Claim: Disneyland’s dress code used to exclude men with long hair from the park.



Status: True.



Origins: Up until the late 1960s, long-haired male visitors to Disneyland were stopped at the park gates by cast members who politely informed the hirsute guests that they did not meet the standards of Disneyland’s (“unwritten”) dress code and

therefore would not be allowed to enter the park.

Disneyland’s appearance code for employees, instituted in the 1950s, prohibited male cast members from sporting mustaches, beards, or long hair. Back when the code was implemented,

facial hair was perceived as conveying a negative image to many Americans, who associated beards and mustaches on young men with beatniks, un-American activities, and — in the 1960s — hippies. Disney’s philosophy was that customers preferred park workers to be wholesome and well-scrubbed, and some of the same appearance restrictions they placed on their employees were applied to other park guests as well. (For example, Jim McGuinn, future founder of the Byrds, was turned away from Disneyland in 1964 merely for sporting a Beatle cut, and at one point women wearing halter tops were also prohibited from entering the park.)

Disneyland’s “no long hair” policy for male guests was not instituted as a reaction to the “yippie invasion” that forced the park to close early one day in 1970. In fact, the opposite was true: the only reason the long-haired “yippies” were allowed in the park that day in the first place was because the restriction had already been relaxed.

Faced with manpower shortages at their American theme parks, in early 2000 Disney modified their policy to allow male cast members to sport neatly-trimmed moustaches.

Last updated: 22 August 2007









Sources:



Bledsoe, Wayne. “McGuinn’s Influence Lingers On.”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 3 July 1992 (Everyday Magazine; p. G4).

Ellison, Harlan. “The Sixties: A Reappraisal.”

Playboy. January 1988 (p. 89).

Powers, Charles T. and Bill Hazlett. “Disneyland Closed 6 Hours Early by Longhair Invasion.”

Los Angeles Times. 7 August 1970 (p. 1).

Taylor, John. Storming the Magic Kingdom.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. ISBN 0-394-54640-7 (pp. 25-26).

Los Angeles Times. “Mickey Mouse Standards.”