Iran banned this most American of hairstyles

Blake Stilwell
Apr 29, 2020 3:42 PM PDT
1 minute read
Iran banned this most American of hairstyles

SUMMARY

Forget business in the front, party in the rear. Iran is all business. There’s no party around back. At least, not for the most American of all possible hairstyles: the mullet. The mullet is so American, in fact, that it’s banned in Iran …

Forget business in the front, party in the rear. Iran is all business. There's no party around back. At least, not for the most American of all possible hairstyles: the mullet. The mullet is so American, in fact, that it's banned in Iran for precisely that reason. Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance said goodbye to the haircut for being "un-Islamic."

The haircut was on a list of "decadent Western haircuts" that were banned, alongside ponytails, spiked hairstyles, and long hair in general in 2010.


The year was a difficult one for Iran, coming on the heels of the Green Movement, which protested the 2009 Presidential election and pushed for the removal of the Iran's much-reviled (but reelected anyway) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The countrywide protests were the largest since the 1979 Iranian Revolution that saw Imperial Iran transformed into the Islamic Republic.

"...from my cold, dead head."

It's fun to laugh at the idea of banning an American hairstyle that itself has been the butt of thousands of jokes for decades, but the reality is a little less funny. The hairstyle ban is part of a series of punishments from the anti-Western Cultural Ministry and part of the reprisals against the Iranian people for the Green Movement protests.

Raids, arrests, and human rights violations came immediately after the protests, but bans like the one on un-Islamic hairstyles are the enduring legacy of such knee-jerk reactions. Iranian police would start shutting down barber shops offering such hairstyles and fine the owners.

Causing Achy Breaky Hearts.

It's a strange notion that the mullet is considered a part of the Western cultural invasion of Iran, considering it's a hairstyle that may have emerged in the ancient Middle East anyway. At first glance, the look that made Billy Ray Cyrus a cultural icon (for the brief time he was) should seem ridiculous to Iranian Morality policemen, but it's not the only Western cultural trend to endure in the country.

Iranian men forego beards (even as beards are very much in back in the United States) while embracing neckties and European designer brands. These trends are hard to ignore, but the mullet should hardly seem comparable to the appeal of Prada and Givenchy.

"The proposed styles are inspired by Iranians' complexion, culture and religion, and Islamic law," said Jaleh Khodayar, who is in charge of the Modesty and Veil Festival. It was there that acceptable hairstyles were revealed. Also out are things like eyebrow plucking for males and excessive hair gel.

Failure to comply with the new hair regulations for men would result in a forced, bad haircut, courtesy of Iran's Morality Police. The clerics who run Iranian society believe the looks will ultimate cause their way of life to disappear. But they also believe that sexy, revealing clothing causes earthquakes.

Earthquakes are definitely because of Niloofar Behboudi and Shabnam Molav and not the 1,500-km long fault line running through Iran.

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