Hey boys, it’s time to cull the mull
WITH the election only one week off, I can confidently say: It’s Time.
It’s time to vote out mullet hairstyles. The bogue should no longer be in vogue.
Once upon a time, the mullet was safely on the fringe of society; now it’s become a mainstream must-have. Forget first-class grades, now all the kids want is a “filthy” mullet to impress the chicks and chaps.
Lockdown “curtain” hairstyles (middle part, long and straight to the shoulders) have given way to mullet mania among both private and public schoolboys.
Once the mullet was solely the domain of the teenage thug, the bogan footballer and the 1980s power rocker, but now kids of all ages are turning up to school resembling Toadie from Neighbours.
With unkempt sweaty locks curling the collars of school blazers across the nation, formerly cleancut boys now look like Tiger King teen dropouts.
Nowadays, even men’s style bible GQ is offering tips on how to grow and maintain a mullet.
Mullets have flowed on European runways, been written up as a “powerful coding tool for
the lesbian counter culture” and been discussed in the Wall Street Journal.
The national Mulletfest is more popular than ever, crowning winners in categories such as ranga, grubby, vintage and extreme.
Hated by parents, loved by partners, there’s no doubt the mullet, which was once ironic, is now iconic.
But it’s time to say sayonara to the Hairstyle of the Gods.
Whether you know it as a neck warmer, a beaver paddle or a mud flap, the mullet has had its day.
With school formal season nearly upon us, action needs to be taken. Boys of Australia, think of our photos and consider our feelings. Kill your Kentucky waterfall and trim your Tennessee top hats.
I urge school principals everywhere to stand up and add the mullet to the list of banned hairstyles.
Too many school leaders are wimping out and outlawing “extreme hairstyles” but don’t dare mention the mullet by name. It’s simply not good enough. A rich vein of AFL mullet “inspo” flows all the way from Warwick Capper’s signature spikes down to Dustin Martin’s mulletmohawk double-act.
Schools should follow the lead of Brighton Grammar, Victoria, which provided parents with a pictorial guide to the hairstyles deemed acceptable. No to mullets, yes to Zac Efron’s preppy short back and sides.
Maybe one way forward comes from former Kiewa Valley Primary student Will McCoy who agreed to “Cull his Mull” in order to raise $1000 for new seating at his school.
There are signs mums like me might yet get our wish for short back-and-sides suitors for our daughters and sons.
The AFL’s most gloriously
1610
Francois Ravaillac, a fanatical Catholic, assassinates France’s King Henry IV, who gave a measure of religious freedom to Protestants.
1796
English physician Edward Jenner gives the first successful smallpox vaccination to eight-year-old James Phipps, in Berkeley village, Gloucestershire.
1798
Preachers from the London Missionary Society, who were besieged by hostile natives in Tahiti, find refuge in Sydney, arriving aboard the leaky Nautilus.
1943
A Japanese submarine torpedoes the hospital ship Centaur off Cape Moreton, Queensland. It sinks in three minutes. It was en route to the war zone and carrying no patients. Only 64 of the 332 on board survive.
1955
The Warsaw Pact is signed by Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union.
1964
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Egypt’s Gamal Nasser open the first stage of the $1 billion Aswan High Dam project in Egypt.
1973
Skylab, the first US space station, is launched at Cape Kennedy. Its solar energy panels fail to open, delaying the launch of its crew.
1986
Federal Treasurer Paul Keating warns on Sydney radio that large trade deficits could make Australia a ”banana republic’’. The dollar then plunges.
1987
Actor Rita Hayworth (pictured), 68, dies in New York.
1998
Singer Frank Sinatra dies aged 82.
1998
The last episode of the television situation comedy Seinfeld aired; ostensibly a show about nothing, it was a landmark of American popular culture.