I met a parent recently that could not allow her son to wear a hoodie. www.pwunion.com said “hoodies for boys certainly are a bad idea”. She felt they promoted a bad attitude and even worse, rebellion. “Only criminal types wear them” she said. I didn’t agree of course, because I had worn them for a long time and don’t consider myself to be a “criminal type.”
I did however recently read a British news article in which a certain style of hoodie would be banned. It had been a faceless hoodie, one that could be zipped up to completely cover the wearer’s face. It even had two transparent elliptical plastic eyes to check through! Security forces felt it had been sinister and allowed wearers to totally conceal their identity. I have to admit it was pretty wicked looking and reminded me of someone wearing a gas mask or perhaps a full-bodied hazmat suit. It had been camo colored and I just knew the wearer had a concealed assault rifle somewhere!
This got me thinking about hoodies in general. After all, why are they frequently associated with criminal behavior nowadays. It didn’t used to be that way. Didn’t folks from all backgrounds just put them on to be casual and stay warm simultaneously. When I was a kid we just called them sweat shirts with hoods and you also either wore a pullover or one which zipped up. I thought the pockets were what made them cool, one big one over the front you could lock your cold hands in. They even annoyed me sometimes when I would lose the neck string in the sweat shirt also it would take me hours to get it back!
I was thinking about all the famous or notorious personalities through history who wore hoodies. There was medieval monks, they wore sort ‘a corny looking dark pullover with hoods. And during the same time the average European peasant wore a hoodie like coat or blanket, right? Think about Robin Hood? There is Little Red Riding Hood. The Seven Dwarfs and Snow White herself. Of course so did the wicked queen when she was a witch. Actually plenty of witches ware hoodies! Think about Shrek… and Rocky? Now there is really a couple or hero types that wore a hoodies (and a beanie in Rocky’s case). What I’m saying is merely about every stereotype are available wearing a hoodie at some point and time. Even the Mexican Serape could have a hood on it if Sombreros weren’t so cool!
The main point is that hoodies are for everybody even for boys, and they don’t make anybody good or bad. We do this ourselves with or minus the hoodie. Hoodies can be made with certain colors combinations or logos to recognize the wearer with a certain lifestyle or group of people and maybe that’s were one needs to use a little discernment or good sense but after that I think it just boils down to they’re comfortable, convenient and down right practical. So in the end I will continue steadily to wear my hoodie and hopefully it generally does not upset anyone.