Mocking a Guy With a Hitler Mustache

One thing is clear: There is nothing in the Constitution that specifically forbids saying that someone appears to have an Adolf Hitler-style mustache. The right to say such a thing may even be legally protected.

Likewise, we are lucky enough to live in a nation where all manner of hairstyles are protected, if not actually respected and endorsed.

Therefore, if you want to be a twenty-something, indie-looking, vintage-clothing-wearing guy with your very own mustache inspired by Der Führer — hey, you go.

But why the confrontational attitude if someone across a Boston subway platform happens to say: "Whoa! Check out that guy with the Hitler mustache! It's totally like Hitler's! It's all short and stuff. Remember when Hitler was all, you know, killing everybody? That was raw! Hey, why is that guy staring at us?"

On one hand, a little hostility is understandable. You're just standing around, minding your own business, waiting for the Red Line, and some guy starts smarting off — just because you happen to have facial hair practically copyrighted by one of history's bloodiest tyrants. It's not like you're wearing a swastika on your arm, and even if you were — who's to say it's not a different swastika? You know, an anti-racist swastika. Your own thing. It's like, "look! It's not a swastika! It's a nicetika!"

But on the other hand, hairstyle is a conscious choice for most adults working a non-office job. There are a number of easy ways not to visually emulate the leader of Germany's National Socialist party. You can:

1) Shave regularly.

2) Not shave regularly, but grow hair all over your face.

3) Not shave regularly, but let your hair grow into any one of the hundreds of different facial hairstyles that aren't evil rectangles of Nazism that perch on your upper lip like a little black cockroach of moral putrescence.

Of course, it's possible that wearing a Hitler mustache and being a committed anti-racist and pacifist is an attempt to rehabilitate the hairstyle. "If enough decent blokes wear their mustaches this way," the reasoning goes, "it'll just lose its stigma!"

Arguably true. If Bill Cosby would just give it a try, the cause would be halfway there. But aren't there other symbols that should be reclaimed first?

How about the bow tie, a once dignified accessory that's been put beyond use by CNN's Tucker Carlson, host of Sweaty Little Pumpkinfucker?

Or the noble Moonwalk, now inextricably linked to reclusive python-freak Michael Jackson?

Or nuclear weapons, disgraced by their association with eccentric billionaire Kim Jong Il?

Not helpin' the cause, guys.

A lot could be done for these symbols — and many others — before trying to redeem the thoroughly soiled Hitlerstache.

For you see, the damn thing had serious aesthetic problems to begin with. No one likes geometric facial hair. Try a hairy octagon or rhombus sometime — you'll look like a freak, you freak. Even the triangle-shaped "Evil Magician" goatee has some problems, and it's the best thing geometric hair has going for it.

Ultimately, mocking a guy with a Hitler mustache isn't polite. It isn't outwardly kind. But it's important real-world feedback with a serious message: Depilate now!

— James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)