Jennifer Arnold even created a documentary about the haircut in 2002 titled American Mullet (which you can find on Amazon Prime if you’re curious). Instead, it slipped from the good graces of the masses and became iconic in various subcultures: everyone from country music stars and lesbians, to hockey players and Native Americans. The peak of mullets ended in the early 1990’s, but the style has never completely faded from relevance. The hairstyle didn’t actually have the name “mullet” until 1994, though, when the Beastie Boys released a song called “Mullet Head.” Not long after the name mullet was christened, the hairdo was on its way out.īy the time the Beastie Boys gave the style its name, it had begun to slide from the trendy mainstream position it had been sitting comfortably at to a more countercultural phenomenon. It tended to be popular with white dudes who played rock music or hockey, incredibly cool and trendy for a while. It wasn’t until the 1970’s when the mullet starting rising to modern mainstream fame, though, reaching its peak in the 80’s when everyone from George Clooney to Metallica’s James Hetfield sported one. Mullets have been present in and out through our entire history as a species, in different parts of the world. The preferred style for displaying long locks is most commonly braids – often two or three – but cuts closer the Mohawks and mullets have not been uncommon, either. It is connected to values of family and community, and there are multiple rituals surrounding the upkeep of long hair. In many tribes, long hair is representative of a strong cultural identity.

The relative ease of maintaining it makes it possible to keep up even without the existence of barbershops and hair salons, and the practicality makes it perhaps one of the oldest haircuts in human history.Some Native American tribes, both historically and more recently, have included the mullet with other traditional hairstyles. There is evidence that Neanderthals and our oldest ancestors would wear this ‘do, as well. Homer even described a haircut that sounds eerily familiar in The Iliad: “their forelocks cropped, hair grown long at the backs.”The Greeks weren’t the only ones sporting the mullet, though. Cropped hair around the face with longer locks in the back allowed for both visibility and a protective layer of hair for your neck. According to some historians, the mullet has been around since at least Ancient Greece, where the style was as much for function as it was for fashion. This business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back style has been around way before it was popularized by actors and rock stars in the 1980’s.

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