David Cassidy on the Web
Much ado about 'moppy'
March 10, 2009
Are local boys jumping on the trendy long-hair bandwagon
By Kim Baer
http://fredericksburg.com
They don't walk into the beauty or barbershop and ask for the "Zac Efron" or the "Joe Jonas."
They are boys, after all, and that would not be cool. Still, Stafford County hairstylist Robin Jent knows what her young male customers mean when they tell her they "don't want their hair too short."
Jent gives them layers that fall over their ears and just down their necks. They are happy.
Boys as young as 8 are asking for longer hair, said Jent, who works at Hair Excellence Family Hair Care. Parents are usually OK with the look, she said, although moms often seem more comfortable with it than dads.
Parents who aren't keen on long locks for boys can blame the stars. Efron (of Disney's "High School Musical" franchise) and Jonas (of the Jonas Brothers) both have layered shag haircuts. And they're melting young girls' hearts. Teen and tween boys nationwide have taken note.
Younger boys have found inspiration for longer hair from Disney Channel stars such as Cole and Dylan Sprouse of "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" and the boys from Nickelodeon's "The Naked Brothers Band."
"Until the celebrities start cutting their hair short again," Jent said, "I'm assuming guys around here will keep it long."
Linda McGowan of McGowan's Barber Shop said she first spotted the trend about a year ago. McGowan now does about 100 of these "moppy" haircuts a week in her Spotsylvania shop.
Truthfully, the cut is eerily similar to looks sported by heart throbs of earlier generations. Prime examples? Shaun Cassidy's circa-1979 feathered shag--and his older half-brother David's early '70s "Partridge Family" do.
However, today's version is not as neat and winged back, McGowan said.
"They're kind of shaking it loose and letting it go," she said.
Maintaining the messy look does require some effort. The hair should be trimmed about every eight weeks, McGowan said.
"A lot of them don't want to brush it," she said. "I tell them to put gel in it, brush it and then shake it loose."
The surfer look isn't the only long hair style gaining ground with boys.
Another style is part of the "emo" trend. For boys, the emo look requires tight jeans and hair with long bangs that completely cover at least one eye.
Fran Carter Jr., a stylist with Carter's Family Hair Styling in Fredericksburg, is very familiar with the look. His 15-year-old son has it.
As far as Carter can tell, the main function of long bangs-in-the-eye serve is to "enhance the ability to twitch."
In this move, Carter explained, the teen jerks his head back to move the hair out of his eye. This move happens--A Lot. It is considered cool.
Carter is OK with the long bang thing. It reminds him of James Dean with the pocket comb in "Rebel Without a Cause." Other parents seem to take the trend in stride, too.
"If they're in here, they're going to be cool," Carter said. "They had the knock-down, drag-out at home."
Long hair on boys is becoming a mainstream look, but it isn't completely without controversy.
A federal judge in Texas ruled in January in favor of a 5-year-old boy's right to attend school without keeping his long hair hidden inside his shirt in braids, according to a Houston Chronicle report.
The boy's father, who is part Apache Indian, said the school's policy against long hair for boys violated their religious beliefs, the newspaper reported.
Celebrity moms such as Celine Dion and Kate Hudson have taken the trend to new lengths. Both Dion and Hudson have sons with hair that falls past the shoulders, a look that has drawn criticism from celebrity bloggers.
A Google search on the subject brings up headlines such as "Celine: Her Son's Hair Will Go On," from tmz.com and "Kate Hudson Likes Her Son's Jesus Hair," from cinemablend.com.
Hudson defended her then-4-year-old son Ryder Robinson's long locks in People magazine last May: "Why is it so weird? My son likes his hair. He likes his hair long because it's like his father's. It's totally his thing."
Dion told an "Oprah" audience last October that her 7-year-old son Rene-Charles Angelil has never wanted his hair cut and that she and her husband respect that: "I prefer that he has long hair, he's succeeding in school, he's doing well, he's a great human being, he's adaptable than to have a kid with short hair who's selfish and a brat and he's not happy," she said, according to oprah.com. "We kind of decide as a family what's good for us, because what's good for us might not be good for that family. And what's good for that family might not be good for us."
This ultra-long look hasn't become a mainstream trend for Fredericksburg-area boys. Yet. But Jent isn't ruling anything out.
"It's possible," she said. "It was a trend in the '70s and they say it all comes around again."
David Cassidy's 1972 'do' is long but precise.
