Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ silken white locks is the stuff of fairytales.
Well, perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration.
But the Democratic presidential hopeful has a head of hair that should be appreciated as it shifts from kempt to an absolute mess with pieces sticking up all over the place. It’s reminiscent of MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews, who occasionally has his own head of unruly hair.
Sanders doesn’t want to talk about it.
In an interview for The New York Times Magazine this weekend, Sanders snapped at Guardian‘s Ana Marie Cox, who posed a question about his hair and really wouldn’t let go.
To be fair, his hair has its own Facebook page and has been the subject of a lot of media scrutiny.
In April, WaPo’s Hunter Schwarz, who now works for IJReview, had “Great Moments In Bernie Sanders’s Hair.”
In May, New York Mag ran “Bernie Sanders’s Hair Is A Media Magnet.” Jamie Fuller wrote that journalists have gone to great lengths (pun intended) to get it just right. “It has been described as a ‘shock,’ a ‘wisp,’ ‘flyaway,’ and ‘free-for-all frizz.’ It is worshipped as a synecdoche for Bernie Sanders, and journalists have devoted pages of print to trying to perfectly capture its essence in mere words.”
In July, The Lapine, a satirical website, ran a story saying that Donald Trump offered Bernie Sanders hair advice on Fox News Sunday. Obviously the story is a fake. But in it, Trump said Sanders “needs to stop cutting his own hair” and that he needs some product.
Cox asked her hair question at the end of her interview. A smart move considering how much it appeared to annoy him.
Ana: Do you think it’s fair that Hillary’s hair gets a lot more scrutiny than yours does? Hillary’s hair gets more scrutiny than my hair?
Bernie: Yeah. Is that what you’re asking?
Ana: Yeah.
Bernie: O.K., Ana, I don’t mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, O.K.? Do you have serious questions?
Ana: I can defend that as a serious question. There is a gendered reason —
Bernie: When the media worries about what Hillary’s hair looks like or what my hair looks like, that’s a real problem. We have millions of people who are struggling to keep their heads above water, who want to know what candidates can do to improve their lives, and the media will very often spend more time worrying about hair than the fact that we’re the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people.
Read the full interview here.