On Monday night, the fashion and Hollywood elite will descend upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s steps for the annual Met Ball. Hosted by Anna Wintour, this year’s theme pays tribute to the influence of punk culture in fashion. What will the red carpet denizens, who are used to looking pretty, do with their beauty looks? Maybe, if we pray hard enough to the punk gods, a handful will arrive with their hair fashioned into a mohawk.
Back in the seventies, the British punk-rock crew adopted the audacious spiky haired look to signify their rebellious, anti-establishment attitude. But now, everyone and their mother — literally, like Gwen Stefani and her son, Kingston — will sport a mohawk to say, “I’m so tough, you guys.” Athletes do it to look more fierce on the playing field (David Beckham, Andy Roddick), ex-members of boy bands do it in a sad attempt to appear less Teen Beat (Lance Bass, Joey Fatone) and Ke$ha does it because Ke$ha does as she pleases. In all cases, the mohawk is deployed when a celebrity or a character in a movie wants to make a statement. Click through the slideshow to see what messages celebrities were trying to send with the seemingly ubiquitous mohawk (or more commonly, the faux-hawk).