To keep or not to keep, a mustache?

-“Would you date a guy with a mustache?” I asked my teenage daughter.

-“Noooooooooo wayyyyyyyy!” pat came the reply.

-“Why not? What’s wrong with having a mustache?”

-“I dunno, I just wouldn’t. Do you know, on Facebook alone there are more than 50 'hate' pages on mustaches?"

This was diametrically opposite to the answer I would probably have given to the same question, in my dating days. What’s with this generation!- I thought, but did not articulate. Why do girls and guys all want to look the same way, wearing the same cut of jeans and similar looking tees…? Why can’t men be men and keep their mustaches, at least!

Salvador Dali's quirky mustache

The classic mustache

Traditionally, in certain cultures, in most parts of India at least, it was thought that men with mustaches can be very masculine. So what has happened to change this perception? Is it that men who are clean-shaven do not care for the masculine/ virile tag? Or, has some alternative now become available? I decided to find out. After conducting a mini survey, what emerged was that present day men are not keen to sport a mustache all the time, but would like to try it some time. Many were of the opinion that a stubble makes them more attractive. However even the clean-shaven ones confessed that they use strong after-shave lotions to send out signals of their manliness, a faint but indistinguishable hint of virility.

If you watch animation films, you will know that animators often use the mustache as the ‘mark’ of the villain as distinguished from the clean-shaven hero. The mustache represents apparent manliness with a “don’t mess with me” attitude. Therefore in the hands of the animator the mustache becomes a tool to forward the story with a simple tuft of facial hair. This aspect of ‘association’ of something scary with a mustache is so widespread that even a little baby reacts to it by breaking into a sob if approached by a mustached man. The reason for this automatic association is probably because the adults in the babies surroundings have been telling stories where a bad guy invariably sports a ’stache.

Can the decision to sport a mustache impact your job?

Urban chic with a mus'

In the twenty-first century, a mustached look is certainly not high up on the ‘corporate’ or the ‘international’ scale. In the international arena, if you are upwardly mobile on the job ladder then sport a mustache at your own risk. Of course, this is not an absolute. Some men deftly groom themselves to have a mustache and yet be unmistakably urban chic. There are certain professions where the reverse is true, even today. For instance, if you are in a profession with the so-called ‘intellectual’ tag [a scientist, a film-critic, a writer], then a mustache tells the world that there is substance in what you have to say to them. Strangely enough, the mustache is also a given for the stereotyped uneducated man in a profession befitting him like that of a truck-driver. I am told that five-star hotels and resorts pay allowances to door-keepers, etc. for the upkeep of a fancy mustache!

In my years of work with cross-cultural sensitivity issues, I have almost always found that apparent issues are not apparent; there runs a much deeper strain that can be traced back to myths and archetypes perpetuated by culture groups. However, it’s also true that much of culture defies logic and is purely arbitrary. So also with the mustache. Perceptions are as they are; we cannot help but live with them.

"In my personal opinion," I said to my daughter, "the mustache helps to separate the ‘men’ from the ‘boys’."