An Eye For the Ladies
Babes in Mulletland: Is this the Renaissance of your worst nightmare?
Alia Levine
Firstly, I must confess to some discomfort with my own flippancy; is it ok to write about such superficial affairs as hair, when the city I live in — New York — is in a ghastly recession, and much of the rest of the world is in an even sorrier state, mostly thanks to our sexist, trigger-happy, fundamentalist bully of a President? Is it ok to see a trashy movie, miss a demonstration, go on a blind date, or even go shopping? Please consider the following column as some light (read: trite) relief.

I woke up singing the Beach Boys the other morning; specifically, the testosterone-laden California Girls: "I've been all around this great big world, And I've seen all kinds of girls..." You know the song, "...I wish they all could be California Girls." While singing the praises of women everywhere, these guys were crooning an ode to blonde, tanned, bikini-clad Californian gals, as they entertained the fantasy of having a California Girl in every port.

As I thought about their quest to inhabit the world with one kind of woman, I realized that we lesbians are far more advanced than the Beach Boys: we already have our own version of the fantasy fully realized: thanks to (drum roll) The Mullet.

Intimate clusters of ultra-sophisticated chain-smoking women in Les Scandaleuses, a Parisian lesbian bar. 5,000 lesbians gleefully storming their way down Fifth Avenue every June in the New York Dyke March. Cool punk rocker dyke chicks, sneering at their guitars as they seduce frenzied female fans. The only lesbian and gay center I could find in Lima, Peru (in the early nineties), marked by nothing more than a well-used peephole. And the annual lesbian fair in Wellington, New Zealand, rife with handcrafted labrys jewelry, secondhand lesbian theory books from our Women Studies Majors, and some hardcore folksongs. The nostalgia has already kicked in.

Aside from being scenarios well loved by this writer, and the haunts of some of the most fabulous gay ladies in the world, what do all these women have in common? Mullets. It's true; I guarantee there will always be at least one mullet in the midst of each and every one of the above lesbian scenes. Lesbians may well be the primary gene-carriers of the (questionably) good old fashioned, mullet 'do.'

Why the mullet? What is the mullet, anyway? It appears that mullet material abounds. Check out www.mulletmadness.com, where you can write to the dashing Mr. Mullet (with his dark, flowing mulleted mane, and skintight Jordache jeans), where you can ask your most intimate mullet-focused questions. Pick up a copy of Mulletheads: The Legends, Lore, Magic, and Mania Surrounding the Humble but Celebrated Mullet, by Michael Swindle, or The Mullet: Hairstyle of the Gods by Mark Larson, Barney Hoskyns, and Maria Burgaleta Larson. Or even better, go to www.americanmullet.com, web site of the documentary American Mullet, where director Jennifer Arnold goes where no mullet hunter has ever gone before, to the innermost reaches of Mulletville, USA, to learn the true meaning behind the mullet.

The mullet is, historically, a terminally unflattering haircut — in fact, it may be more accurate to say that it is two haircuts in one; sometimes known as the Sh'long, the mullet is some variation of hair that is short on the top and sides, and long in the back). According to one mullet enthusiast, the back of a "legal mullet" must be three times longer than the front. Charming. After some time spent in hibernation from its heyday in the 80s, in recent years the mullet has made a comeback. These days, a peek in the window of any seriously hip salon in any town well-populated by queer lasses will reveal a gal happily receiving a mulleted mane. And, I will grudgingly admit that (only) sometimes, with the right hair product, some of them can look quite fine, indeed.

What is it about lesbians and mullets? We know that certain groups wear colors, sport logos, adopt styles of dress to show their allegiance with one another. Maybe the Mullet is as much of a clichéd cue to spotting — and scooping — a lesbian as owning all of Sarah Waters lusty lesbo novels, or every Indigo Girls album ever recorded. What on earth possessed us to choose the mullet as our insignia? Why couldn't it have been Gucci?

Do we adore or abhor the mullet? In one interview, American Mullet director Ms. Arnold states, "There are two things happening in mullet culture right now. People are simultaneously celebrating it and poking fun at it." Is the mullet a mark of pride? One lesbian interviewed in American Mullet describes her mullet as a deliberate break away from the "capitalist machine." Another states that the mullet "takes commitment," and that "your hair is who you are." And no one carries off a ball gown and tiara quite like Pinkie Mullet, mullet gal extraordinaire.

Terry LaFrazia, social worker, therapist, and bass player for the queer all-girl rock band, Triple Creme, is the proud owner of an "urban, ironic, and hip pseudo-post70's-mullet." In answer to my question as to why choose the mullet at all, LaFrazia responded, "I love that I am all business in the front and a party in the back. I also love having a handle/something for the ladies to grab onto. AND I really love the look of a white trash boy that the long hair in back provides. I have reclaimed my white trash roots by bringing back the mullet."*

So is the mullet here to stay? Have lesbians taken back the mullet? Am I merely a minority in the mullet resistance? Or have I too been converted? At the initial research stages of this column, I started off wishing we too all could be California girls. However, after seeing Pinkie Mullet, a tiara boldly perched atop her cotton candy coif, now I'm not so sure.

*Authors Note: Terry LaFrazia may move into an 80's new wave style after her mullet has had "its glory days fulfilled."

An Eye For The Ladies will be a regular close-up look at the ongoing madnesses of being a queer girl in New York City. How do we, a pack of smart, above-average looking lesbian ladies manage to get through the day with our humor and psyches intact? The daily gay life of (some) girls in the city - that elusive lesbian clan - warrants meticulous research. To this effect, I pledge to delve into the murky waters and disclose the secrets of gay-girl dating strategies, what happens when we celebrate/embrace our stereotypes,what it means to own every Naiad novel ever published, and other baffling matters specific to the Sapphic sisterhood. Oh, and the characters and events portrayed are only sometimes fictitious inventions of the author's imagination.

A staunch lesbian/feminist/antipodean, Alia Levine moved from Aotearoa/New Zealand to her family's native New York in 1997. A Women's Studies/English Literature graduate from Victoria University, NZ, Alia worked in New York in the fields of publishing, education, and women's human rights. In 2003, after five fabulous years living in Brooklyn, New York, Alia realized that it was time to go home. As of March 2004, you'll find her back in the Southern Hemisphere's peaceful, green gateway to the world, plotting her vegetable garden and figuring out how to get around without the New York City subway.

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