Peter B. Becker Nelson | Dan | Archival Inkjet Print | 2005

Peter B. Becker Nelson
There is a demographic of Caucasian, American, middle-class, fifteen to thirty year old males that is uncomfortable with mustaches.  Most men in this cultural grouping, including myself, would never seriously wear a mustache.  We connote mustaches with people who are nerdy, unfashionable, trashy, sexually aggressive, and even perverted.  However, a mustache worn by a man in another culture or age group is viewed as a symbol of manhood.  After all, the arrival of facial hair publicly marks a man’s coming of age.  Why is it then that men in my age group mock mustaches by temporarily wearing them and assuming the negative personas associated with mustached men?  Is this the only way to reconcile the gap between what is natural and what is culturally acceptable?

Through these portraits, I explore how my peers and I define our identities, deal with negative connotations of mustaches, and seek to understand the conflict between cultural norms and natural development.