My 16-year-old grandson, though he had dyspraxia diagnosed when he was a child, has, with help, developed into a polite, “normal” teenager, is in a good family and is happy at school. He is not into drugs, alcohol, or bodily adornment, but he has let his hair grow right down his back. Is it morally lax of us not to explain to him that leaving it to grow may jeopardise his future prospects?
It’s quite hard to argue to a 16-year-old that bad hair is a serious impediment in life.
Tim Burton, the director of the movies Sweeney Todd and Edward Scissorhands, has hair that looks like it’s been stung by static after having been rubbed against a polyester carpet. Russell Brand’s tresses look as though they were backcombed by someone who’d never actually seen backcombing done in person, but was following instructions from a poorly translated Chinese hairdressing manual.
Newsreaders have haircuts that are short and neat but are still somehow unnatural-looking, as if their hair had been baked in a kiln and placed on their scalps, so that, however rocky the day’s news, their hair would generate an air of calm and stability amid the turmoil.
Mick Hucknall, the singer in Simply Red, looks las though he bought a job lot of Shirley Temple’s hair at auction and glued it randomly to his scalp. Art Garfunkel looks like he had his hair feng shuied and was advised to reposition all his hair right to the back of his head.
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Donald Trump? Oh my! But he’s a billionaire, right? And Albert Einstein? Genius, certainly; but chances are he wouldn’t have landed a TV commercials contract to promote l’Or?al shampoo.
Over the centuries, men have worn their hair long for more time than they’ve worn it short. The moral course is not to chivvy your happy grandson, but to let him find his own way in life.