Spring Break
Stale Popcorn: 'No-Shave November'
Travis Moore
Issue date: 11/3/09 Section: Focus
I did a pretty stupid thing over the weekend: I made a pact with a couple of friends that we would take part in the celebration of virility that is "No-Shave November." And there's no going back. For the next month I'm raising awareness for a men's health issue in the most humiliating way possible: by putting my scraggly, fledgling facial hair on display for the public eye-rolling and mockery.
But I am not going it alone. There are plenty of like-minded fellows who have put their social lives on a four-week hiatus for a good cause, and who are perhaps feeling the same apprehension I am so early in the month. So, to give you boys the boost you need to toss your razors aside this month, Stale Popcorn is paying tribute to some of the big screen's best facial hair and the characters who wore it.
Gandalf, "The Lord of the Rings" Trilogy
Facial hair in "The Lord of the Rings" is not exactly in short supply. Aragorn has it, Theoden has it, Treebeard is named after it. But somewhere in the lush hills of Middle-Earth's mighty beardscape there must be a champion to uphold its foundation, and Gandalf the White's clear attention to grooming in a time of war, combined with his impish audacity in wearing white after Labor Day, make him the obvious choice.
The Stranger, "The Big Lebowski"
You know your 'stache deserves some serious street cred when people believe it actually muffled your voice to the point that your lines needed to be dubbed. Sam Elliot's wandering cowboy narrator may have been an absurd yet oddly powerful presence in the Coen Brothers' modern western-noir, but that mustache, hanging down past his lower lip, carried a gravity all its own.
Robin Hood, "The Adventures of Robin Hood"
Errol Flynn's strawberry-blond goatee was a one-two punch of raffish leading-man charm, and a sound argument for the existence of what I like to call "stache-ittude"; the narrow moustache framed his dashing smile, while a chin patch accentuated the delicate, yet masculine, curve of his jaw. It was a look as rascally as it was noble, and Flynn would wear it for much of his time as the king of talkie swashbucklers.
Corky St. Clair, "Waiting for Guffman"
The salt-and-pepper handlebar goatee worn by Christopher Guest's clumsily closeted protagonist is actually pretty tragic (but if you're a Christoper Guest fan, you're probably used to these kinds of revelations by now). Corky hides his sexuality behind a veneer of desperate, maladroit machismo and his mustache - clashing horribly with his garish mushroom-cut hairstyle - has played a small but noteworthy role in sending "Waiting for Guffman" to the highest height of tragicomic mastery.
Jafar, "Aladdin"
What is it that makes Jafar so darn evil? The sinister cascade of his facial features? The insistence on wearing red and black? That he's so socially inept that his dearest friend is a smart-mouthed parrot? No, friends. Jafar's unspeakable evil is located entirely within the curl of his beard. Look at that thing. It's a beard twisted by Lucifer himself. Well, that or a diesel curling iron, but that would just be sad.
But I am not going it alone. There are plenty of like-minded fellows who have put their social lives on a four-week hiatus for a good cause, and who are perhaps feeling the same apprehension I am so early in the month. So, to give you boys the boost you need to toss your razors aside this month, Stale Popcorn is paying tribute to some of the big screen's best facial hair and the characters who wore it.
Gandalf, "The Lord of the Rings" Trilogy
Facial hair in "The Lord of the Rings" is not exactly in short supply. Aragorn has it, Theoden has it, Treebeard is named after it. But somewhere in the lush hills of Middle-Earth's mighty beardscape there must be a champion to uphold its foundation, and Gandalf the White's clear attention to grooming in a time of war, combined with his impish audacity in wearing white after Labor Day, make him the obvious choice.
The Stranger, "The Big Lebowski"
You know your 'stache deserves some serious street cred when people believe it actually muffled your voice to the point that your lines needed to be dubbed. Sam Elliot's wandering cowboy narrator may have been an absurd yet oddly powerful presence in the Coen Brothers' modern western-noir, but that mustache, hanging down past his lower lip, carried a gravity all its own.
Robin Hood, "The Adventures of Robin Hood"
Errol Flynn's strawberry-blond goatee was a one-two punch of raffish leading-man charm, and a sound argument for the existence of what I like to call "stache-ittude"; the narrow moustache framed his dashing smile, while a chin patch accentuated the delicate, yet masculine, curve of his jaw. It was a look as rascally as it was noble, and Flynn would wear it for much of his time as the king of talkie swashbucklers.
Corky St. Clair, "Waiting for Guffman"
The salt-and-pepper handlebar goatee worn by Christopher Guest's clumsily closeted protagonist is actually pretty tragic (but if you're a Christoper Guest fan, you're probably used to these kinds of revelations by now). Corky hides his sexuality behind a veneer of desperate, maladroit machismo and his mustache - clashing horribly with his garish mushroom-cut hairstyle - has played a small but noteworthy role in sending "Waiting for Guffman" to the highest height of tragicomic mastery.
Jafar, "Aladdin"
What is it that makes Jafar so darn evil? The sinister cascade of his facial features? The insistence on wearing red and black? That he's so socially inept that his dearest friend is a smart-mouthed parrot? No, friends. Jafar's unspeakable evil is located entirely within the curl of his beard. Look at that thing. It's a beard twisted by Lucifer himself. Well, that or a diesel curling iron, but that would just be sad.
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