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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Stuart Heritage

New barnet: why is everyone wigging out over Dwayne Johnson’s Moana hairpiece?

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson attends the Los Angeles premiere of Moana
Been scalped … Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson attends the Los Angeles premiere of Moana. Photograph: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Disney’s new live-action Moana remake might not have a lot to recommend it – like so many of its ilk it carries a creepy unreality that makes the whole thing look like a liminal ChatGPT hallucination – but it does boast one element that may very well carry it towards the gates of immortality. I am, of course, talking about Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s wig.

Some context. The biggest draw of the live-action Moana is that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson reprises his role from the original, as the egotistical shapeshifting demigod Maui. And this presented something of a problem. You see, Maui is characterised by many things – his tattoos, his exuberance – but none more so than his hair. Maui has the long and flowing hair of a being unencumbered by the onset of male pattern baldness. The hair is where Maui gets most of his personality. It makes him the personified spirit of virility itself.

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