[1]
That new Michael Jordan campaign for Hanes, which we wrote about last week [2], really does have people buzzing, though it's not Jordan's "lie-flat collar" that they're fixated on. Viewers instead seem to be stupefied by his attempt to bring back the "Hitler mustache," [3] which has pretty soundly been out of fashion since, you know, Hitler. Technically called a "toothbrush mustache," this facial styling was actually quite popular in the 1920s, and still makes the occasional appearance on the faces of foul-tempered tyrants like Robert Mugabe and J. Jonah Jameson. Maybe Jordan feels he simply transcends the clear cultural need to avoid looking like history's most vile psychopath. Maybe he's on a quest to reclaim a symbolic styling of the industrial working class, and a mediocre underwear ad seemed like the right forum. Or maybe the copywriters simply loved the irony of mocking some poor guy's "bacon neck" while the star of the ad blatantly sports a damn Hitler 'stache.
—Posted by David Griner