My local stretch of high street now has two gents' hairdressers. One is Turkish, trimmed in black and silver, and polite. The other is English, trimmed in beige, and surly. Each displays in pride of place a large photograph of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. The photo in the beige shop is sepia, naturally enough, but the idea is the same. Clearly this is essential salon equipment. What gives?
Now, I am aware that the first Godfather film has scenes in a traditional men's barbers. I'm sure they would have meant much more to me had I been sensible enough to train as a hairdresser. But I don't know that, even then, this would have been an association I wished to promote in the minds of my prospective customers. What's the message here? Come for the craftsmanship and the hushed masculinity; stay because you've been shot through the head. Is that really a selling proposition?
On the other hand, Marlon's gaze might be directed towards the customers already inside the shop. These people might be mobbed up, it says. I'm watching. Tip.
The third option, the most depressingly likely, is that this is another manifestation of the gangster as a male ideal, Cosa Nostra as the acme of dapperness. The Godfather certainly seems more in command than many movie images of good male grooming. It would be a brave hairdresser that stuck up a big picture of George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (What if they sold Fop?) He's also at least somewhat less morally repulsive than Christian Bale in American Psycho. But Brando's Godfather never struck me as having particularly great hair. Am I missing something? And is this an affectation limited to my local barbers? I haven't even mustered the three examples traditional in lazy journalistic trend-pieces: does your local hairdresser, too, have a patron saint in the mafia?
