Stupid Stubble

Since I ranted, a few months ago, against women wearing high heels, it's only fair that also rant against something men have been doing that's no less absurd: not shaving.

I don't mean growing beards. I mean growing stubble. The unshaven look.

To be fair, I almost never see that on actual, human, three-dimensional men but rather on the strange versions of men depicted in certain TV shows. Oh, and also on some actors when they're not acting, to the extent that they're ever not acting.

The first time that look showed up, to my memory, was on the Sonny Crockett character in the TV show Miami Vice, a show I remember as being often great and often laughable, frequently in the same episode. For a while, there was even an electric shaver for sale that would give you the same unshaven look at Sonny Crockett. It was called the Miami Device. That name is almost as clever as the idea of selling men an expensive electric shaver designed to not shave them.

That silly look was okay for the Crockett character, though. He was a recovering alcoholic vice cop who was always on the edge of a breakdown of some sort, and the street-bum whiskers helped get that message across.

But why in the world are we seeing that absurd look on modern TV characters who are supposed to be ordinary middle-class folks? "Middle class" in the movie sense, that is. I.e., they live in huge houses and drive expensive cars and never worry about the monthly bills. Despite that, they apparently can't afford a good razor.

Of course styles change constantly, and most of the time they're weird, especially in the eyes of older people. That's the only constant. So my objection to the stupid stubble look is on a par with the objection of one generation to beards and of another generation to clean-shaven faces. ("They look like chamber pots," someone said of the latter, a couple of hundred years ago.) I can't even make a safety argument against the stupid stubble, the way one can against high heels. Or a noise argument. Or a damage-to-floors-and-legs-and-feet-and-hips-and-lower-back argument.

But it looks so God damned stupid!