This is your brain on culture shock: everything is strange, suspicious and the streets seem to purposely try to confuse you. The impressive gothic structures and intricate ceramic patterns crowd you from all sides. Sounds of a language you don’t understand swirl around you as fashionably dressed Spaniards hurry past, able to pick out the American tourists by their inability to look elegant while using a folding hand fan.
Like many thousands of Maryland students before me, I chose to spend half of my junior year in Spain. A semester in Spain sounded exotic and exciting, and I’m finding adventures (and churches) around every corner. For the first three weeks I am in the beautiful city Sevilla, where they are attempting to build a metro on the windy cobblestone streets that are centuries old. Good luck with that logistical nightmare.
Everything is amazing once the shock wears off, until you discover something you thought was relegated to bad ’80s movies and backcountry America pops up all over Spanish hotspots: mullets.
You may have thought mullets died along with Richard Simmons’ leg warmers, but here they’ve been revived with a passion. Even more amazing than the re-emergence of the mullet is the variety you can find: long, short, one-sided, dyed bright colors, mowhawks, dreaded – Even toddlers in their strollers are starting their own miniature mullets.
“Cortevasco” is the official name for the mullet, says Carmen, a hairdresser in the trendy Raffel Pages Salon in Sevilla. She says they re-emerged about three years ago as a ’70s throwback. The cortevasco is currently more popular for men, but is becoming very “moda” (fashionable) for women, she adds. As I enter Raffel Pages, a woman walks out sporting short pink spiky hair on top and long dreadlocks in the back, a type of mullet called the “cresto,” says Carmen.
I ask her if she thinks cortevascos will become the height of fashion in the U.S. because so many fashion trends start in Europe. “Oh, I think so!” she gushes enthusiastically. “I mean, aren’t they already there?” Oh, Carmen, you have no idea.
In the course of my research of the Spanish mullet, I discover more subcultures than I imagined possible. Martin Alvarez Garcia of Sevilla sports the “jarrai” version of the mullet, which features a buzz cut on the sides, about an inch long on top and four inches in the back. His jarrai isn’t just for fashion – he says it makes a political statement that he is a leftist. Martin has been wearing his hair like this for years and dismisses the youths who wear their cortevascos just because it’s trendy.
Everyone has his or her own reasons for the Spanish mullet’s reappearance, so here I propose my own: the myth of Don Juan. Don Juan is one of Spain’s beloved national heroes and the second most famous literary myth after Don Quixote. A 16th century James Bond, Don Juan was best known for his ability to retain 16 girlfriends simultaneously. Jose Zorrilla wrote the original play about Don Juan in 1844, documenting the romantic exploits and adventures of a Sevillista nobleman in the 1540s. Though Don Juan was never given a physical description in the play, he has been represented in countless movies, paintings and statues. In the most famous Don Juan statue in Sevilla, he sports, you guessed it, business in the front and party in the back.
Aaron Bowling, a University of Kentucky senior studying in Sevilla, said, “I feel mullets have been taken to the extreme here. Intervention. Education programs, anything we can do. We’re here to help.” But is our negative view of mullets just another example of American ethnocentrism? Are we missing out on the beauty of a disregarded lifestyle? Does Spain’s hipster community have something we lack and are too insecure to admit?
I put my challenge to you, Terrapins of the state of Maryland: Bring the spirit of Don Juan to Maryland! Bring the mullet back to College Park! And while you’re at it, start looking for those 16 girlfriends and a good sangria recipe.
Stay tuned for the next episode of Turtilla on a half shell as we visit one of Sevilla’s most famous pastimes: bull fighting. I hope it doesn’t bother any animal rights activists that in an attempt to save some Euros, we’re going to the cheaper show, which features teenage matadors fighting baby cows.
Until next time, keep College Park classy, and those mullets growing.
Melanie Lidman is a junior Journalism and Spanish double major. She is studying in Sevilla and Murcia, Spain, through the ISA Direct program and will be writing about her experiences through the semester. She can be reached at mlidman@umd.edu.
