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Disney’s new live-action Moana The remake probably doesn’t have much to show for it – as most of it has a lot of crap that makes it all look like a ChatGPT simulation – but it does boast one thing that could take it to the gates of immortality. Yes, I’m talking about Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s wig.
Some news. The biggest draw of the Moana scene is that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson reprized his role from the beginning, as the arrogant maui. And this created a problem. You see, Maui is known for many things – his paintings, his happiness – but not his hair. Maui has long and flowing hair that is not blocked by the onset of male pattern baldness. Hair is where Maui gets most of his personality. It makes him a man of manly spirit.
Meanwhile, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is bald. This is not hidden, because he is one of the most famous men in the world, and most of this comes from his visible head. His most famous characters – Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in the Fast & Furious movies, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in Baywatch, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in Jumanji – were all bald. And this is not something they are mocked about; maybe because people have progressed enough not to embarrass men for something they have no control over, and maybe because Johnson would beat you in the balls and throw the Sun at you if you ever tried.
How can you reconcile these two diametrically opposed concepts? The answer, apparently, was to put Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in a wig. Which would have been great, except the internet responded with the same level of horror it would have if Sir David Attenborough had been caught punching.
Memes were static. According to them, Johnson’s wig looks like this “struggle against gravity, wind, and its demands”. It seems “shake-n-go wig from Spirit Halloween”. They “he should be honored in this film”. To his credit, Johnson was sarcastic in his approach, telling a red-hot reporter that the memes made him laugh. “thank you very much”. However, let’s explore this a little further.
Because this isn’t the first time Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has worked out on film. In the last movie he released, actually – 2025’s The Smashing Machine – he wore one, an official replica of the actual haircut worn by the real-life Mark Kerr. Did anyone insult him because of this? No he didn’t. Now, this could be because his entire appearance was so distorted by the prosthetics – making his entire head look like a damaged testicle and a wax melon – that his rag was the last thing anyone saw. However, the fact remains that he got away with it.
And let’s not forget about 2001’s The Mummy Returns, in which she once again wore a huge and stylish wig. Why are there no memes then? Could it be that Johnson still had his hair at that time, even the short hair that sat comfortably on the top of his head? Could it be that the wig in the movie had a twist and density that, unlike Moana’s hair, said to grow out of her head? Or did The Mummy Returns have a CGI sequence so famous that people deliberately erased the entire film from their memories to protect their sanity? Perhaps the answer is both.
So, no, the problem is not that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson wears wigs. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson wore this wig for the role. There’s something sinister about her Maui wig. It looks like it was made from nylon and bought out of a jar from a stall in a midweek street market. It looks like it itches. More than anything else, it seems like it needs constant maintenance – polishing, conditioning, conditioning – that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson doesn’t seem to have the time or effort to use. It’s a strange thing. No wonder everyone is overwhelmed.
However, there is every chance that Moana will defy wild expectations and do well financially, while Disney will rush to make a live-action version of Moana 2. And in that case, thanks to the internet, let’s all do ourselves a favor and pray for bald Maui.
