Whether it’s Bruce Willis crawling through air vents in Die Hard, Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, or most famously, Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, the sleeveless tank top is one of the most recognizable – and controversial – articles of clothing around.
Seeing someone wear this shirt with one of the worst names, the “Wife Beater”, creates a particular image of a man who is either sleazy or violent. But why does this shirt have such a stereotype, and where does the name come from? It turns out that it can be traced back to a man from Detroit.
Detroit, 1947
The term “wife-beater” to describe a basic popular shirt is pretty jarring. As a kid, you don’t know the meaning behind the phrase, and as you get older, it is either desensitized or you realize how messed up that name really is.
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