Cathy and Todd explore how 1980s glam metal, later dubbed “hairbands” in the ’90s, fused hypersexual, alpha-male posturing with makeup, teased hair, and flamboyant style, creating a theatrical masculinity that rose with MTV and collapsed with the arrival of grunge. From Def Leppard to Poison, these bands borrowed from femininity while reinforcing traditional masculinity, leading to a theatrical version of toughness built for MTV’s visual era. They discuss the rise, peak, and fall of the genre, its shift from rebellion to redundancy, and how it reflected and reshaped cultural ideas about gender, authenticity, and performance.