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We have entered the month of beardies’ discontent. Nov. 1 marks the start of a paradoxical slight to beard aficionados everywhere: No-shave November.
Like Che Guevarra on T-shirts or Rage Against the Machine having hit singles, the problem with this extended holiday is one of cultural appropriation. The pseudo-appreciation for facial hair displayed by the mildly fuzzy in the 11th month of the year is an affront to real beard enthusiasts everywhere.
No-shave November is the aptly named monthlong tradition in which participants refuse to shave their faces for 30 days. The ritual is undertaken in the spirit of competition, with the goal of growing the best beard.
But the contest is a farce. The best beard isn’t the fastest one grown in an attempt to show off. The best beard is cultivated over years, displaying equal parts love and dedication. The ironic display of facial hair is anathema to the true character of beardies. In the same way wealthy visitors slumming through poverty-tourism packages miss the real story of life under the poverty line, No-shave November competitors miss the real glory that can be had through manscaping.
These phony facial hair proponents do a disservice to people like former president of Poland and Nobel Prize winner Lech Walesa. A key leader in the Solidarity Movement that expunged the Soviet Union from Poland, Walesa was the proud wearer of a giant mustache for many years.
Some time ago, a U.S. razor company offered Walesa $1 million to shave off his trademark ’stache in a TV commercial, which he declined. Later on in life, he shaved “just for fun.” I suspect this brutal snub was not just whim but to prove a point. Walesa was telling the world: “My beard is a part of me. It’s not for sale.”
Or how about Robert Patterson? Back in 1995, Patterson was an employee of the Anaheim Convention Center and had been for nine months. The 66-year-old man had been hired, beard and all, nine months earlier and was told he would be let go for not observing the Center’s grooming policy.
In the L.A. Times, Patterson was quoted saying: “This is me. This is the way they hired me. They can’t make this a retroactive policy. It’s not legal and it’s not ethical.” Patterson said shaving his beard would cost him his marriage because his wife met and married a beardie, not a babyface. Because Patterson stood up for himself and his whiskers, all employees who had been hired with beards were grandfathered in, exempt from the new must-shave policy.
The point is, beards are a commitment, not something to be grown out of some sense of hipster irony for a month and then discarded. Your beard deserves more than that. So this November, keep shaving. Or even better, grow a beard — and keep it.
