Monday, February 06, 2006
while in canadian tire (it is a big chain in canada that has housewares, automotive stuff, and low-end outdoor gear. can't think of a US analogy. best descriptor, it sits right next to a wallmart and the big difference is CT sells hockey skates while walmart doesn't) I saw a really amazing little-kid mullet. full fledged brunette boy mullet, but the top was dyed red. not bleached first, just dyed red kindof claire daines mysocalledlife red.
I have always contended that my peers making fun of mullets is totally inappropriate. mullet mockery seems to be the last bastion of making fun of people from races/cultures that seem foreign because we were taught that to to so to ANY OTHER GROUP is racist and intolerant. but for some reason making fun of poor/rural white people is totally funny and ok for even the most p.c overeducated person. I call bullshit. just because they are also caucasian doesn't make it ok. yet for some reason I just mentioned it on my blog. hypocrite
I have always contended that my peers making fun of mullets is totally inappropriate. mullet mockery seems to be the last bastion of making fun of people from races/cultures that seem foreign because we were taught that to to so to ANY OTHER GROUP is racist and intolerant. but for some reason making fun of poor/rural white people is totally funny and ok for even the most p.c overeducated person. I call bullshit. just because they are also caucasian doesn't make it ok. yet for some reason I just mentioned it on my blog. hypocrite
# posted by 8yearoldsdude @ 4:32 PM 
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I class kid-mullets and three-year-olds in Harvard sweatshirts in the same category, along with 8-year-old girls in stacked sneakers and clothing from Delia's. I definitely feel bad for the poor kid, but the parents who dressed them funny are wide open to ridicule.
But mulletted adults are a different story. 8yearolds and I have talked about this on a previous occasion, but I am just now in the middle of reading an article on the Black Power movement that argues that the first step was to point out (rightly) that integrationist politics and aesthetics simply reproduced white values and that it was important to recognize the de facto difference between blacks and whites in America, and to look to existing black mass culture for black values and black aesthetics. The second step was to realize that separatism risked verging on circularity---if only black people can appreciate black art because only they understand blackness, cultural independence (rejection of white aesthetics) is gained only at the price of cultural communicability. So that's the question about rednecks---do the bemulletted represent an alternative paradigm with its own value structure (in which case it would behoove us all to stop being so prejudiced and learn something about the history and culture of the mullet), or is it just a circularly justified culture of negativity, where a mullet is valuable simply because it is how rednecks wear their hair, and not how other people wear theirs (in which case we have license to joke). When "I'm A Redneck Woman" started getting played nonstop on the radio a couple summers ago, I thought it might help me understand better, but it sort of supports both possibilities---she offers an explanation for why she doesn't wear Victoria's Secret (she can look just as sexy for half the price by shopping at Wal-Mart), but not for why she leaves her Christmas lights illuminated on her front porch year-round (decoration? saving labor? this is something I'd love to know); she also argues that she may seem strange to you but that she fits right into her home environment and that she is just a product of her raising. I remain befuddled.
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But mulletted adults are a different story. 8yearolds and I have talked about this on a previous occasion, but I am just now in the middle of reading an article on the Black Power movement that argues that the first step was to point out (rightly) that integrationist politics and aesthetics simply reproduced white values and that it was important to recognize the de facto difference between blacks and whites in America, and to look to existing black mass culture for black values and black aesthetics. The second step was to realize that separatism risked verging on circularity---if only black people can appreciate black art because only they understand blackness, cultural independence (rejection of white aesthetics) is gained only at the price of cultural communicability. So that's the question about rednecks---do the bemulletted represent an alternative paradigm with its own value structure (in which case it would behoove us all to stop being so prejudiced and learn something about the history and culture of the mullet), or is it just a circularly justified culture of negativity, where a mullet is valuable simply because it is how rednecks wear their hair, and not how other people wear theirs (in which case we have license to joke). When "I'm A Redneck Woman" started getting played nonstop on the radio a couple summers ago, I thought it might help me understand better, but it sort of supports both possibilities---she offers an explanation for why she doesn't wear Victoria's Secret (she can look just as sexy for half the price by shopping at Wal-Mart), but not for why she leaves her Christmas lights illuminated on her front porch year-round (decoration? saving labor? this is something I'd love to know); she also argues that she may seem strange to you but that she fits right into her home environment and that she is just a product of her raising. I remain befuddled.
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