Because Britney Spears hasn’t fallen labia-first out of a car lately and Angelina Jolie has yet to poop out another baby, people are still writing about Javier Bardem’s stupid Oscar-winning haircut. It’s a historical and cultural touchstone, didn’t ya know?:

Bardem is just the latest in cinema’s long list of very bad men with even worse hairdos. Murderous instincts, it seems, do not go hand-in-hand with good hairdressing. “The sense of a ludicrous haircut juxtaposed with the character of a cold-hearted killer added up to a really memorable screen villain,” says Ian Freer, assistant editor of Empire magazine. “It gave him the aura of a psychotic schoolboy. It was in sharp relief to every other character in the movie. Nobody in Texas would ever have a haircut like that and it singled Chigurh out as almost otherworldly. It also recalled the haircut for Laurence Olivier’s Richard III, another great big screen monster.”

Coincidentally, Psychotic Schoolboy is our fantasy number 23, right after Cannibal Veterinarian.

Indeed, the stylist responsible for this particular follicular felony admits that he based it on paintings of medieval knights. Paul LeBlanc, who won an Oscar himself in 1985 for his make-up work on Amadeus, is a long-time collaborator with the Coens and says that, on-set, Bardem would tell him the dodgy hairstyle was crucial to helping him get into character. It may even have been crucial to the actor’s Oscar glory.

As far as the Academy is concerned, says Freer: “A silly hair-do spells commitment to the part and a lack of vanity that often equates with ‘Good Acting’: if he is prepared to go that far for the role, [the academicians think], he must be serious, courageous and good.”

We’re pretty sure Javier would have been equally good with a wet cat stapled to his dome, but hey. Our Academy Award is at least three years old. And made of paper maché. And macaroni.

Baddie hair days: the haircut that grew and grew [The Independent]