Zendaya. David Bowie. Billy Ray Cyrus. Andre Agassi.
All of these people once wore the same iconic hairstyle. From ancient Roman warriors to today’s TikTok influencers, this is the history of the mullet.
All of these people once wore the same iconic hairstyle. From ancient Roman warriors to today’s TikTok influencers, this is the history of the mullet.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00It moves the way that it wants to, it's like boop boop boop boop.
00:06Business in the front, party in the back.
00:22Haircuts that resemble what we would call a mullet have basically been around for centuries.
00:26So, this idea of a mullet, which is short hair in the front, long hair in the back,
00:31has its roots as a really practical military haircut.
00:35Vikings and Romans and early Native Americans all had hairstyles that were variants on the mullet.
00:40And the idea of it being this military haircut is that you have the long hair at the back,
00:45which keeps you warm when you're out on an exposed battlefield,
00:48but having it shorter at the front means that you're not going to get your hair pulled,
00:52you're not getting hair in your eyes.
00:56Then we kind of don't see much mullet action until more modern history,
01:10when I think we start really thinking of the mullet as we know and love it in the 70s and 80s.
01:15David Bowie was one of the first people to wear what we would kind of call a modern mullet,
01:19and he has this bright orange mullet in 1973 for Ziggy Stardust.
01:23It's this really cool, weird, otherworldly haircut at that point,
01:27and it definitely plays into this idea of gender bending,
01:30like this isn't a man's haircut or a woman's haircut.
01:32I used to be able to stop traffic quite easily by just walking down the street,
01:36no more than that, just because I had long hair.
01:38We talk about it being on trend now, or it's this interesting thing that people are talking about,
01:42but kind of in a lot of the queer community, the mullet has never gone away,
01:47the mullet has always been this haircut that sort of sits somewhere on the margins.
01:50You get people like Joan Jett as well in the 70s, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith,
01:54these really strong female women who become kind of queer icons.
01:58They also have mullets, and it is just like this real anti-trend for such a long time.
02:02It's representing the outsiders, it's representing the avant-garde, creative thinkers,
02:06people that are doing things a bit differently.
02:08But that ushers in this wave of guys being a bit more experimental with their hair
02:12and having longer hair.
02:14In the 70s, 80s is when we start seeing these really hyper-masculine characters with mullets,
02:19but as wrestlers, it's like rock gods, lots of sports players, particularly in the UK and Australia,
02:24rugby players, football players, they all have mullets.
02:28By the 80s, it's just like what people's dads have, and then it's not cool anymore.
02:33By the 90s, the mullet is like the least cool thing in the world, and no one has one.
02:49The Beastie Boys' song Mullethead is often cited as being the first instance of mullet being used as a term.
02:57In their song, it's not necessarily being used in a good way.
03:10We get to the early 2000s, and it's weird, it's completely different to what everyone else is doing,
03:15and therefore it becomes attractive again, and so the cycle continues.
03:18Singer-songwriter Billy Ray Cyrus, and I'm angry. Why?
03:22Because it's 2016, and mullets still haven't made a comeback.
03:34All of us have had to adjust, you know, a lot of things shutting down,
03:37keeping us from doing our kind of standard routines, which one of them was going to get a haircut for me.
03:43The lockdowns had a really interesting impact on hair in general.
03:45I think we have a bit of a revival of this idea of DIY punk ethics,
03:49which was kind of practical in that we couldn't get to the salon,
03:52but also people were just interested in experimenting more.
04:05The mullet will give you confidence.
04:08It brings out that confidence in people who really should have it, but need that extra spark.
04:15I am all for the return of the mullet, and I think it gets so maligned,
04:19and people are just like, oh, the mullet is like a joke, it's this funny thing,
04:22and it's like, it's just a hairstyle, and it's fun.