By Jocelyn Fannypack

It’s a late spring day like any other in so-called Melbourne, 2023. The schoolyard asphalt radiates ambient heat. A spent Zooper Dooper wrapper tracks a lonely path in the breeze and settles in a storm drain. I suppose whoever consumed the Zooper Dooper found the trek to one of the schoolyard bins too difficult. Fair. Walking to bins is hard. 

The air hums with adolescent chatter, the occasional shriek, a bouncing basketball. They – the adolescents – tear past me, twiggy arms and legs akimbo, big ol’ brace-filled mouths wide open, catching flies.

 I’m crouched among the eucalypts, my back against the cyclone fencing. I have bark chips stuck to my knees. I’ve been here for years, studying, scribbling in my notebook. They don’t see me, or if they do, they’ve come to accept me as part of the schoolyard scenery. This is good. My field notes come from observation, not participation.

A troubling trend emerged sometime in 2018. Five years on, I see no signs of the trend waning. I’m not sure what this trend signifies, and how it will affect the future of these children. I only know what I see, and that when they look back on their school photos in fifteen, twenty years’ time, they will be very, very embarrassed.

Mullets.

All around me. It’s spread like a virus. The schoolyard mullet flaps in the breeze from under its school-sanctioned wide-brimmed hat, framing unwieldy teenage faces in all the wrong ways. A jagged fringe, a spray of wayward curls. The mullet flatters no one. Why did this happen? And when will it end?

The mullet, contextualised historically

Why it’s called a mullet remains unclear. It may have something to do with either a Beastie Boys song or a French fashionista from the 1970s called Henri Mollet – but according to the internet, the mullet’s genesis occurred centuries earlier. 

Warriors, vikings, and gladiators were in need of a new, innovative hairdo. They wanted long hair to keep their necks warm, but short hair around the face so they could see what they were doing in battle. Their new ’do was hand-to-hand combat-friendly in front, all cosy and insulated at the back. The mullet was born. 

Our modern-day warriors – football players – have championed the mullet for decades. Elsewhere, the mullet has made appearances within punk, DIY and queer circles, Parisian runways, and outer suburbia. Few haircuts have signified such wildly different things to wildly different demographics. Perhaps the only thing they all have in common is a rejection against type. Look respectable? Get outta here! It’s a follicular “fuck you” to the status quo, and we’re gonna cut our hair ugly.

The mulleted children of the schoolyard, however – do they understand the history behind their hair? I doubt they do. All they know is, it looks outrageous. And everyone is doing it.

The mullets I’ve witnessed, from least to most insidious

The art school mullet child is gentle but fierce; paradoxical, much like the mullet itself. Their mullet is a kaleidoscope of colours. They have likely transcended the gender binary, and they are reprimanded frequently for uniform violations. The art school mullet child is the child on campus most likely to organise a peaceful protest against draconian dress codes.

I have no issue with the art school mullet. Go forth and be you, art school mullet child.

This is the child who has made AFL their personality. (Or rugby or whatever. I don’t know what the non-AFL states get up to, honestly) It’s fine to be fond of balls which are kicked by the foot, theoretically. It only becomes a problem if the AFL mullet child has also adopted some of the more vile aspects of old-school football culture: the misogyny, the thuggery, the blind patriotism.

But if it’s really just about the game and they’ve cut their hair in tribute to a favourite mulleted player? That is fine. Go forth and kick that prolate spheroid, AFL mullet child.

I’m reminded of a time in 1996, when I requested my hairdresser cut me a Rachel. “The Rachel” was a popular hairdo from the hit TV program Friends. Jen Aniston’s Rachel wore her hair in a bitsy, piecey dark-blonde mushroom, with little kicky bits at the bottom: an ugly hairdo, truthfully, and one which only worked on the titular Rachel because Jen Aniston is a babe.

Anyway, I got my Rachel, but due to my hair’s curling pattern, I looked nothing like Aniston. When I went to school the following day, everyone laughed and called me Carol Brady.

That’s what the-little-mullet-that-could is: a mullet cut into hair which simply cannot hold the shape of a mullet with integrity. Perhaps the child’s hair is too thick, or too fine. Perhaps they have “combination” hair where it’s straight on top and curly underneath, or vice versa. Either way, the effect is sad … almost touching. I feel for the little-mullet-that-could child, but I admire their commitment to the trend. And who knows – with a proper blowdry and the right hair-putty, maybe their mullet will hold after all.

This appears to be an expression of the rich mocking the poor. We look poor, the Private school mullet declares. Isn’t that funny?

This child has not only embraced a terrifying throwback hairdo, but some archaic societal attitudes to go along with it.

This child makes grunting sex noises at passing female students. This child defies instruction from female teachers. This child walks into a room crotch-first. This child says things like, “Where’s my straight pride flag?”, “I’m oppressed”, and “Why isn’t there an International Men’s Day?” (there is, by the way: it’s on November 19th. Sadly for the baby misogynist mullet child, it isn’t a day for chest-beating and “Yeah the boys”-ing, but rather celebrating positive male role models and mental health awareness. BORING ☹️)

Will the baby misogynist mullet child grow out of his horrifying values once he grows out his mullet? Which came first – the mullet or the misogyny? It’s a real chicken-and-egg scenario. 

One can only hope it’s a phase, and one that – along with his mullety school photos – the baby misogynist mullet child will look back in his adult years and cringe.

All adolescents have a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock. Or more accurately, they haven’t yet acquired the kangaroo-count of a fully functioning adult paddock. 

But there’s something especially lacking in the few-kangaroos-loose-in-the-top-paddock (aka FKLITTP) mullet child, and they’ve expressed it with a horrifying mullet that was definitely cut with a Stanley knife in a dimly-lit bike shed.

The FKLITTP mullet child will drop their trousers and perform cartwheels if necessary. The FKLITTP mullet child will switch on every gas-pipe in the science room and light a match. They will replace all the bathroom soap with blocks of copha, and gum their classmates’ lockers shut with sourdough starter. They will unearth all the lovingly-planted seedlings on World Tree Day. They will spear the possum carcass they found on the road with a stick and chase the girls around the oval with it. They will connect their laptop to a VPN and screen PornHub during silent reading. Why? Just coz.

In conclusion

As the 2023 school year draws to a close, I see no signs of the mullet’s popularity waning. The hairdo had infected approximately one third of the student body. So accustomed have I become to seeing mullets in the schoolyard from my post among the gumtrees, that I nod in appreciation when I see a particularly thick, glossy mullet. I applaud quietly when I see a considered, well-proportioned mullet, or one so full and majestic I’m reminded of a horse’s mane.I lift my hand to my own, unexciting head of hair. Maybe I, too, could mullet. Should I? Heck, you know what they say – if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

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