Long hair on men became acceptable only once sanitized, non-threatening versions aired on television

Evidence

The eventual middle-class acceptance of longer hair on men came, argued LSD guru Timothy Leary, only with the prime-time television debut of The Monkees—an American clone of the Fab Four with “no controversy, no protest. No thinking strange, unique thoughts. No offending Mom and Dad and the advertisers.” — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 11

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Habermas/Bourdieu work on how mass media domesticates and neutralizes subcultural novelty — the process of co-optation that recurs in cultural-studies readings of style.