I can think of no better time than the middle of Movember to reflect on the mustache. Using the mustache as a symbol of men’s health awareness is really kind of a brilliant marketing move, as those things go: it’s the most homegrown, hairiest and distinctive of all those wonderful ribbons for various health concerns. So in recent years, and not without historical precedent, the moustache has come to symbolize health. 

But the mustache, the thing itself, means so much more to us. It will never be, nor never can be purely a statement of advocacy. The mustache is complicated. 

I am a little troubled—I think only a little—with the idea that virility and hyper-masculinity (which are also tied up in the mustache) come to stand for health, as if effeminate men—or at least hairless ones—don’t deserve it. In the same way, I am troubled by the co-opting of the color pink by the breast cancer awareness movement, as if less feminine women, women who don’t care to be “pretty in pink,” are excluded in some way. I’m still conflicted, but I do think it is important to consider what else we may be saying when we consciously try to make a statement through style and self-presentation.

A wise acting teacher of mine always says that while on stage, we are communicating something with everything we do, whether or not we are trying to. The same is true for personal style: it always is saying something, saying a whole lot of complicated things, really. So we have to consider what we think we’re saying with how we groom and how we dress. Personal style is always making a statement, even if you think you’re not trying, and that statement is, in some ways, always political. 

I can just hear readers grumbling, saying that it’s just facial hair, it’s not a big deal, it’s fun, it’s for a good cause. Yes, to all those things, but it’s just not that simple. Because there is, of course, one moustache that nobody talks about during Movember. It’s probably the most conspicuous and infamous mustache of the 20th century, and it is a case study in how personal style, especially the mustache, can be transfigured and transformed in its significations.

I am talking, of course, about Hitler’s mustache. It has come to stand for terror and tyranny and evil, but also can tell us much about the co-opting of style and how there is nothing inherent about the meaning of our dress and hair and mustaches: meanings accumulate culturally and historically, and we cannot ignore them. 

There is nothing evil, inherently, in the Hitler mustache. Called the toothbrush mustache, the style was somewhat popular in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was most famously sported by Charlie Chaplin. The story goes, of course, that Hitler was a great fan of Chaplin’s films and copied the look. So this mustache took a journey from minimalist aesthetic statement to  hilarious comic device to symbol of evil. It did not begin as Hitler’s mustache, but it certainly became his, and only his. 

Meaning accumulates and sticks. As much as I adore Charlie Chaplin, I could never grow such a mustache (even if I had the sufficient facial hair). There is an argument to be made about reclaiming the toothbrush mustache, and other styles the Nazis appropriated. We could try bringing them back and robbing them of their oppressive power, as certain words in black and gay cultures have been re-appropriated. But I’m not sure that’s possible and I’m not sure we want it to be.

We cannot scrub the histories of styles: we can consider them, we can look at them, we can even play with them, but we can never remove them. 

Trendy styles, as mustaches are now, try very hard to erase any controversial meaning or politics from themselves. 

That’s dangerous and irresponsible. Wear a mustache if you wish, if only for the month, but think about it. Think about it beyond the canned answer. Mindlessness about personal style is inexcusable. 

P.S. I cannot write about mustaches without giving a shout-out to my dad. My father is one of the last, great wearers of a serious, un-ironic mustache. He has had it for nearly 40 years. It is universally beloved and it is never going anywhere. I often see my father in crowds where he could not possibly be, but it turns out to be just another man with a mustache. Should I be worried about face-blindness?