There’s been a lot going on in the world of beards recently. There’s the Daily Fail story about how “hipster beards” are threatening the razor industry. I don’t think it will be long before they run a story about the effect of facial hair on house prices. Then of course there’s the fuss about Jeremy Paxman’s appearance on Newsnight with a beard, which unleashed a storm of pogonophobia. Looking on the bright side, this served to generate some very positive publicity for the Beard Liberation Front, regular updated from which you can find on Keith Flett’s Blog.
Of course the Beard Liberation Front is essentially light-hearted in nature, but it does underline some rather serious points about the society we live in. First, is the obvious one. With so much terrible news going on in the world, who cares whether the presenter has a beard or not? In other words, it’s symptomatic of the superficiality of our celebrity-obsessed culture.
But there’s more than that. On the rare occasions I’ve been involved in media work I overheard many conversations about how such-and-such a scientist was no go for television because he had a beard. Why should that be? I think part of the answer can be found in Howard Jacobson’s piece in Saturday’s Independent: in that beards generally make their wearers look older. Nowadays, that, by definition ,means “unsuitable for TV”. You may have wisdom and gravitas, but if you don’t look like you belong in a boy band you’re just a beardy-weirdy and therefore out of contention.
Incidentally, I was of course clean-shaven when I had a few brief encounters with television, but my big chance for fame and fortune lapsed when I did a screen-test for the BBC, only to be told that I “lacked gravitas”. I doubt if a beard would have helped.
Back to my point. I think I’ve established that bPogonophobia clearly has a significant overlap with ageism. Moreover, because it’s about jumping to conclusions about people based on their appearance it also overlaps with racial prejudice. Men with beards are of not of course a persecuted minority, which is why the Beard Liberation Front can afford to engage in so much humorous self-parody, but it still succeeds in holding up a mirror to other, more sinister, forms of discrimination.
As for myself, I have no aspiration to become a hipster. I am far too old for that anyway. But I have always hated the chore of shaving in the mornings (and again later if I have to go out in the evening). I have frequently gone as far as growing a goatee beard, only to get rid of it because I didn’t like it much. The first time I grew a full beard was last summer. It wasn’t planned, but a consequence of a fairly long period of ill-health during a large part of which, for various reasons, I was unable to shave. When I began to recover, I shaved off the growth not so much because I disliked the beard in itself, but because it was an unwelcome reminder of what I’d been through. I wanted a fresh start. Having avoided any major recurrence this summer, I decided to have a go at growing a full beard again and am quite pleased with the result. At least it’s more convincing than Paxman’s.
Although not as grey, it has turned out rather similar in style to that of Ernest Hemingway as he is seen in this famous photograph by Yousuf Karsh:
I have to admit, though, that the opinions of others are mixed. The best comment I got was from a work colleague who said that she liked my beard very much, only to add, with immaculate timing, “because it covers half of your face”. I guess I’ll just have to hope that Beard Power eventually carries me through to wider acceptance.
PS. For the physicists among my readers here is an old post of mine about the role of beards in the development of thermodynamics.
In the Dark 