Mullet (haircut)
Encyclopedia
The mullet is a hairstyle that is short at the front and sides, and long in the back. . The mullet began to appear in popular media in the 1960s and 1970s but did not become generally well-known until the early 1980s. It continued to be popular until the mid-1990s.

Etymology

The term "mullet" was used frequently by George Kennedy
George Kennedy
George Harris Kennedy, Jr. is an American actor who has appeared in over 200 film and television productions. He is perhaps most familiar as the convict Dragline in Cool Hand Luke , airline troubleshooter Joe Patroni in the Airport series of disaster movies from the 1970s and...

's character Dragline in the 1967 American film Cool Hand Luke
Cool Hand Luke
Cool Hand Luke is a 1967 American prison drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg and starring Paul Newman. The screenplay was adapted by Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson from Pearce's 1965 novel of the same name. The film features George Kennedy, Strother Martin, J.D...

. According to the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

, the term mullet was "apparently coined, and certainly popularized, by U.S. hip-hop group the Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....

", who used "mullet" and "mullet head" as epithets in their 1994 song "Mullet Head"., although the term was used as early as 1982 in episode 3 of season 1 of the situation comedy Cheers
Cheers
Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...

. In that episode, the character Sam Malone calls a rude New York Yankees fan a "mullet head." The Beastie Boys' fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...

 Grand Royal Magazine was the first to use the term in print.

In Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, the northern United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, the hairstyle is sometimes known as "hockey hair" or "hockey player haircut", as it was common among ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 players in the 1980s, and this was a popular sport in all three regions during this time period.

The mullet in the Classical Period

The 6th century Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 historian Procopius
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent Byzantine scholar from Palestine. Accompanying the general Belisarius in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, he became the principal historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars of Justinian, the Buildings of Justinian and the celebrated Secret History...

' Secret History describes the actions of some of the Blue
Blues (disambiguation)
The blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes and a repetitive pattern. The word is also often used in musical contexts to refer to the twelve-bar blues, a particular blues song form, or talking blues, a form of country music.Blues or The Blues may also...

 faction:
First the rebels revolutionized the style of wearing their hair. For they had it cut differently from the rest of the Romans...clipping the hair short on the front of the head down to the temples, and letting it hang down in great length and disorder in the back, as the Massageti do. This weird combination they called the Hun haircut.

First popular appearance

The modern mullet began to appear in the late 1960s, with Welsh pop singer Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

 sporting one. Glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...

 artist David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

 wore a proto-mullet in the early 1970s. Florence Henderson
Florence Henderson
Florence Agnes Henderson is an American actress and singer. She is perhaps best known for her role of Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974...

 featured a mullet in the opening sequence of the television sitcom The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz and starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis. The series revolved around a large blended family...

(1972–3 season), in the same year (1974) David Cassidy
David Cassidy
David Bruce Cassidy is an American actor, singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his role as the character of Keith Partridge in the 1970s musical/sitcom The Partridge Family. He was one of pop culture's most celebrated teen idols, enjoying a successful pop career in the 1970s, and...

 had a mullet on his television show "The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family is an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. The series originally ran from September 25, 1970 until August 31, 1974, the last new episode airing on March 23, 1974, on the ABC network, as part of a Friday-night lineup...

". Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

 sported a mullet throughout the 1970s when he was with Wings
Wings (band)
Wings were a British-American rock group formed in 1971 by Paul McCartney, Denny Laine and Linda McCartney that remained active until 1981....

. The hairstyle achieved further popularity in the late 1970s and 1980s among entertainers with receding hairlines such as Anthony Geary
Anthony Geary
Anthony Geary is an American actor. He has starred on the ABC daytime drama General Hospital as Luke Spencer from 1978 to 1984 and from 1993 to present.-Life and career:...

 of "Luke and Laura" fame from the soap opera General Hospital
General Hospital
General Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....

, and the rock performers Michael Bolton
Michael Bolton
Michael Bolton is an American singer and songwriter. Bolton originally performed in the hard rock and heavy metal genres from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, both on his early solo albums and those recorded as the frontman of the band Blackjack...

 and Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....

, who had a mullet between 1985 and 1987.

1980s

As the 1980s progressed, big and bouffant
Bouffant
A bouffant is a type of hairstyle characterized by hair piled high on the head and hanging down on the sides.-History:The bouffant was a mainstream hairstyle in the mid-to-late 18th century in western Europe. It was thought to be created for Marie Antoinette, as she had relatively thin hair and...

 mullets increased in popularity, and like other popular hairstyles at the time, often included spiking or blond highlights. Bands such as Kajagoogoo
Kajagoogoo
Kajagoogoo are a British pop band, best known for their hit single, "Too Shy", which reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart and No. 5 on the U.S...

, Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...

 and others, sported them and were labelled "hair bands". Many individual artists also embraced the cut. Limahl
Limahl
Christopher Hamill better known by his stage name Limahl is an English pop singer. He rose to fame as the lead singer of the 1980s pop group Kajagoogoo, before embarking on a briefly successful solo career, which reached its peak with the 1984 hit "The NeverEnding Story", taken from the film of...

, Billy Ray Cyrus
Billy Ray Cyrus
William "Billy" Ray Cyrus is an American country music singer, songwriter, actor and philanthropist, who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon...

 and David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

 are a few, made famous by their outrageous hair. Nik Kershaw
Nik Kershaw
Nik Kershaw is an English singer-songwriter. The one time jazz-funk guitarist was a mid-1980s teen idol. His 50 weeks on the UK Singles Chart in 1984 beat all other soloists...

, Bono
Bono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...

, Sting and Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

 also wore mullets as the decade progressed. Australian Rules footballers
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...

 were instrumental in establishing the popularity of the mullet in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Notable players included Warrick Capper and Dermott Brereton
Dermott Brereton
Dermott Hugh Brereton is a former Australian rules football player in the Australian Football League, regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation. Of Irish descent , he is known for his aggressive style of play. Brereton kicked 464 goals and played in five Premierships for during...

. The mullet is well known and widely remembered in Germany, where it is known as the "Vokuhila", which is an acronym for "vorne kurz, hinten lang" or "short in front and long in back". The stereotypical German image of the mullet is epitomized by 1980s soccer teams and their fans, as well as by the ubiquity of the hairstyle in images dating from the fall of the Berlin Wall. This fact has led to an unfortunate tendency to associate the mullet with negative stereotypes of the former East Germany, which is probably not fair, as the hairstyle was also popular in West Germany and elsewhere at the time. The zenith of the mullet's popularity in 1980s continental Europe has been described as an "age of singing tattooed Swedish Flokati Rug
Flokati Rug
A flokati rug is a handmade shag wool rug. Making flokatis is a long-time tradition of the Vlachs in the Pindus mountains. The natural color of a flokati rug is off-white, but they may be dyed different colors. The entire rug is wool, including the backing from which the tapered shag emerges. ...

s". Richard Dean Anderson wore a mullet in the title role of the popular TV series MacGyver
MacGyver
MacGyver is an American action-adventure television series created by Lee David Zlotoff. Henry Winkler and John Rich were the executive producers. The show ran for seven seasons on ABC in the United States and various other networks abroad from 1985 to 1992. The series was filmed in Los Angeles...

." Footballers such as Rudi Voeller and Chris Waddle
Chris Waddle
Christopher Roland "Chris" Waddle is a former footballer from England. He played for a number of clubs in the 1980s and 90s, including Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and Sheffield Wednesday in England, and Olympique de Marseille in France...

 were arguably as famous for their mullet haircuts as their footballing skills. Several female celebrities during this time period also sported mullets. British singer Kim Wilde
Kim Wilde
Kim Wilde is an English pop singer, author and television presenter who burst onto the music scene in 1981 with the number 2 UK Singles Chart new wave classic "Kids in America". In 1987 she had a major hit in the United States when her version of The Supremes' classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On"...

 wore a punk mullet for several years and helped popularize it among women. Actress Joan Van Ark
Joan Van Ark
Joan Van Ark is an American actress, most notable for her role as Valene Ewing, which she originated on the CBS series Dallas and continued for thirteen seasons on its spin-off, Knots Landing...

 sported one during the ninth season of Knots Landing (1987) and Markie Post
Markie Post
Marjorie Armstrong "Markie" Post is an American actress, best known for her roles as bail bondswoman Terri Michaels in The Fall Guy on ABC from 1982 to 1985, as public defender Christine Sullivan on the NBC sitcom Night Court from 1985 to 1992, and as Georgie Anne Lahti Hartman on the CBS sitcom...

 of Night Court fame wore a mullet from 1983 to 1988.

1990s

Superman was drawn as having a mullet from issue 505 (1993) to 544 (1997) of Adventures of Superman comic and this look was released in action figure form by Mattel in 2009. In the mid to late 1990s the "tail" of the mullet was occasionally "permed" with loose or tight curls adding even more internal composition contrast to the hairstyle. Punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 band The Vandals
The Vandals
The Vandals are an American rock band established in 1980 in Huntington Beach, California. They have released ten full-length studio albums and two live albums and have toured the world extensively, including performances on the Vans Warped Tour...

 sang of country music singers and Jerry Springer Show guests sporting mullets, and listed regional names for the style in the 1998 song "I've Got an Ape Drape". Country Music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 singer Billy Ray Cyrus
Billy Ray Cyrus
William "Billy" Ray Cyrus is an American country music singer, songwriter, actor and philanthropist, who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon...

 was also known for his mullet. Sanjay Dutt
Sanjay Dutt
Sanjay Dutt is an Indian Hindi film actor and politician. Dutt, son of Hindi film actors Sunil and Nargis Dutt, made his acting debut in 1981.-Personal life:...

 also kept mullet in 90s.

2000s

The mullet and its associated lifestyle have been central themes in movies such as Joe Dirt
Joe Dirt
Joe Dirt is a 2001 American comedy film starring David Spade, Dennis Miller, Christopher Walken, Brian Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Jaime Pressly, Erik Per Sullivan, Adam Beach and Kid Rock. The film was written by Spade and Fred Wolf.-Plot:...

 
"business in the front party in the back" (2001), and the television show The Mullets
The Mullets (TV series)
The Mullets is a sitcom that was created by producers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. It first aired on UPN in 2003, and was cancelled in 2004 due to poor reception...

(2003–2004).

The mullet can still be seen among certain social groups in various countries. In Spain, it was associated with the Basque independence movement, which claims working-class origin.
In Denmark, it is associated with Swedes, presumably because it is popular in Sweden.
In Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and the USA the mullet is particularly associated with blue collar
Blue-collar worker
A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled, manufacturing, mining, construction, mechanical, maintenance, technical installation and many other types of physical work...

 men, fans of country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 and ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 players. In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 the mullet is most commonly associated with thugs, Pat Sharp
Pat Sharp
Pat Sharp is a British radio and television presenter and disc jockey. In the UK, he is known mainly for his work on the children's television programme Fun House, his former mullet and his radio shows as well as his support of Arsenal...

 or with professional footballers
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

. In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 the haircut is associated with Bogan
Bogan
The term bogan is Australian slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for an individual who is recognised to be from a lower class background or someone whose limited education, speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour exemplifies such a background....

s and NRL players, particularly those from the 1980s, as well as Lebanese-Australian youths. Jared Allen
Jared Allen
-Kansas City Chiefs:Allen was drafted by the Chiefs in the fourth round of the 2004 NFL Draft, and signed for a one-year, $100,000 contract. On May 21, 2007, Allen, as a restricted free agent, signed the Chiefs' one-year tender offer of $2.35 million for the 2007 season. Allen credited his early...

 of the Minnesota Vikings has a recognizable mullet. In Sweden it is referred to as "hockeyfrilla" (hockey-cut) - perhaps because many Swedish hockey players played in Canada and adopted the hairstyle.

In Finland mullet is sometimes called "lätkätukka" (hockey hair) or "tšekkitukka" (Czech hair), the latter a likely reference to Czech-born NHL hockey star Jaromír Jágr
Jaromir Jagr
Jaromír Jágr is a Czech professional ice hockey right winger who plays for the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League . Jágr formerly played with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, and New York Rangers, serving as captain of the Penguins and the Rangers...

, who during his glory years wore a curly mullet long enough to obscure his jersey number. Jágr became so well-known with the style that when he decided to cut it off in 1999, his new haircut actually made headlines.

ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

 hockey analyst Barry Melrose
Barry Melrose
Barry James Melrose is a former player and head coach in the National Hockey League, as well as a current commentator and hockey analyst for ESPN.-Playing career:...

 is often referred to as "Mullet" in ESPN-branded media.

Singer Billy Ray Cyrus was also known for his distinctive mullet and frequently jokes about it on the American television show, Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana is an American television series, which debuted on March 24, 2006 on the Disney Channel. The series focuses on a girl who lives a double life as an average teenage school girl named Miley Stewart by day and a famous pop singer named Hannah Montana by night, concealing her real...

. One episode had his character "impersonating" his real-life counterpart by donning a fake mullet.

Understated variants of the mullet are a popular hairstyle for young men and boys in Russia and many parts of Asia such as China, and Thailand.

2010s

In July 2010, the Islamic regime of Iran issued grooming guidelines to men supplementing the existing modesty stipulations to women. Among the new regulations is a ban of the mullet hairstyle. The ban on mullets is one of the measures that Iran has deployed to "confront the cultural assault by the West." The regime aims to promote a set of new Islamic hairstyles that were unveiled at the Hijab
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....

 and Chastity
Chastity
Chastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion....

 Festival of 2010. Dance Gavin Dance
Dance Gavin Dance
Dance Gavin Dance was an American post-hardcore band formed in Sacramento, California in 2005. They released four full length studio albums and one EP...

 singer Jonny Craig
Jonny Craig
Jonathan Monroe Craig is a Canadian-American singer. He is currently the lead vocalist for the band Dance Gavin Dance, and former vocalist of the bands Emarosa and Ghost Runner on Third. He has an eponymous solo project, with which he has released one studio album and a live album to date...

 sports the hairstyle.

Metal Gear Solid

Solid Snake
Solid Snake
Metal Gear, initially released in 1987, introduces Solid Snake, the rookie recruit of the elite special-forces unit FOXHOUND. Snake is sent by team leader Big Boss into the rogue nation Outer Heaven to rescue his missing teammate Gray Fox and discover who or what the "METAL GEAR" mentioned is, and...

 and Big Boss, heroes of the Metal Gear
Metal Gear
Metal Gear is a series of video games.Metal Gear may also refer to:*Metal Gear , bipedal tanks appearing in the Metal Gear series-Metal Gear video game series:...

game series are both known for their mullet.

External links

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