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A fake moustache or false moustache is an item of prosthetic make-up. Fake moustaches are made in a variety of ways, but usually require a form of adhesive to affix the moustache to the wearer's face. [1]
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A fake moustache or false moustache is an item of prosthetic make-up. Fake moustaches are made in a variety of ways, but usually require a form of adhesive to affix the moustache to the wearer's face. [1]
The use of false facial hair dates back to antiquity. In Ancient Egypt, most men were clean-shaven (real facial hair being a signifier of low social status). Pharaohs, however, often wore elaborate false metal beards, linking them with Osiris, the god of the afterlife. [2] In Ancient Greece, Aristophanes referenced false facial hair in his play Assemblywomen , in which the women of Athens disguise themselves as men using false beards. [3] : 133
False facial hair has been used as a disguise for thousands of years. [3] : 134 In particular, women throughout history have used false facial hair to disguise themselves as men, often to gain access to freedoms they were denied as women. [3] : 136
False facial hair has also been used for theater and performance since at least the early modern period. Boy players would often wear false facial hair to appear older onstage. [4] : 15
In the 19th century, fake moustaches held associations with deception and criminality. Lewis Powell, one of the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination plot, carried with him a fake moustache during his assassination attempt on William H. Seward. [5] : 71 A key witness, Louis J. Weichmann, commented that he "thought no honest person had a reason to wear a false mustache". [6] : 91
Despite these perceptions, false facial hair was worn for aesthetic reasons during the Victorian era, as facial hair was particularly fashionable during this period. [7]
In the mid-20th century, fake mustaches were sold commercially. The New York Herald Tribune reported in 1963 that customers were primarily "young boys for fun or to 'virilize' themselves" as well as "wives who give them to their husbands". [8]
During the 2010s, fake moustaches surged in popularity, as a humorous, ironic, and retro motif. [9]
In many forms of popular media, the use of a fake moustache as an unconvincing disguise is a commonly-used trope. [10] [11] The "disguised face" emoji (🥸) features a fake moustache, as well as a pair of glasses. [12]
Drawn-on fake moustaches are deployed humorously in graffiti and other artistic means. Marcel Duchamp's artwork L.H.O.O.Q. depicts the Mona Lisa with a moustache. In the 1946 cartoon Daffy Doodles, Daffy Duck draws fake moustaches on everyone she sees. [3] : 138
Many iconic moustaches in popular media have been prosthetic: Charlie Chaplin, [13] Groucho Marx, [14] and David Suchet (as Hercule Poirot) [15] all wore fake moustaches. Marx's moustache, in particular, has gained prominence as the namesake of groucho glasses, novelty glasses with a fake moustache attached. [16]
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian, actor, writer, and singer who performed in film, television, radio, stage, and vaudeville. He was a master of quick wit and is generally considered to have been one of America's greatest comedians.
A beard is the hair that grows on the jaw, chin, upper lip, lower lip, cheeks, and neck of humans and some non-human animals. In humans, usually pubescent or adult males are able to start growing beards, on average at the age of 18.
Human physical appearance is the outward phenotype or look of human beings.
A moustache is a growth of facial hair grown above the upper lip and under the nose. Moustaches have been worn in various styles throughout history.
A shtick is a comic theme or gimmick. The word entered the English language from the Yiddish shtik (שטיק), related to German Stück and Polish sztuka, all meaning "piece", "thing" or "theatre play"; Theaterstück is the German word for play.
A handlebar moustache is a moustache with particularly lengthy and upwardly curved extremities. These moustache styles are named for their resemblance to the handlebars of a bicycle. It is also known as a spaghetti moustache, because of its stereotypical association with Italian men. The Handlebar Club humorously describes the style as "a hirsute appendage of the upper lip and with graspable extremities".
A goatee is a style of facial hair incorporating hair on one's chin but not the cheeks. The exact nature of the style has varied according to time and culture.
The walrus moustache is characterized by whiskers that are thick, bushy, and drop over the mouth. The style resembles the whiskers of a walrus, hence the name.
A Fu Manchu moustache or simply Fu Manchu, is a full, straight moustache extending from under the nose past the corners of the mouth and growing downward past the clean-shaven lips and chin in two tapered "tendrils", often extending past the jawline. An expansion of the Fu Manchu sometimes includes a third long "tendril" descending from a small patch on the chin.
The toothbrush moustache is a style of moustache in which the sides are vertical, often approximating the width of the nose and visually resembling the bristles on a toothbrush. First becoming popular in the United States in the late 19th century, the style spread to Germany and elsewhere. It was made famous by comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and Oliver Hardy before reaching its height of popularity in the interwar years. By the end of World War II, the style had become unfashionable due to its strong association with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, leading to it being colloquially termed the 'Hitler moustache'.
Groucho glasses, also known as nose glasses, the beaglepuss, or the GM 20/20s, are a humorous novelty disguise which function as a caricature of the stage makeup used by the comedian Groucho Marx in his movies and vaudeville performances. They typically consist of black frames with attached features including bushy eyebrows, a large plastic nose, bushy moustache, and sometimes a plastic cigar. Considered one of the most iconic and widely used of all novelty items in the world, Groucho glasses were marketed as early as the 1940s and are instantly recognizable to people throughout the world. The glasses are often used as a shorthand for slapstick and are depicted in the Disguised Face (🥸) emoji.
The World Beard and Moustache Championships is a biennial competition hosted by the World Beard and Moustache Association (WBMA), in which men with beards and moustaches display lengthy, highly styled facial hair.
Hypnota is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics publications and related media, commonly as a recurring adversary of the superhero Wonder Woman. Created by writer William Moulton Marston and artist Harry G. Peter, the character debuted in 1944 in Wonder Woman #11 as a stage magician and human trafficker with powerful superhuman mind-control abilities. The gender presentation of her stage persona, Hypnota the Great, was that of an ostensibly male figure in Orientalized Middle-Eastern costume, complete with a false mustache and goatee. Though initially appearing to disguise her gender to deflect criminal suspicion, Hypnota made subsequent Golden Age appearances in her masculine stage garb; even after her supposedly "true" gender identity was revealed, she chose to present as a man – a move that might be understood in the 21st century as genderqueer. The Modern Age Hypnota, renamed Hypnotic Woman, has abandoned her false facial hair and is now written and drawn as a cisgender woman, albeit one who wears a somewhat masculine costume similar to her Golden Age look: a closed-front vest, salwar and a man's turban.
The American Mustache Institute (AMI) is an advocacy organization and registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit originally based in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2013, it moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Fur Rondy has been held in Anchorage, Alaska during the late winter since 1950. It is a celebration of the time when trappers would return to the city to gather and share stories, sell their furs and antlers, and to socialize. It also commemorates the start of the Iditarod. One part of Fur Rondy is the Miners and Trappers Ball, which is a fundraiser for the Lions Club's of Alaska. The Miners and Trappers Ball has a yearly theme focused on one part of Alaskan life. The highlight of the Miners and Trappers Ball is the Mr. Fur Face beard contest. The contest is sponsored by the South central Alaska Beard and Mustache Club.
Facial hair is hair grown on the face, usually on the chin, cheeks, and upper lip region. It is typically a secondary sex characteristic of human males. Men typically start developing facial hair in the later stages of puberty or adolescence, around fifteen years of age, and most do not finish developing a full adult beard until around eighteen or later. However, large variations can occur; boys as young as eleven have also been known to develop facial hair, and some men do not produce much facial hair at all.
Facial hair in the military has been at various times common, prohibited, or an integral part of the uniform.
Since 1976, the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB) have maintained a strict appearance policy, specifying that players' hair must not touch their collars and that they may have mustaches but no other facial hair. The policy came from then-franchise owner George Steinbrenner, who believed that regulating his players' appearance would instill a sense of discipline. Steinbrenner began noting which players he believed needed haircuts when he took over the Yankees in 1973, but the policy was not codified until three years later. Steinbrenner's policy remains in place after his death, and has led to a number of dramatic appearance changes for players who come to the Yankees from other teams, such as Oscar Gamble, as well as pushback from players who prefer long hair and beards. In 1991, Don Mattingly was taken out of the Yankees' lineup for a day when he refused to cut his hair.
Secular laws regulating hairstyles exist in various countries and institutions.
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