I have a confession to make. I love the annual sprouting of male
facial hair that is Movember. While other women (and probably men)
shudder with distaste, the appearance of luxurious handle-bar mos,
of naughty porn-star mos, of dashing Errol-Flynn-style mos, of
bushy gringo mos, revives my spirit like a burst of sunshine in
mid-winter. I anticipate Movember with the same sort of thrill I
used to look forward to Christmas as a child. Well, maybe not quite
the same. My belated fascination with the mo is a little more
psychologically precarious. My only disappointment is that more men
don't take up the Movember challenge. Those of us who love a mo
will make concessions for even the most sparse or ridiculous,
anything for the occasional sight of a well-tended and hirsute
upper lip.
Yes, I'm a child of the furry '70s, a halcyon time when
chest-hair was not some sort of grotesquery that needed to be waxed
into oblivion — it was the display cabinet for a gold
medallion and chain — and the mo was the icing on the
beefcake. Come Movember the subliminal messages I absorbed as a
child seep to the surface. Man (virile, swashbuckling) equals mo.
Blame Dennis Lillee, Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds, Jimi Hendrix.
Freddie Mercury even. That moustache. That frequently exposed and
fervently hirsute Parsi Indian chest. What a man. What a voice.
What a strut. No, of course we didn't know he was gay. No one was
in those days. The whole world was a little like the AFL back
then.
But let's focus on Lillee, cricketing legend and fast bowler,
circa 1975, all hunky Aussie male, long, shiny, wavy locks, not a
peroxided, sticky, gunk-filled spike in sight, and that mo, thick,
dark, and curving just a little past the corner of his lips, not
quite handlebar, not quite porn-star, something teasingly in
between. Ben Cousins' abs have nothing on Lillee's mo. And as for
Shane Warne, he is to cricketing pin-ups as Carl Williams is to the
ganglands. Enough said. Time has robbed Lillee of his mane, but he
is holding on to the vestige of his youthful virility — the
mo, grey and distinguished now.
The origins of my fascination with the fleecy male became
apparent one night when I was flipping through a stack of
collectables, engaging in a bit of retro research, as you do —
'70s Playboy magazines. For men, mos, a cigarette, and
tight-fitting body-shirts opened to reveal a resplendent coat of
chest hair were de rigueur, and the women, well, their womanly bits
were more varied and natural than the surgically-enhanced
production line of bodies that grace men's (and women's) mags these
days.
Movember brings me back to those carefree days, the simpler
'70s, when digital watches were considered a "giant step into the
future", colour-co-ordinated Dacron polyester suits were the height
of fashion, jumpers emblazoned with the Australian flag did not
signal an allegiance to a neo-Nazi nationalist movement, and hair
— lots of it — was in. We've grown much more squeamish
about hair of late, as we have about all manner of bodily
"imperfections" — note the growing troops of frozen-faced
Hollywood stars.
Movember, of course, is a month-long charity event to raise
funds and awareness for men's health, specifically in regards to
prostate cancer and depression. But it has a multiplicity of side
benefits, some of them immediate — mental health, for
instance. The emergence of bristling mos of greater or lesser
success creates an extra frisson around the place — mos are
fabulous conversation-starters, and welcome opportunities for a
laugh in tough economic times.
It's rather generous of men to risk looking foolish for a good
cause — and to keep us guessing whether their mos are for
charity or for keeps. Men with Movember mos seem much more
approachable — they're obviously up for a bit of
self-effacement. And it's gratifying too that the attention is on
male adornment for once.
In time, the Movember crowd might have to reassess their
strategy. Future generations of women (and men) may require other
nostalgic symbols of manhood to prompt their charitable instincts.
Jock-anuary, perhaps? A consciousness-raising month when men don
low-fitting jeans and reveal a dirty big swathe of underwear?
That's one fad I won't be nurturing a fix for. Although it would be
guaranteed to get me laughing. Loudly.
-Gabrielle Coslovich