Facially Funky

Can someone explain the recent explosion of hobos as leading men in every movie and TV show I see these days?  Why are men dressed in Armani suits and white doctor-coats being featured on screens both large and small with dirty-looking stubble covering their otherwise handsome faces?  What are Brad and McDreamy hiding behind those not-quite beards?  When did “unshaven” become a requirement for a casting call?

At the inception of this disturbing trend, I wondered how it was possible for a normally clean-shaven male to maintain this look…I mean, they could let their beards grow for a couple of days to achieve it, but then they’d have to shave and, for at least one day, would look normal.  But that never happened!  I’d watch a film or TV production that was obviously shot over a number of weeks or months, and the hero’s facial hair never changed!  The beard didn’t grow and the whiskers were never shorn!  How can this be?, I wondered.  Was it makeup?  A minuscule version of Young Santa, perhaps?  Did someone meticulously paste one tiny hair at a time on the dude’s face, even when the role or story didn't call for a slob? Or was it natural follicular growth acquired in a fit of misplaced method-acting zeal?  And, if the latter, how was it kept at that clumsy length?  The most important question of all, however, was WHY??

As an unmarried woman of a certain age, I don’t have much access to men’s toiletry accoutrements.  I don’t know from colognes, shaving creams or razors, electric or manual.   So it took a bit of research to discover that there was actually an implement invented specifically to keep this unsightly growth at its perfect I-haven’t-showered-in-a-week-and-I’m-proud-of-it length.  Again, I am impelled to ask WHY?

When I was a year or two old, my father came home after a two-month absence.  He had grown a mustache during that time.  I’m told I screamed in terror at the sight of it and continued to do so until he shaved it off.  I suppose I could blame my dislike of facial hair on that incident, but I don’t.  My son has had a lush mustache for decades; I always had a thing for Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds and when dating a guy with a lip sweater tended to agree with the lady who said “ a kiss without a mustache is like an egg without salt.”  And, although I’ve never been particularly fond of full beards, I find them at least tolerable (when they aren’t full of crumbs or other detritus, of course).

But this two-day growth thing is just plain OOGLY!  It’s neither here nor there, fish nor fowl, fresh-faced clean or full cover.  It isn’t heavy enough to either hide an unsightly feature or keep the face warm; it isn’t distinct enough to have a name (Van Dyke, Handlebar, even Soul Patch come to mind).  It certainly flatters no male, makes no statement, and has no discernible raison d’etre that I can fathom.

So, for the men who cultivate it and the women who love them, please explain to those of us who are sickened by this sudden epidemic of exuberant stubble:
WTF?!