On Mark-Paul Gosselaar's Hair



Those Samson locks! (image via blogs.usaweekend)

Mark-Paul Gosselaar's scenery-chewing hair is threatening to overtake the cast, the crew, the script and the whole fucking cable channel. It is more than distracting, it is de trop; it occupies a sacred space in the pop cultural cosmos on the margins of propriety. It doesn't do press, but it still gets buzz. Mark-Paul Gosselaar's hair is like fucking Garbo, it's bigger than him, and it belongs to us.



The hair -- and all of us -- are duly teased. (image via kokatu)

Unlike the show, Mark-Paul Gosselaar's hair was not produced by Steven Bochco. But it clearly has the genius of a "Bochco" project. Daemonstv reports on a conference call with Gosselaar:

"What about the hair? It has become a debate. Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s wife and Steven Bochco both hate it, but Steven Bochco’s wife loves it. Mostly, Mark-Paul Gosselaar wanted to be as far removed from his character on NYPD Blue, plus it just goes with the character.

"When asked how he prepared for the part, his response was: 'What do you mean prepare? I just let my hair grow!' (laughs)"

By heaven inspired! (image via blogs.usaweekend)

Yes, it is big hair; and yes, it's upkeep can conceiveably hurt the ozone layer. That manly sheen, calculated to rasp. Lush. But Mark-Paul Gosselaar's hair is massive, goddam Balzakian, Tolstoian-even. "All happy coiffs are more or less similar." Mark-Paul Gosselaar's hair is, by contrast, a panorama of human society -- a Bonfire of the Vanities -- spanning our harlots high and low. In Mark-Paul Gosselaar's minky hair we see the societal crushing lows and soaring, incandescent highs. Forgive us our vanities, Dear Lord, Mighty King of Hosts, leave us our "Gosselaar Hair."



-- by gale-winds kissed. (image via popwatch)

Enigmatic; the hair is brutish. It's chic is muscular. Niccolo Machivelli would say of it that it is suffused with "virtu."