignorant the average reporter (male) was of hair and/or women’s lives. “How do you sleep with all that hair?” one asked. Chances his wife had much longer hair but of course he’d never noticed – or perhaps he thought everyone not wearing a crew-cut had to try to sleep with their hair rolled around orange juice cans as his wife did (yes, it was a way to straighten curly hair). What was seen in Europe as eccentric but basically acceptable “mop tops” or “Hamlets” in the US were an offense against public morality.

You don’t see much mention in the books, but boys were kicked out of high school, physically forced by their fathers into barbershops and attacked on the street for copying the Beatles hairstyle. In the meantime, girls of ‘marriageable age’ were nearly required to have hair at least shoulder length while women past menopause might cut theirs short without risking being classes as too masculine (the word “lesbian” hadn’t yet achieved public notice). In Britain the screaming girls provided the primary culture shock of the early Beatles but in America, the hair was a serious threat to all real men. The fact that, obviously, women liked it implanted an insecurity that persists to this day.