The Evil Goatee

 This is a post I wrote on my family blog a year ago, but with MR posting about BYU beard policy, it deserves mentioning again:

Can anyone think of an example of a goatee-wearing lead in a romantic comedy?

You see, the vast majority of movie and TV characters with goats are bad guys: Humperdink's evil sidekick (the guy with six fingers who killed your father); anyone on an Enterprise ship other than Riker with facial hair comes from an alternate, EVIL, dimension or is a Klingon (evil until the Berlin Wall fell); Han Solo and Knight Rider's evil twins have goats; even the villain in Lion King adds a goatee to his mane. A website full of examples of the Beard Of Evil exists if you doubt the phenomenon.

I grant that there are 'anti-hero' protagonists whose job is to maim and kill as many people as possible or whose allegiances are clearly questionable who sport goats (Jack Sparrow, post-Gorbachov Klingons). Athletes do not grow goatees in order to show their caring, compassionate nature.

These are not romantic leads or traditional good guys. I mean, can you think of anyone in a goatee playing opposite Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts?

This is a matter of mild concern to an avowed goody-two-shoes whose wife likes him to sport the occasional goatee. The first time she had me grow a beard and shave it down to a goat, I did a little editing of the picture to express my concerns about it (right).

On seeing this picture again, the Lovely and Gracious said, "I love that picture" (smiling prettily).





In today's comics we see the emergence of a "second, evil head." Can you guess what it has?