Real Men Wear Pink



"Jimbo: Bart does ballet! Kearney: He dances like girls! Nelson: Ha ha! Bart: Go ahead and laugh, but I took a chance and did something I wanted to do, and if that makes me a sissy, well I guess I'm a sissy! Beat Jimbo: ... he's a sissy! Let's get him!"

- The Simpsons

For some reason, gritty loners, hulking brutes, and all around uber-manly characters tend to gravitate towards at least one decidedly un-manly interest or hobby. Usually, it involves baking, sewing, or the color pink. While oftentimes this hobby is kept under wraps alongside the Embarrassing Middle Name, Mr. Badass quite often shamelessly enjoys it. Even more often, it's just one of those things you just never bothered to ask about. Plus, apparently he was never instilled with the Pink Girl, Blue Boy archetype when he was growing up. Or maybe he was, and couldn't be bothered with it anyway. It's a safe assumption that he cares very deeply for his mother.

Arguably the basis is that someone who's self-evidently "masculine" doesn't need to demonstrate his masculinity in the stereotypical ways. (Even if by wall-punching steel and Death Glaring, he kinda is demonstrating it in the stereotypical ways. Try not to think too hard about that.) An alternative explanation for this behavior is if the Manly Man sees something as manly then it will become manly as he himself is the definition of manly, kind of like how celebrities tend to change fashion in Real Life. Sometimes there is a Double Standard at work: while cooking in the home may be seen as traditionally women's work, only MEN are great chefs (seriously, look it up - compare Chef of Iron while you're at it). And then some men just like to use this as a practical reason to start fights. Or enjoy the fact that no one will dare to mock him. (Would you?)

On the color pink, it should be noted that as late as 1950's, it was still considered a "boy" colour. Pink was seen as a shade of red, which relates to manly concepts like blood and war. Blue was associated with the Virgin Mary and was seen as a more serene colour reserved for girls (in fact, the traditional colour for wedding dresses used to be blue before Queen Victoria popularized the white dress; all that remained of that is the line calling for "something blue" in the rhyme).

Early in WWI, the French Army uniform included bright pink trousers. This was changed when the leaders realized it made them easy targets. (Actually, French soldiers of early WWI used to wear a special kind of pink they called rouge, which was a natural dye from a plant called "garence".)

This trope doesn't work on extremely feminine looking Bishonen or Gender Benders, as it's about MANLY MEN. If a character has enough girlish traits or hobbies that it starts to compromise his manliness, especially if they have an effeminate appearance, then the character may be In Touch with His Feminine Side. If he looks manly but never acts it he's just a Gentle Giant.

A primary character trait of the Cultured Badass and the House Husband.

Compare The European Carry All, Princesses Prefer Pink, Emotional Bruiser, Real Men Love Jesus, Agent Peacock, Purple Is Powerful (when people think just Graceful Ladies Like Purple).

Contrast Testosterone Poisoning, Real Women Never Wear Dresses, Sissy Villain, Pink Is for Sissies.

Advertising

 * Toyota Racing did a "Sponsafy Your Car" contest that asked fans to go the Toyota Racing website and design their own paint scheme. In the commercial, a young girl named “Kimmy” designs a pink racecar for NASCAR star Kyle Busch. "Who doesn’t like kittens, bunnies and little baby seals?"
 * Fiction has now become fact. He's actually driving the pink car from the commercial this NASCAR season.
 * In New Zealand in the early 2000s, Tararua Milk ran adverts featuring a 'macho-looking bloke' describing himself engaging in decidedly un-manly activities: "I wear a pink shirt, but not at the rugby... I'll ask for directions, but only if I have to!"
 * Oddly enough, "Real Men wear Pink" is a promotional tagline for Joop! cologne.

Anime and Manga

 * Buccha from Air Gear wears a pink-and-white striped T-shirt.
 * There's an interesting detail in Appleseed Ex Machina. When Deunan, Briareos, and Tereus arrive at the ship of  in their landmates, Deunan is given an advanced prototype landmate for the final assault. Briareos says he would like to take that one himself, except for the fact that it is pink. They also get the assistance of a group of   soldiers, who all have their own landmates. Except for Argus, who takes Deunan's police landmate. Which leads us to the question why he doesn't use his own? Oh wait...
 * Axis Powers Hetalia--
 * Sweden is fairly domestic and good with children, specially the unruly Sealand. When he gives his partner Finland some of his clothes and the other remarks on their 12 cms. height difference, Sweden immediately grabs some sewing implements and calmly starts fixing them himself. Sounds okay, but... well, did we mention that Sweden is actually a huge Big Guy with a permanent Death Glare and Stoic Spectacles who scares people off whether he wants or not?
 * Also, Switzerland is a gun-toting Jerkass, but he wears cute pink pajamas. Which were given to him by his little sister Liechtenstein. Whom he *adores*.
 * And then there's England and his "fun embroidery".
 * In a (rather obscure, actually) Drama CD, America is naming all of the Allies after Power Rangers. He doesn't know who to pick for the pink ranger, but who volunteers? Russia. Who is not only the same height as Sweden, but also may enjoy bludgeoning people with wrenches and pipes. Russia is also seen cooking, wearing a pink apron with USA(rabbit) written on it. And just like England likes embroidering, Russia is seen happily knitting.
 * Germany is shown to love baking cakes.
 * Prussia loves cute things such as little birds, plush pandas and Italy.
 * Austria meanwhile is shown to be highly cultured, a good chef and more interested in gardening or playing music than fighting. If anything, his manlier aspects seem to be filled up by Hungary.
 * Guts from Berserk is so manly he can travel around with a little naked fairy and still oozes testosterone.
 * Bleach--
 * Chad who enjoys wearing pink Hawaiian shirts. He also loves cute things like stuffed animals and cockatiels.
 * Kenpachi Zaraki doesn't so much wear pink as carry a pink-haired child on his back. He even attends Yachiru's tea parties. He also spends hours attempting to get his hair perfect... by attaching little bells to the ends of his spiky hairdo.
 * Komamura Sajin actually LIKES human world's cute puppies show, which is like the doggy equivalent of one gritty bad ass liking Barbie Shows. Given that he's part-dog, that might have some...UnfortunateImplications...
 * Kyouraku wears a woman's kimono everywhere. The only time he ever takes it off (even throwing it to a friend for safe-keeping), it's an example of The Coats Are Off.
 * According to one of the data books, Kensei Muguruma is a very accomplished chef.
 * Mephisto Pheles from Blue Exorcist wears a pink and purple outfit, rides around in a pink limousine, carries a pink cell phone with little charms of cute animals, and has a pink parasol he brings everywhere. This is the same man who can restrain two berserk sons of Satan in seconds without much effort (note that one of them caused an earthquake earlier just from casually punching the ground while the other accidentally burns an entire forest using his Battle Aura). It's not like anyone dares to make fun of his taste in clothing. However, he seriously sucks at cooking. Just ask Yukio and Rin when their dorm's chef is away.
 * Absolutely every male character in Breakshot. From intimidating muscleman Oki to filthy cheater Isamu to main character Chinmi, as billiards players they're usually dressed in frilly shirts with flowers and little bow ties that would look more at home on a Playboy Bunny. There's something funny about a guy bragging about how strong he is while he's dressed like King from Art of Fighting.
 * Dola's gang in Castle in The Sky.
 * Jet Black of Cowboy Bebop is a big scary-looking ex-cop with a robotic arm who loves to cook and cultivates bonsai trees. Then again, Jet has so many hobbies—both manly and non-manly—he may count more as a Renaissance Man.
 * Parodied to death in, and rather the point of, Cromartie High School.
 * The Badass Anti-Hero of Darker than Black, known and feared throughout the underworld as the Black Reaper, who earned his reputation by killing dozens of contractors before he got superpowers, is a skinny, innocuous guy who loves to cook. Seriously, leave him in a kitchen with nothing to do for five minutes and he'll start chopping vegetables. Valuable skill for a Big Eater, especially since the show drops strong hints that it's the renumeration for his powers.
 * The anime of D.N.Angel features Krad with a pink petticoat under his outfit. A very obvious, frilly pink petticoat. The animators claimed it was purple, but no. Did I mention that this guy spends his spare time playing torturous mind-games with his other half?
 * DragonBall Z--
 * Satan / Hercule. Strongest human who isn't one of the Z-Fighters, Overprotective Dad, world martial arts champion (and Fake Ultimate Hero)... and a dog lover, who managed to turn Majin Buu into a good guy. By befriending him. No, not like that.
 * At the start of the Trunks saga, Vegeta, the second most powerful being in the universe, is shown wearing a pink shirt.
 * Mercenary Tao wears a lot of pink.
 * Knight from Duel Masters spends most of the first episodes in an all black ensemble to show off how cool he is. Later on he starts wearing a pink undershirt defending the change by stating "pink is the new black".
 * Maximum HOLTFORS Ballanche Kaien, Duke of Fates, the most powerful and badass headdliner in Mamoru Nagano's The Five Star Stories, repainted his Mortar Headd Akatsuki Hime deep fluorescent pink. On the other hand, Max isn't especially manly...
 * Major Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist, whose bishie sparkles are pink.
 * Full Metal Panic!--
 * Belfangan Clouseau. He's big, tough, imposing, states that good Arm Slave piloting should resemble art, and indulges in watching cute shoujo anime during his free time.
 * Lt. Cmdr. Kalinin seems to enjoy cooking, and looks badass doing it (although his borscht almost killed Captain Testarossa) and can scare off Sousuke while wearing a pink, frilly apron.
 * Nuriko of Fushigi Yuugi in every sense of the word.
 * Giant Robo: Kenji Murasame wears a leather trenchcoat and fedora—all in pink.
 * Gundam--
 * Quatre Raberba Winner is short, plays the violin and the piano, very polite, and somewhat feminine. He also pilots a badass Gundam, is The Smart Guy of the group, can handle himself with a rapier very well and becomes the de facto leader . And despite having a clear distaste for killing, Quatre's not a Technical Pacifist (or at least, not until The Movie, when the whole team starts acting that way), and probably kills more enemies than any two other characters in the show combined.
 * Treize Khushrenada took a rose bath on a regular basis. ROSE BATH.
 * George DeSand from Mobile Fighter G Gundam has a rose-themed Gundam, is extremely courteous and refined and looks slightly feminine... but he also adores playing Volleying Insults routines with Boisterous Bruiser Chibodee Crockett, loves fighting as much as the other members of the Shuffle Alliance and, when off-duty, is a badass fencer. By the way, he's French.
 * That would be because George Sand was the alias of a female french novelist and not a "real man", so as such it's also a kind of subversion.
 * Chibodee himself has naturally pink hair (well, pink bangs), and is a Badass champion boxer and major Chick Magnet. He's also the Queen of Spades in the Shuffle Alliance (and the former Queen of Spades also was male), admits being a Momma's Boy (due to a rather sad case of Missing Mom) and is fiercely protective of both Rain and his Four-Girl Ensemble crew.
 * Mobile Suit Gundam SEED has Athrun Zala who, like most pilots in Seed, is kind of a bishonen, but he is characterized by being the only pilot to pilot four different suits that are predominantly pink in color.
 * For that matter, the infamous Red Comet's custom paint job sure looks more pink than red. Lampshaded in the official spoof manga Kidou Senshi Gundam-san.
 * In color portions of the original manga, such as the covers, Inuyasha's Fire-rat suikan and hakama are pink.
 * Irresponsible Captain Tylor--
 * Master Sergeant Cryborne, a man who wouldn't be out of place in Frank Miller's Sin City, shamelessly parades around in a mech that he has painted bright pink.
 * Equally hardass First Lt. Andressen provides an even more absurd example. What would he be doing if he wasn't in the Marines? Nude modeling.
 * Both of these men acted like perfect gentlemen to Hitomi in her debut episode, going so far as to dress in nice suits & bring her flowers; might not exactly count, but it's worth considering.
 * JoJo's Bizarre Adventure--
 * As perhaps one of the more iconic manga and anime examples, Dio Brando, in Part 3, wears pastel colors, a heart tiara, heart shaped kneepads and belt-buckle... and he's still manly, and scary despite, or perhaps because of it. Dio is not the only example, and not even the pinkest.
 * His son Giorno continues the tradition by being a very badass and powerful gangster... whose outfit involves a heart-shaped chest cutout, a ladybug motif, and a hairdo that must require a large amount of time, effort, and hair gel to maintain. He also has a habit of standing in clouds of flower petals and striking campy model-esque poses, and a few official artworks show him dressed head-to-toe in, what else, bright pink.
 * The seven-foot tall Sociopathic Hero Kogarashi of Kamen no Maid Guy constantly wears a cutesy maid dress.
 * Akira Kongou from Kongoh Bancho spends all day gathering the finest ingredients (milking evil devil cows, climbing mountains) to make himself...the most delicious pudding ever. Man loves his pudding.
 * Kyo Kara Maoh --
 * Gwendal is a badass fighter and tactician with a glare of steel, but he loves cute things and his hobby is...knitting. Knitting cute animals. Which he does awesomely.
 * Meanwhile, Yozak is a really big guy with bulging muscles and a handsome, manly face, and is a terrifying and intense power with a sword in his hands, and he really likes to crossdress. Initially this was explained by his being undercover when introduced, but since he changes into an 'angel of mercy' costume for saving the survivors of an earthquake and is really, really not convincing with those biceps, and clearly enjoying himself, it's probably not a work thing.
 * Early in his first scene in the manga, before it's revealed that he's a Shin Makoku spy and Serious Mentor Conrad's old friend, he's shown sitting and laughing with Conrad, in his outrageous drag queen outfit. The main character mistakes it for a hookup and gives them space. Hilarious, especially once you know the background.
 * He brings an evening dress along on a dangerous mission to a snowbound mountain, as a good-luck charm because dressing as a woman has saved his life so many times. Same sequence where he has his most impressive sword fight.
 * CLAMP has another Tall, Dark and Snarky example in Lawful Drug: Saiga. He's also at least One Head Taller than his very feminine looking partner and always wears Cool Shades... but to Kazahaya's shock, Saiga is the one who is great at, and enjoys, sewing and cooking.
 * Shiro Takamachi of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, a ninja-assassin bodyguard that frequently took on terrorist organizations and has the multiple scars to prove it. Eventually retired after almost getting killed to become... the owner and baker of the local cafe that specializes in cakes, cream puffs, and other sweets.
 * Martian Successor Nadesico's main character, Akito Tenkawa, pilots a hot pink Humongous Mecha and is an exceptional cook—this is a man who made crepes suzette as field rations. He's not a Badass in any sense of the word, but out of all the things people look down on him for, his ride and his skill in the kitchen are not among them.
 * Mazinger Z: Kouji Kabuto, the Hot-Blooded hero, is a Chef of Iron, specially in the original manga, where it was shown he is the one cooks for his household. It is also implied that his cooking is pretty good no matter how ridiculous it is.
 * Chuzaemon from Mon Colle Knights is a muscular mohawked midget in his seventies who believes manliness is the highest goal in life and spends most of his time desperately trying to make Count Collection a proud man. He also grooms cats and dances ballet in a pink tutu, tending to be surrounded by rose petals when he does so.
 * Naruto--
 * Naruto Uzumaki likes gardening to the point he considers it a hobby (particularly flowers and common plants); which is surprising considering his personality.
 * Some non-Japanese fanboys refuse to believe that Ax Crazy demon-possessed Gaara has the word 'love' written on his head and get mad when fangirls draw him with a heart. "No, it must be something Badass like death, or suffering." Nope. It's love. Carved into his forehead by his sand-shaping powers the moment he finally broke after his . This symbolizes that he loves only himself and fights only for himself, prior to his Heel Face Turn. It has also been revealed that, like Naruto, he enjoys gardening.
 * Itachi likes to go to tea shops.
 * In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ryoji Kaji takes up growing watermelon as a hobby; he asks Shinji to keep it a secret, because he doesn't want his manly reputation to be compromised. Maybe his time spent with Misato left him with a taste for melons.
 * One Piece
 * Sanji is a five-star chef who is always impeccably dressed and has a pronounced tendency to turn into subservient, heart-eyed goo in the presence of a pretty girl. He's also a grade A Badass Dance Battler and in the top three fighters on one of the most feared and renowned pirate crews in the world. Oh, and not forgetting the pink apron with the panda logo or his Skypiea shirts. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
 * Ship's doctor Tony Tony Chopper famously sports a large pink hat that was given to him by his adoptive father. While he's not as powerful as Sanji it is highly recommended you don't piss him off because he will Mess. You. Up.
 * There's also Donquixote Doflamingo who wears a very pink feathery overcoat while treating people as puppets using what appears to be string based powers.
 * Kumadori is an odd case. Points to his manliness include his huge size and combat prowess (he is in CP 9, which doesn't exactly take just anyone). He has a bit of a Kabuki theater theme going on, which is not necessarily unmanly, and although his hair is a vibrant, hot pink, it's quite deadly. What's left? Well, he plays some kind of weird little palm-drum thing. And he's in quite a few shots with cherry blossom petals.
 * Not to mention Mr. 2 Bon Clay, AKA Bon-chan, a self-proclaimed transvestite who loves pink clothes and swan motifs. Also possibly the manliest character in the series.
 * General Ripper Akainu apparently wears a pink shirt going by one of the openings. As shown here.
 * The hero of the manga Otomen (a blend of otome = maiden + the English "men") has dedicated his teenage years to evading this trope and failing so, so utterly. He may look like the stoic ultra-manly Kendo Team Captain, but he gives cute bento boxes to the girl he loves and makes stuffed animals in a trance when he thinks about her. His best friend uses him as the model for the heroine of his hit Shojo manga series.
 * Later characters include very manly guys like Kitora, a tall and intimidating-looking Gentle Giant who loves flowers more than anything (or anyone) and Tounomine, Asuka's rival Kendo Team Captain who is obsessed with make-up and hair & skin care.
 * Senri, the silent goliath bear-man from the manga +Anima. He loves flowers, which he likes to use as bookmarks in his diary—they help him remember things. Being the oldest and the strongest, he's a protective Team Mom and a surprising male example of a Mama Bear who goes so far as to literally lick the wounds of his companions. Although, he seems to enjoy the taste of blood.
 * Pokémon Special--
 * Ruby, who participates in Pokémon Contests, regularly grooms his team, and even sews and trims outfits for man and 'Mon alike. Interesting case since we see the pink before we're given any hint to the man. Still, this is the son of Gym Leader Norman we're talking about.
 * In the anime episode "The Screen Actor's Guilt", action movie star Brad Van Darn (a Captain Ersatz of Jean-Claude Van Damme) owns a Smoochum. His manager fears that fans will ditch him once they find out... but when the truth comes out, his fangirls melt in a collective puddle of Squee and love him even more.
 * In The Prince of Tennis, we have Kabaji Munehiro, a huge giant at age 13, who enjoys knitting and considers Home Economics his favourite subject.
 * Ranma Saotome, from Ranma ½, is probably the strongest fighter in this continuity. Although he complains loudly about it, he clearly enjoys some of the possibilities his instant-sex-change curse gives him. Eating big, girly sundaes is about the only one he'll admit to. But, while he'll protest that he only goes to that extent because it's necessary, he does seem to get a thrill out of "seducing" men to get them to surrender some MacGuffin or other—and his favorite "disguise" is a pink dress.
 * He's also an excellent cook, though he never uses it, presumably because his Cordon Bleugh Chef and Tsundere fiancee would go ballistic if he constantly pointed the fact out (she does not take the initial revelation very well). He's also good at gymnastics, tea ceremony, sewing, and cleaning (to the point he will compulsively clean someone else's messy room, having to think about it to stop, not start, in the manga). Do note that many of these things (probably even the cleaning, at one point; it's a long series) were also forms of martial arts in which he's competed. So if he has to learn something girly and emasculating like knitting to fulfill his goal of being the best at every form of martial arts ever, so be it.
 * Somewhat closer to the title of the trope, in the anime one of the outfits Ranma most commonly wears is a short-sleeved pastel-orange shirt and little red bowtie. Keep in mind that this is the same practitioner of Supernatural Martial Arts who can punch you over 500 times per second, move so fast you can't even see him do so, smash through concrete without noticing and not only withstand a blow that should have broken every bone in his body, but be capable of fighting on at full capacity mere moments later.
 * Drake Anderson from the Read or Die OVA is a badass, gruff mercenary capable of taking out super-powered enemies in hand to hand combat, surviving helicopter crashes without a scratch, and is outright feared by Paper-users for his prowess against them. He also enjoys pottery, sightseeing, and classical literature.
 * Rurouni Kenshin:
 * Kenshin Himura is short, wears his long hair in a ponytail, always wears his pink kimono, cooks, washes the clothes, and cleans around the dojo... and he's the fearsome Battousai the Man-Slayer. In the Japanese version of the anime, he's voiced by a woman.
 * In the manga, Nobuhiro Watsuki claims he based Kenshin on Genzai Kawakami, an assassin during the bakumatsu who was short, thin and easily confused with a woman... he used it to his advantage by crossdressing and hiding at Geisha Houses after killing.
 * Also of note is that in the manga, Kenshin is constantly mistaken for a woman, despite carrying a sword around (which was forbidden at the time) and having a big badass scar on his face. He also serves as a babysitter to Dr. Gensai's granddaughters (exclusive to the anime as near as it can be told).
 * Bontenmaru from Samurai Deeper Kyo can literally rip a man in half with his bare hands. He hangs out with several Badass killers, and reads shoujo manga.
 * The Terminator of Seto no Hanayome initially crossdresses as a schoolgirl in attempt to understand his beloved daughter's heart through Moe Moe stereotypes. Initially, because he inexplicably continues to wear the outfit in future appearances. He's the freaking Terminator, though, with laser beam eyes, so it isn't like anyone (besides his daughter) is ever going to call him out on it. He even really does wear pink . ..
 * In Sonic X, Sonic apparently has a fondness for flowers. He even uses this to taunt Knuckles at one point when he was tricked by Eggman (again) and challenging Sonic to a duel, and later on in the series Sonic gathers a bunch of flowers and puts them in a vase at Chris's house. Later still he gives Amy a bunch of flowers.
 * Ryuuji from Toradora!! is well-known at school for having the Face of a Thug and an intimidating presence, but in reality he's a proud House Husband who likes to cook while wearing aprons (including a pink one), and can often be found cleaning the school bathroom with a toothbrush and doing the household sewing and shopping.
 * In Weiss Kreuz Side B Ken Hidaka, the team's resident Big Guy, is a former professional soccer player and ex-convict who kills people for money with a pair of steel Wolverine Claws. He likes his job. He also likes cookery, adores small children, appears to have unilaterally decided Kurumi is his surrogate sister and, like the rest of his team, has a cover job as a florist.
 * Volume 9 of Xxx HO Li C reveals that Tall, Dark and Snarky Doumeki used to dress like a girl when he was little. Of course, being the unshakable master of deadpan that he is, Watanuki's attempt to rub this in his face backfires spectacularly.
 * Yu Yu Hakusho--
 * Kazuma Kuwabara is a man's man, but he still has a soft spot for cats...especially his pet kitten, Eikichi. Not to mention he is one of few men who will loudly, without ANY hesitation whatsoever, proclaim that he does what he does for love. Even calls himself a Warrior of Love several times.
 * After ridding himself of his old man disguise, the Beautiful Suzuka monologues in this choice of attire in the Dark Tournament. He follows that by blowing up a section of the crowd.
 * Minamoto of Zettai Karen Children takes care of The Children, including cleaning and cooking in a frilly apron. He also has been known to use drill-equipped trucks, crocodiles and other improvised weaponry when pushed beyond his limits.
 * Galvatron, the Big Bad of Transformers - Beast Wars II, is totally PINK. He even transforms into a giant pink dragon (make of that what you will). Despite that, he is a deadly serious villain, and in his dragon form, a rampaging unstoppable monster attacking friend or foe. Well, except when he is sleeping - which he does for most of the series.
 * Eguchi, the main character of the popular biker gang series Shounan Bakusozoku (aka Bomber Bikers of Shonan), isn't just the leader of the titular biker gang but also of his school's handicraft club.
 * Yawara Chatora, aka Tiger, from the Forest Training Camp Arc of My Hero Academia. The sole male member of the Wild, Wild Pussycats, he is a big, tough, muscular Drill Sergeant Nasty who... wears a dress.

Comic Books
"Kev: I thought they'd be hard as fuckin' nails. Tony: They are, Kev. But they've got fuck-all to prove to anyone."
 * Done by implication in a JLA comic by Mark Waid: Bruce Wayne is meeting with Clark Kent in Japan, and Clark introduces him to a young Japanese woman named Hino Rei. Bruce immediately recognizes "her" as the Martian Manhunter, both because of his Martian body language, and, as he put it, "The name's a dead giveaway". Now think about it for a second, and wonder what Batman watches in his spare time...
 * And then there's his deep, dark secret...
 * The Martian Manhunter himself is often a source of this type of thing, being a stoic but sensitive Warrior Poet who loves eating cookies. More specifically, Choco cookies. Mmmmm.
 * Not to mention as mentioned above he has a secondary secret identity with a name taken from a Sailor Senshi.
 * Superman pretty much gets away with his garish primary-colored costume because he's...well...Superman. Insulting him for not having a badass gritty costume like Batman's that would just make you look like an idiot.
 * Played with by Garth Ennis in The Magnificent Kevin, in which the title character finds himself in a pub with some colleagues shortly after joining the British Army. The pub is full of manly men, drinking beer and showing off their tattoos... and then in the corner are a couple of blokes sitting quietly, playing dominoes and drinking lemonade. Kev's mate Tony explains that they're in the SAS.


 * And in the same universe, Midnighter: the leatherclad, nigh-unbeatable, Majestic-level superhero with a penchant for slasher smiles and gleeful dismemberment, and probably the most roundly feared of all the Wildstorm protagonists. Also, openly gay and fond of experimenting with his hair.
 * From Adam Warren's Empowered, there's the goddamn Maidman, who's Badass enough to fight crime wearing a maid's costume and stiletto heels. Imagine Batman in drag, and just as feared and revered. That's what you're dealing with here. Also very serious about his laundry. Because bleach doesn't get out bloodstains.
 * Everyone knows Steve Rogers, right? The accept-no-substitutes Captain America, paragon of all that is good, patriotic and manly, a statuesque, muscled beacon to heroes the world over... and enthusiastic artist. He was a professional illustrator occasionally when he had a secret identity, and once ended up drawing his own (licenced) comicbook. Let's face it, if Captain America does it, it's not girly: it's awesome.
 * That may derive from Most Writers Are Male, as the guys making the comics want to be seen as manly, so what could be more manly than something done by Captain America? And if it's manly, Cap has to do it, so he illustrates and because illustrating is manly the writers... aso.aso.
 * Issue #225 (9/1978) shows Cap as not always being a seemingly stereotypically macho man. He was also often described in other origin retellings as being sickly, frail and avoided rough play as well as spending a lot of his childhood avoiding bullies through staying inside drawing (and being teased for having such interests, so in one origin retelling it was stated that art was a secret hobby) and having his childhood best friend Arnie Roth as his protector. So while art isn't necessarily a "feminine" interest, it does get treated like one for him and is a strong link to his past. And as for the icing on a cake, in issue #2 (4/1941) Steve shows while undercover an ability to knit.
 * Leslie in Liberty Meadows cries while watching Touched By an Angel, but changes the channel to a wrestling match and starts grunting when Ralph enters the room. Of course, it would be hard for Leslie to be described as a Real Man, even if he weren't a frog.
 * Though with a name like Leslie, his masculinity is probably called into question now and then.
 * Harsh gangster Suhnshyon Tzang in Bowling King is fierce, competitive, and intimidating. He also loves Britney Spears music and wears facial make-up often.
 * As revealed in Marvel Comics' Holiday Special, Wolverine bakes.
 * Although it's possible that it only affects alternate Wolvies, Exiles stated he also likes karaoke and doesn't talk about it. And also in the series, Morph mentions that Mimic knows too much about figure skating than any male superhero should.
 * Considering how much time Wolverine has spent in Japan, it would be weird if he didn't enjoy karaoke.
 * Roadblock from G.I. Joe is a world-class patissier, or pastry chef, and is an expert in many other forms of cuisine which he uses in his secondary duty as a military cook. He's also extremely large and powerful in his primary duty as an infantry machine gunner and can lug around a M2 Browning machine gun (which is typically used as a squad weapon since the whole thing with ammunition weighs 134 lbs) as his personal weapon.
 * The unquestionably badass Gung Ho is probably the hardest and meanest Joe of them all. He's also a mama's boy whose real name is Ettienne R. Lafitte and whose first language is French (he's from Louisiana).
 * Hey, ever picked a fight with a Cajun? Don't.
 * According to the comic book, both Roadblock & Gung Ho were at one point choir boys in their respective churches. Complete with frilly ruffled robes.
 * I also hear Roadblock occasionally offers body massages.
 * Taskmaster. The man has beaten Captain America (comics), Spider-Man, Iron Man, and many others by copying their move-sets and sheer trickery, dual-wields pistols and weaponry on a daily basis, and wears a (fake) skull as a mask. He enjoys the Spice Girls. That is all.
 * Hulking cyborg soldier Matt McCoy in the Street Fighter comics from UDON enjoys gourmet cooking and playing acoustic guitar in his spare time. His commander, Colonel Wolfman, is a scarred Badass who wears a one-piece legless leotard and has fabulous hair
 * In Big Bang Comics, Batman Captain Ersatz the Knight Watchman makes a living as a famous women's fashion designer. And on top of that, he lives with his grandmother. The Golden Age version added a yellow background to his insignia to make it look friendlier, too.
 * The Blue Blade in The Twelve. Truly, only a real man could wear frilly shorts, a cape, and a huge feathered hat, with boots and gloves, on national television.
 * And eyeliner, according to the sketchbook notes in either issue 1/2 or 1/4.
 * Sgt. Fluffy, Agent of S.C.H.M.U.C.K., from Normalman. In his own words, a "heart-poundin', front-facin'" uber patriot and super action hero (he leaves out the part where he's a violent lunatic, but whatever), wears The Wizard of Oz style red sequined pumps throughout the series.
 * According to Hercules, real god-like heroes should wear skirts. But read about Omphale in the Mythology tab below...
 * The living incarnation of Destruction in The Sandman gives it all up and tries his hand at creation; painting, dance, and flamenco guitar, among other hobbies. It all goes rather badly until he turns out to be quite a talented gourmet chef.
 * The X-Men's strong man Colossus is not only an artistic painter, he was also shown in the X-mansion kitchen preparing to make quiche in Uncanny X-Men #171. This was about a year after Real Men Don't Eat Quiche came out.
 * The Mighty Thor always reads florist magazines while waiting for the local tailor to repair his cape. Of course, his wife Sif is an earth goddess—she probably got her husband involved in her interests.
 * Like getting their hair curled the same way.
 * Commander Prothero in V for Vendetta is a formidable man - who collects dolls.
 * The Last Czarnian, Lobo, who once killed, barbecued and ate a whole planet full of Easter Bunnies, once shed a single tear just thinking about his beloved space dolphins.
 * In the comic book Nexus, put out by First Comics back in the 80's, there was a character called Judah "the Hammer" Macabbee, a professional wrestler who once fought a championship match and between rounds demonstrated how to bake his prize-winning souffle.
 * In Sin City, we have Marv who was a virgin for most of his life and Wallace who often got comments about his "hippie-hair". Both men are probably the deadliest characters in a world filled with Testosterone Poisoning.
 * Meet Cable, the embodiment of the Nineties Anti-Hero. He likes his guns big, his women hot, and his tea parties smashing.
 * Green Lantern Kyle. Based on some of his constructs, the guy reads a lot of Shojou.
 * In Transformers, the Generation 1 Marvel Comics, there are quite a lot of Decepticons who wear pink - but are scary/buff enough to let this be acceptable: Fangry is an Axe Crazy psycho, Carnivac is a badass turncoat, and Spinister is the cool professional.
 * Marvel Comics' sentinel-from-the-future, Nimrod, was a big pink robot. He was also one of the deadliest opponents the X-Men ever fought; just surviving a fight with him was an accomplishment.

Fan Works

 * In The World in Black and White Ichigo is like this. How manly is he? He is a Vasto Lorde class hollow and it is greatly implied that he is the one doing the household chores and cooking while not gallivanting around Hueco Mundo.
 * Gabriel Blessing's brilliantly done The Hill of Swords is a Fate/stay night and The Familiar of Zero crossover that has FSN's Emiya Shirou gain a reputation for being murderously competent on the battlefield... and enjoying washing dishes, clothes, and cooking. Those who know of his reputation usually have to fight their way past a BSOD moment the first time they encounter him humming along while performing such tasks.
 * Ryan Lee from Futari wa Pretty Cure Dragon is a tough-as-nails martial artist who will go to any lengths to protect his friends. He also attends a girls' school, wears ballet shoes with his school uniform, and has been studying aikido, which is a graceful and dance-like martial art, for years prior to the story. He even wears pink in numerous episodes (not counting the pink skirt he wears with his school uniform), including a couple of episodes where he wears a leotard.
 * There is a Pokémon ROM-hack called "Manly Pink Version". Its mascot is Audino.

Film
"Little John: Let's face it: you gotta be a man to wear tights!"
 * In the first Police Academy movie, Gentle Giant Moses Hightower was a florist (he owned a flower shop) before becoming a cop. Rule of Funny in this case.
 * As suggested by the title of Mel Brooks' Robin Hood Men in Tights, Robin's Merry Men discover this as they struggle to adapt to their standard-issue pantyhose.

""It takes a very secure man to walk like that""
 * Sid in Toy Story wears all black, tortures his toys and terrorizes his sister, but in his sleep, dreams about "riding the pony". A subversion, because he has plainly not yet learned to embrace that side of himself.
 * From the third movie, Lotso is a purple teddy bear who runs with an iron fist, and the clothing-obsessed Camp Straight Ken is one of the toughest guards.
 * Miss Congeniality

"Tallahassee: Have you ever read that book "She's Just Not That Into You?" Tallahassee: I haven't cried like that since Titanic.""
 * In The Longest Yard rugged, badass, and violent inmate Torres (played by the wolfish Lobo Sebastian) shamelessly enjoys watching... Joy Behar's all-female talk show The View, much to the other prisoners' surprise.
 * Grossberger, the hulking mass murderer in Stir Crazy. While feared by the entire prison, Grossberger proves to be a softy, quickly befriending the main characters and singing a soulful rendition of "Down in the Valley." Actor Erland Van Lidth was himself a bit of real-life version of this trope, being a professional wrestler as well as a classically trained bass-baritone opera singer.
 * Briefly toyed with in Ocean's 13, when Rusty and Danny Ocean watch Oprah and get a little choked up.
 * Rufus Excalibur ffolkes in North Sea Hijack is a misogynist counter-terrorism and hostage rescue expert and trainer... and keeps cats and does needlepoint embroidery of kittens to while away the time. It might have had something to do with being raised by a maiden aunt along with his five older sisters.
 * In Demolition Man, John Spartan was implanted with the skills and desire to knit during his prison sentence. He knits a sweater for Huxley as an apology and feels sheepish about it. Played totally straight in that it's stated in the movie that he was given sewing skills because it was determined he had an aptitude for sewing, and would enjoy it if he learned how.
 * High School Musical: "Creme Brulee!"
 * In In Like Flint superspy and ultimate ladies man Flint doesn't just like ballet, he teaches and performs it.
 * In the New Zealand film Stickmen (it's about Pool sharks, FYI), there is a character who frequents all the hardest bars wearing a bright pink shirt. No one mocks him for this...cause he's an Ax Crazy martial artist who's happy for any reason to beat seven shades out of any fool he finds, and a pink shirt is prime Schmuck Bait.
 * Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in Red Heat is a tough Russian policeman with a pet parakeet. He becomes enraged when someone inadvertently suggests a parakeet might be better for a young girl.
 * In the original Angels in the Outfield Pirates manager Duffy McGovern (Paul Douglas) is a foul-mouthed bully who'd make a good "Before" poster boy for anger management. He also has a pet parrot named Joe who says "Good morning" politely. He says he only swears when he's annoyed, and Joe never annoys him.
 * The opening shot of Pumping Iron shows Arnold Schwarzenegger and his training buddy Franco Columbu in a ballet class.
 * In the Jude Law remake of Alfie, he says at one point "If you ooze masculinity, like some of us do, you have no reason to fear pink. "
 * The White Russian, even though now it's associated with The Big Lebowski and it's cult to the point that it's easy to forget that in The Nineties, The Dude may as well have been ordering a Grasshopper or a Pink Squirrel.
 * In Get Shorty, Ray "Bones" Barboni spends much of the movie dressed in a hot pink blazer and seems to have an affectation for pastel clothing in general. Bo Catlett, meanwhile, has a pink toilet and obsesses over his pristine white carpet. They're the villains of the piece, and very brutally violent people.
 * In The Rundown, the Rock's character is a bounty hunter who wants to open a haute cuisine restaurant.
 * Mr. Holland's Opus: The football coach minored in Modern Dance in college and choreographs the big dance number in the school musical. He also shrewdly uses it, because people will be expecting his football players, who he trains for the play, to be stumbling all over the stage and will come for the spectacle... but be blown away by the dancing.
 * Mr. and Mrs. Smith: John listens to Air Supply and graduated from Notre Dame with an art history degree.
 * In Mike Myers' comedy The Love Guru, tough hockey player aptly-named Jacques "Le Coq" Grande,, seduces Prudence Roanoke by singing a Celine Dion song, cooking pizza, fondling and caressing her all the time and generally being so nice to her that other men in his place would look like wussies by comparison. While he did not.
 * Hot Fuzz: Nicholas Angel certainly qualifies. His by-the-book badassery is tempered only by his diligent maintenance of a Japanese peace lily, at least until Danny offers some better alternatives.
 * In Iron Man 2, Vanko apparently likes cockatoos—to the point that one of his conditions for working for Justin Hammer is "I vant my boord", and when Hammer gets him one that isn't the one he had to leave behind in Russia, he is annoyed—but ends up taking the bird anyway.
 * Robert De Niro's character in Casino often wore pink jackets.
 * Steven Seagal's Casey Ryback in Under Siege and especially Under Siege 2 is a world-class chef.
 * John Wayne wore a pink shirt or bandana in quite a few of his Westerns. And in El Dorado, when he relaxes in a cantina, does he join a poker game? No, he plays dominoes with a couple of ladies.
 * Tangled has a song, "I've Got a Dream", that's all about a bar full of hard-nosed, leather-wearing, heavily armed brutes reveling in their sensitive sides.
 * Woody Harrelson, as Badass zombie killer Tallahassee in Zombieland has his moments.


 * Who can forget Jones and his frilly pink apron from Twenty Eight Days Later? Oh and he's a soldier.
 * One of the background racecars from Cars is a male pink car that sponsors Tank Coat.
 * The Ipcress File was criticised at the time for showing a badass spy who cooked gourmet food both for himself and to impress women. The viewing public didn't mind and these days people hardly notice.

Literature
"As a preparatory initiation ordeal he had to parade the principal business streets of Kingsport for a whole day wearing a sunbonnet and a voluminous kitchen apron of gaudily flowered calico. This he did cheerfully, doffing his sunbonnet with courtly grace when he met ladies of his acquaintance. Charlie Sloane, who had not been asked to join the Lambs, told Anne he did not see how Blythe could do it, and HE, for his part, could never humiliate himself so. "Fancy Charlie Sloane in a `caliker' apron and a `sunbunnit,' " giggled Priscilla. "He'd look exactly like his old Grandmother Sloane. Gilbert, now, looked as much like a man in them as in his own proper habiliments.""
 * Rhett Butler of Gone with the Wind is a pretty Badass guy, known for fighting, messing with loads of girls and general non-legal stuff. He also always knows the latest French fashion trend, which he's willing to share with anyone who cares to listen. The book even makes a point of the fact that despite that, no one doubts his manliness.
 * In Captain Underpants, the school football team are such fans of Barney Captain Ersatz Boomer the Purple Dragon that they change their team name to the Purple Dragon Sing-Along Friends. As the author points out, who's going to argue with a bunch of linebackers?
 * Butler, a hulking Badass Normal and Battle Butler in Artemis Fowl, claims to only enjoy reading soppy romance novels—apparently, books with action and explosions and helicopters and stuff like that remind him too much of real life.
 * His favorite movie? Not something like Die Hard. It's Some Like It Hot
 * Discworld is full of people who fulfill this trope.
 * In The Truth, Mr. Tulip is a giant bruiser who can barely think, whose every second word is "--ing" (literally) and whose brain is constantly fizzing with what he thinks are awesome drugs, but show him any antique or work of art and he'll be able to instantly identify the period, creator, history and technique, as well as whether or not the particular example is genuine or a copy, and will often burst into tears because of how—ing beautiful it is.
 * In Unseen Academicals, the Dimwell fan colours are bright pink and green. Nutt theorizes that they're a deliberate attempt to pick a fight.
 * Captain Carrot Ironfounderson, a six-foot tall Dwarf, has all the typical Dwarf traits: a dedication to polishing his armour, a great admiration of all forms of craftsdwarfship (from bakery to jewellery to the latest in fashion), and enough upper body strength to drive his sword through the Big Bad and right through the three feet thick marble pillar behind him. More uniquely "Carrot" traits involve starting a youth football club (among the violent street gangs of the world's worst ghetto), setting up a "volunteer" scheme to do things for the elderly (the "volunteer" helpers are convicted murderers on a community service scheme) and arresting the rulers of Ankh-Morpork several times (including the Dragon who took over the city and the head Thief of the Thieves' guild).
 * Oh, and one time he tried to arrest Vetinari himself.
 * For parking improperly. Because Carrot is the only person who's read the laws of Ankh-Morpork.
 * Although the time he arrested the head thief was an accident; he was new to the city, and once they explained the Guild system to him there was no more trouble with it.
 * Wee Mad Arthur, a three-inch-tall Feegle raised by gnomes who loves ballet, opera and visiting art galleries and . He also terrifies full-sized humans, and anyone who tries to step on him never tries it twice.
 * In Witches Abroad Nanny Ogg mentions that her gigantic hulking barge of an eldest son, the town blacksmith Jason Ogg, knits socks in the evenings. Of course, he's still, you know, a guy with minivans where his biceps oughta be; the socks he knits can stand up without feet in them, and can be used to kick down walls in times of incarceration or boredom.
 * In the Phule's Company novels, Sgt. Escrima is an exceptionally talented chef, and chose his Legion name for his preferred fighting style (involving two sticks), which he teaches to other members of the company. Do not criticize his cooking unless you enjoy pain, since he's been known to hospitalize would-be food critics.
 * Zillah from Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite is an incredibly badass vampire who impregnates several women throughout the story, who's always described as "beautifully androgynous" with long hair he ties back with a purple scarf.
 * A Song of Ice and Fire features many examples of this trope. Knights in Westeros pimp out their armor to show off their wealth, often covering themselves in garish colors. Renly Baratheon wears green armor to bring out his eyes, and Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, covers himself in roses, his house symbol. Thoros of Myr takes the trope literally by wearing his red robes long after they have faded to pink. House Bolton takes the trope to an extreme level. One of their house colors is pink, meant to represent the human skin that they flay from their living enemies. In the Slaver Cities, the warrior caste subvert the trope by wearing ridiculous hairstyles...and leaving the actual fighting to the slaves.
 * Billy Bright, the leader of the hooligan firm in Football Factory is a florist. Sure it also helps as a front for his drug trafficking.
 * Glen Cook's Garrett P.I. series has a pair of twenty foot tall grolls (half-giant, half-troll) Dumb Muscle brothers named Doris and Marsha.
 * This is what happens when Gilbert Blythe pledges a fraternity in L. M. Montgomery's Anne of the Island


 * The YA novel Flipside gives this an interesting spin. The protagonist has spent most of his life as a wallflower, and timidity is built into his basic identity. When in female clothing, however, he no longer feels like himself, so he can adopt any identity he wants—and the identity he wants is an assertive, dominating one. In other words, dresses make him more manly!
 * The third chapter of Please, Jeeves opens with Jeeves reading a romance novel instead of one of his "improving books". Because we all knew that that Rosie M. Banks collection didn't really belong to his aunt.
 * According to the novelisation of Iron Man 2, Ivan Vanko likes Nu Pogodi, and when he fails to find it in America, gets his cartoon fix from Johnny Test amongst others.
 * Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby, an Oxford graduated high-class and manly man, wears pink suit. It sends Tom into disbelief.
 * In Patrick F. McManus's story "The Blue Dress," Rancid Crabtree has his clothes stolen while swimming and is lent a blue dress by a widow to wear while he hunts down the thieves. He tells the kids that all he had to wear when he was in elementary school was a "purty polka dot dress" handed down from his sister Clementine. When asked if he got laughed at for wearing a dress, he answers "only once."
 * Chris Wohl from Dale Brown's books, a big and fearsome Marine, knows how to look after kids.
 * In Aaron Allston's Galatea in 2-D, C.J. not only teaches them all guns, he does all the cooking—recruiting Dylan, the only other competent cook as backup.
 * How have we managed to get this far without mentioning Finny from A Separate Peace? Doesn't anybody remember the scene where he shows up in a pink shirt and with his school tie as a belt?
 * In Vorpal Blade, former Command Master Chief Miller is working as a florist after leaving the US Navy, at least in part chosen because it's a job where he's not going to wind up meeting people that wind up dead.
 * Benjamin Mayhew of the Honor Harrington books is the Protector of the planet of Grayson. He survives an assassination attempt, saving Honor's life in the process, drags his planet through their own version of the Meiji Restoration, and stands as a rock for the commoners to rally behind. His hobby? Flower arrangement (and the hybridization of orchids).
 * Benet in The Magic Thief is hired muscle for the main character's mentor. He's big, he's quiet, and he's known for glaring angrily at just about everyone. He also makes yummy biscuits (for which there is a recipe included in the back of the book) and knits in his spare time.
 * Gem from the Dancing Shoes series of books is a preteen boy who does ballet. Except he's not gay and a typical boy his age who is the love interest for the main girl Lucy.
 * In Dean Koontz's Whispers, one of the side characters is a former drug-dealing Scary Black Man who got out of prison and made a fortune designing dresses and other women's clothing. He mentions that even before he was arrested, his girlfriends always got more compliments when they let him pick their outfits.
 * A line in A Very Potter Musical become Hilarious in Hindsight when you learn that Quirrell used to press flowers before he snuffed it. Let me remind you this is the same bloke who lived a year with the Dark Lord, a man who does not love and is evil incarnate, sticking of the back of his head. Pressing flowers.
 * This recently became Ascended Fanon: on Pottermore pressing flowers is listed as one of Quirrell's hobbies.
 * A minor character in The Heroes of Olympus called Butch, a bulky dude with a shaved head and a face like a pile of bricks. His mother is Iris, the Rainbow Goddess. Got a problem with that?
 * In an opening segment of Cheers, two tough looking guys order banana and strawberry daquiris; Cliff can't help but laugh, and he really regrets it.

Live Action TV
"Angel: There's just one thing... I always liked your poetry. Spike: You like Barry Manilow."
 * On Pushing Daisies, Emerson Cod, a fairly archetypal Private Detective, loves to knit. He's also a big fan of pop-up books. He also wears a bright magenta floral shirt, though no one wears drab colors on the show anyway.
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus's Lumberjack. He's a lumberjack and he's okay, he sleeps all night and he works all day, also skipping, jumping, pressing on wild flowers, putting on women's clothing, hanging around in.... BARS??? -- err, he also wears high heels, suspenders and a... a BRA!?!? Ah screw it, I'm going home.
 * This guy is a lumberjack! The descendant, of course, of Pirates! Who were also known for this trope. See, they were mighty and vicious. And when they looted, if they found any expensive clothing like a noblewoman's dress, it was unlikely that they would be able to dock somewhere and sell it, being wanted men. So they wore it. It's not like anyone would laugh at them, and they can't exactly buy new clothes regularly themselves.
 * Lord Flasheart from Blackadder; an Ace who likes cross-dressing.
 * Crony from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. Tough guy, bully's um... crony, and sewing club member.
 * Jack Donaghy in Thirty Rock once had a collection of cookie jars, but had to get rid of them.
 * Sonny Crockett (and, by extension, Don Johnson) pulled off pink and other pastels on Miami Vice. Part of this is it was South Florida in The Eighties, where you could get away with that sort of thing.
 * Spike, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, has hobbies that include chain smoking, heavy drinking, brawling, gambling, and... watching soap operas and writing rather effusive poetry. He also likes his cocoa with the little marshmallows in it. This in no way diminishes his level of Badass. He also loves those little onion flowers in Chinese restaurants.
 * That's because those little marshmallows are excellent.
 * And everyone knows vampires love writing bad poetry.
 * So wait, what about this trope, then?
 * That was caused by... other things. Quite a few of them, actually.
 * Nope, he liked all that before he was a vampire (except the soaps, as television did not exist yet), and anyhow, he is still a bad ass hottie who likes cerebral pursuits. Most vampires are a part of this trope. If nothing else it's their Armani duds.
 * Angel, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, admits that he once found a ballet so incredible he cried. Back when he was still the soulless Badass Angelus. Angelus also likes to draw, though admittedly most of his drawings are meant to be left behind to creep out his adversaries. Still, there's no evidence that he had any artistic talent until after losing his soul (and being immortal gives one lots of time to practice). Finally, at a karaoke bar where you sing to reveal your soul to someone who will then read your destiny, he picks Barry Manilow's "Mandy", because he thinks it's "pretty".

"Gunn: I was cool before I met y'all."
 * Gunn also became quite the fan of the ballet when he went to see it.

"Wash: A man walks down the street wearing a hat like that, people know he's not afraid of anything."
 * Easy-going funny man B.J. Hunnicutt of Mash spends about half his screen time actually wearing a pink shirt. He also spends a lot of time darning socks, though that may be more out of necessity than choice. Also, there's this.
 * Daniel Meade of Ugly Betty sure does wear a lot of purple for a straight man. Who works in fashion, admittedly.
 * Eliot Spencer of Leverage—unstoppable hurtin' machine, liberator of Croatia, regular taker-out of entire gangs of armed men, may have once killed a man with an hors d'oeuvre -- will have to be forcibly prevented from going after you if you insult his cooking. (He also appears to spend quite a lot of time on his hair.)
 * In The Runway Job, Eliot wore guyliner. He was in character, of course...
 * Michael Westen, resident badass of Burn Notice, has a lot of pink shirts, to Agent Bly's amusement. Apparently you can still get away with that in Miami twenty years after Miami Vice...if you're a badass ex-spy.
 * Ianto Jones of Torchwood, who not only frequently wears pink shirts, but also coordinated his ties and three piece suits. While not prone to violence, he did once taser a man in the head because he was holding Captain Jack and the rest of the team hostage, and shot a teammate to prevent him from risking all their lives. Also supremely badass, he head-butted a cannibal who was threatening to eat him.
 * Firefly's Jayne Cobb is a musclebound hulk, an amoral mercenary, a seasoned combat veteran, a crack shot with a rifle or pistol, and a brutal streetfighter. He also wears brightly-colored bobble hats with earflaps that his mother knits for him.

"Subordinate (showing Casey a ream of pink fabric): "How about this?" John Casey: "No, no, no. That'll clash with the bunting.""
 * It's technically known as a tuque. Jayne puts it on and remarks, "Pretty cunning, don'tcha think?" Google "Jayne's Cunning Hat" and you'll find hundreds of tuque patterns posted by Firefly fans who can knit.
 * This extends to another character who fits that description: thanks to a Team Fortress 2-playing Firefly fan, the Heavy Weapons Guy can sport Jayne's hat too.
 * Mal also crossdresses in the episode "Our Mrs Reynolds" and seems to like that pink bonnet of his. Later in the episode he implies with apparent fondness that he's done so before.
 * YMMV on Mal, though - part of the script that didn't make it past the Fox Executives suggests the only reason Mal's in the dress is because his Lancer, the even more badass and intimidating but not quite manly Zoe refused to wear it.
 * Chuck: John Casey's "pet" bonsai tree. Played by the same actor as the aforementioned Jayne Cobb, the 6'4", built-like-a-brick-Buick Adam Baldwin.
 * I think that's more an allusion to the fact that bonsai keeping is a sniper tradition, owing to its cultivation of patience, attention to detail, and focus on a long-term objective. Which itself is drawn from the samurai practice noted in Real Life below.
 * John Casey also was a choir boy in his youth and has perfect pitch. Adam Baldwin does a great job of looking and acting badass - in addition to Firefly and Chuck, there's also Full Metal Jacket and Angel - but between character traits like this being played for laughs and the way he often needs to be rescued by the amateurish Chuck just because he's the eponymous hero, Casey's badassness is subverted as often as it's played straight.
 * Also, he is apparently quite skilled at wedding planning and decorating:

"Nate: Aren't you curious to know what it says? Chuck: I think I can guess. "You're a disappointment of a son. I'd die of embarrassment if I wasn't already. Why do you wear so much purple?""
 * Casey is also an excellent cook, especially when it comes to quiche.
 * Mike from Spaced owns this trope. He's a tough-guy gun nut who was kicked out of the T.A. for trying to invade Paris in a stolen tank... and on various occasions he happily joins in Marsha's step-aerobics, cooks in a novelty apron, and of course actually wears a tight pink tank top. Add this to his overly protective attitude towards Tim...
 * Another cooking example: Tendou Souji from Kamen Rider Kabuto, a man so badass that time itself bends to his will, is a gourmet chef and enjoys cooking for his little sister.
 * Kamen Rider Decade's costume is primarily white, black, and (you guessed it) pink. One of the webisodes lampshades this by having Tsukasa/Decade, frustrated at everyone calling it pink, insist that it's actually magenta; given that photography is an important theme of the show, this might actually be the case, especially since The Rival Diend is cyan-colored.
 * Of course, that same net movie jokingly claims that the show's producers made Decade pink because Real Men Wear Pink, citing their boss, who's wearing a bright pink three-piece suit.
 * Not to mention the fact that Tsukasa often wears pink ("MAGENTA!!") clothes in his day-to-day life, including a pink gi when in Hibiki's World.
 * Tezuka/Raia from Kamen Rider Ryuki.
 * Roderick Spode from Jeeves and Wooster has the public image of a not-genocidal Hitler stand-in, but his actual day job is, a secret that Bertie and Jeeves use to blackmail him at the beginning of season 2, even though Jeeves is initially the only one who knows what "Eulalie" actually means.
 * Don't let the pompadour, organic cooking or tricked out leather jacket fool you. Bobby "Elvis" Munson is as badass as any other member of the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club.
 * Speaking of Sam Crow, Tig Trager—professional killer, perverted sex god, bare-knuckle badass and owner of the most evil-looking facial hair in the Western hemisphere—seems surprisingly at ease wandering around in a pink robe.
 * Gene Hunt from Life On Mars has some very nice pink shirts.
 * Pink was the yuppie shirt colour in the 1970s West Midlands in the early 70s - along with a drooping Zapato moustache and a Jenson Interceptor.
 * In Arrested Development, the Scary Black Man bounty hunter ICE (a recurring character) got into bounty-hunting to jumpstart his first love...a professional catering business. Although he's not a terribly effective bounty hunter, he is more than capable of beating people up and looking intimidating.
 * The martini-guzzling, womanizing Deadpan Snarker Roger Sterling on Mad Men gets mani-pedis, and tries to defend this when he senses that Don is judging this as "feminine."
 * In Scrubs, Turk used to take ballet; the other surgeons were a bit surprised at first then give him a pass when he waves this off as agility training for sports but give him crap about it when JD says that he not only enjoyed it but also loved wearing the tights.
 * Louis the Lilac from Batman. He has the demeanor of a tough guy mobster complete with cigar. He also wears lavender suits, works out of a flower shop, and is intent on cornering the flower and perfume industries.
 * The West Wing: When  was being eulogized one of the characteristics his friends remembered was his fondness for pink shirts.
 * On Gossip Girl Chuck Bass frequently wears pink, but even more often wears purple. Enough for him to make this comment about a letter his father left him along with his will:


 * Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It, a complete and utter bastard who is feared throughout Whitehall thanks to his liberal use of Cluster F Bombs and Country Matters, his regular threats to cut his colleagues' hearts out with spoons, and the occasional bit of good old-fashioned Glaswegian violence. When he isn't doing all of this he is busy unnerving his male co-workers by flirting with them incessantly, and at home he is into cooking and interior design. Best of all, he once shouted out "DON'T TOUCH THAT SCARF, THAT'S PAUL SMITH!" during a fight. Oh, and no one dares to laugh at him when he runs like a girl.
 * He also happens to be played by a Real Life example: Peter Capaldi is an art school graduate, is rather fond of literally wearing pink, and has described himself as "an incurable old fop". One would never guess from seeing him in character as Malcolm.
 * Albert Lambreaux in Treme is a stoic construction contractor who isn't afraid to brawl with the police and hunt down a thief to beat him within an inch of his life. He's also the Big Chief of a New Orleans Indian tribe, who prance around in outrageously garish feather costumes during certain holidays. At one point, his son has to reassure him that his tribe will be "the prettiest" at the next event.
 * The Lexx universe dials this trope Up to Eleven. I mean, just look at the battle wear of the renowned Brunnen-G warrior race. Or of badass rebel leader Thodin.
 * BBC 2's The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Two guys who look pretty much like All Bikers Are Hells Angels ... travelling around the UK to look at local recipes.
 * One of the Bikers, Dave Myers, is a double example: before becoming a TV presenter, his career was as a TV/film make-up artist.
 * On Weird Creatures, naturalist Nick Baker wore a flouncy-looking black kilt while searching the outback (unsuccessfully) for the rarely-seen marsupial mole. Both he and the locals chuckled over this trope, though he insisted it was merely a good way to keep cool.
 * In Community episode Interpretive Dance Troy learns how to be manly while still enjoying his dance class.
 * Barney in Barney Miller often wears a pink dress-shirt.
 * Dean from Supernatural is a badass demon hunter...who admits to watching Oprah.
 * Worf of Star Trek: The Next Generation has moments like this. He's very proud of Klingon poetry, which surprisingly, is romantic and sentimental instead of epic and bloody. According to Worf, Klingon men in general are expected to be able to recite romantic poetry since it plays a major role in mating rituals. Worf also loves prune juice, which he believes to be a warrior's drink. All Klingon men also, love opera and perform tea ceremonies, though their concept of it is a bit different than ours: while they recite the love poetry, their lovers crawl around on the ground growling at them like wild animals and throwing heavy objects at their head. Their most romantic opera is about their equivalent of a messiah, Kahless, and his wife standing back to back and slaughtering an army before making love among the corpses. And the tea of the tea ceremony is a lethal poison watered down by the tea to just at a survivable level.
 * Shawn Hunter from Boy Meets World is a troubled kid from the wrong side of the tracks. He also admits to writing secret poems to help express his feelings and having "thought about" crossdressing so much that he already has a name for his female alter-ego, "Veronica", and years later he is the go-to guy for advice on crossdressing, when Eric wants help.
 * Gai Ikari from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger likes Pink pants
 * And Don "Doc" Dogoier wears a fair amount of pink.
 * As well as Joe likes to bake.
 * And in their third movie the whole team turns into pink rangers.
 * 7th Heaven has an episode where "The Colonel" comes to the Camden house and does all the domestic things they've gotten behind on. He says that the army taught him how to do that stuff.

Music

 * Weird Al Yankovic's "Truck Driving" song plays this for laughs, with the song starting out talking about a manly truck driver... who wears high heels and various other feminine accessories.
 * Monty Python's "The Lumberjack Song".
 * Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" is a country music song about a boy named Sue by his absent father. In it, Sue hunts down his absent father to find out why and learns it was done specifically so Sue would grow up strong, which he did, thanks to constant fights with bullies.
 * Manowar's cover of "Nessun Dorma". It works surprisingly well.
 * Cam'ron, a rapper with subject matter consisting of crack sales and gangsta lifestyles, began the whole pink phase in Hip Hop. Initially people mocked his style before swagger jacking it completely. Soon after it became uncool and thankfully died. Ironically Cam'ron was one of the first to stop wearing pink.
 * An unnamed rogue in a song from Cranius has this. The entire song and video is about how most rogues prefer to kill all day, but he would rather be out picking flowers.
 * Brad Paisley's "I'm Still A Guy" is either a Deconstruction of this trope, or evidence that he's unaware of its existence.

Mythology

 * Surprisingly, this trope is Older Than Feudalism, at least. As punishment for killing somebody, Genius Bruiser Hercules is forced into slavery to Queen Omphale for a year, who forces him to wear women's clothing and help with the weaving, while she wears his lion pelt and waves his club around. He doesn't complain too much, because, honestly, who's going to make fun of Hercules for wearing pink?
 * The punishment was "just" the slavery, but she married him when she saw that the "slave" she had bought was a hero. They actually were in love with each other, which was the explanation for why he accepted said genderbending stuff.
 * He ain't the only one, either. Achilles spent a good part of his life pulling a Sweet Polly Oliver per orders of his overprotective and worried mother, who wanted to keep him from dying in the war. Odysseus unmasked him by disguising himself as a vendor and exhibiting swords and jewelry to the local girls—Achilles was the only one in the crowd who chose the weapons.
 * Dionysus is the god of wine. He parties all the time and dresses like a woman (how can you tell if they all wore robes? It was the color). Oh, and if you fail to show him the proper reverence he'll have his minions (drunk, horny women) tear you to shreds and eat you.

Newspaper Comics

 * Played with in Pickles: Nelson wishes he owned a unicorn, and his grandparents question his burgeoning sexuality. It turns he made the wish "because it has a sharp horn and kills things."

Professional Wrestling

 * The color pink is practically a staple of the Hart Wrestling Family. Bret "The Hitman" Hart is known as much for his distinctive pink-and-black singlets as he is for his incredible matches. This started when he was tagging with Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, one of his brothers-in-law and a more overt badass. Younger brother Owen Hart later got in on the act.
 * The Hart Dynasty, consisting of David Hart-Smith (son of "The British Bulldog" and Diana Hart), Tyson Kidd (one of the last graduates of the Hart Family Dungeon before it closed down) and Natalya Neidheart (daughter of the aforementioned Jim) also wear the color pink.
 * On a more outlandish, character-based level, WWE, for a short time, played host to Vito, a six-feet-tall, bald, musclebound Italian Badass—who liked to wear frilly dresses, and who was often referred to as "the toughest man to ever wear a dress". Debate still rages on whether this was Kayfabe, or a Real Life preference of Vito's, especially since, rumor has it, after he was released from WWE, he attempted to negotiate a contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championship with the rider that he would be allowed to compete in a dress. Of course, the gimmick came about at the same time a mobster on The Sopranos was revealed to be gay, and WWE likes ripping off pop culture for character ideas. On the other other hand, it might have started as a gimmick but the wrestler who played him might have grown to like it.
 * An earlier WCW storyline saw Perry Saturn (a bald, heavily tattooed wrestler), lose a Loser Wears a Dress match and subsequently start wearing black latex-looking skirts. If the story from Chris Jericho's autobiography can be believed, Saturn wanted this change in character. Several years later, he was shot twice saving a woman from two men attempting to rape her. And barely even noticed until the officer on scene pointed out the wounds. To help drive that last point home, the bullet wounds were discovered in his neck.
 * Saturn was a legitimate Army Ranger before he became a wrestler.
 * He's also legitimately crazy; the guy just disappeared from his life and was found years later working at a door factory.
 * In a similar case, Darren "Droz" Drozdov lost a match where the stipulation was that the losers had to wrestle their next match in drag. Droz discovered he liked it. The thing came to an end after Droz challenged anyone on the roster to a nightgown match, and Al Snow agreed - with the stipulation that the match had to take place under hardcore rules.
 * In a more subdued, borderline case, when the 6'7", 300+-lb Batista wears his impeccably-tailored suits, the shirt or tie is often pink. And that works for him.
 * WWE had also once the skirt-wearing Headbangers. This was back when kilts were big among metalheads... but what The Headbangers wore could only be considered kilts if one were especially charitable.
 * Their t-shirts even had a variation of the trope's name on it: "REAL MEN WEAR SKIRTS".
 * The same can also be said of some of Raven's "kilts" in his WWE and earlier TNA runs.
 * And then there's the guy who started it all back in 1941: Gorgeous George
 * Yutaka Yoshie. Big scary dude. Wears a neon pink singlet.
 * Diamond Dallas Page, three-time World Champion Wrestler, practices yoga daily, and has co-authored a book on the subject.
 * Rey Mysterio Jr has several outfits in shades of pink and purple, and admitted in an interview to collecting perfumes and cologne. In the same interview, however, he also showed off his sword collection and vaguely implied having enough skill to be able to shave his beard with them.
 * A number wore feather boas, like Hulk Hogan and Jesse Ventura.
 * Jeff Hardy has worn almost every color under the sun whether it's on his clothes, in his body paint, or dyed in his hair.
 * ROH and WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan Danielson is a vegan, a socialist, about 50 lbs lighter than the average pro-wrestler, and born in Nirvana's home city. Yet he's the greatest technical wrestler alive today, and can easily dominate men twice his size with submission moves.
 * John Morrison, master of Le Parkour (Hey it's manly), incredible high flier, possessor of epic abs, Jim Morrison impersonator, lover of fur lined, glittery coats that go down to his feet.
 * Mick Foley is known for his no holds barred style of wrestling and bloody traumatizing hardcore matches. He's also devoted fan of Tori Amos and a volunteer counselor for RAINN, an organization that helps survivors of sexual assault. He also possesses an extensive collection of kitschy Christmas knick-knacks.
 * Who can forget Kaval and his pink polo shirt?
 * WWE can.
 * The "Macho Man" Randy Savage wore pink tights for his match against Ricky Steambot at Wrestlemania 3.
 * Not exactly pink, but Triple H's purple trunks from 2003 deserve a mention.

Tabletop Games

 * Warhammer 40,000 uses this frequently:
 * The Emperor's Children are sadistic, evil, merciless, traitorous junkie rapists. They also wear hot pink armour and have a thing for velvet.
 * That's because pink on black is one of the few colours that has any impact on their perception. Spending ten thousand years as a Sense Freak will do that to you.
 * The Dark Eldar are even worse than the Emperor's Children... and they wear a lot of purple and take pride from how classy and cultured they are.
 * The regular Eldar are nearly as bad, and they're even more cultured and classy than their Slaaneshi kin.
 * The Pretty Marines take this concept to its logical extreme.
 * The Blood Angels Space Marine chapter have a strong appreciation for things like art, poetry, and music, when they are not on the battlefield.
 * Exalted's Malfeas; fallen king of the Yozi, font of unending and eternal rage, and lord of the dance.
 * When lesser beings channel Malfeas' powers, they must be used for destructive, ruinous, needlessly brutal, overwhelming, intimidating, terrifying and cruel (and so on) purposes—and for playing music and dancing. His powers do not work for any other purposes. Ligier, his core aspect, is embarrassed about the fact that Malfeas likes dancing.
 * The Brujah in Vampire: The Masquerade are the most aggressive and militant of all vampire clans. The Brujah antitribu are an offshoot working for the brutal, inhuman Sabbat. As shock troops. Guess what color the Brujah antitribu use in their clothing as a sign of clan affiliation? PURPLE.

Theatre

 * In The Rose Tattoo, Estelle Hohengarten orders Serafina to make a man's shirt out of a piece of rose-colored silk. When Serafina objects that it's not a man's color, Estelle tells her, "This man is wild like a Gypsy." Serafina later discovers to her outrage that Estelle's man was her late husband.

Video Games

 * Adam Jensen, the main character of Deus Ex Human Revolution - his trademark Badass Longcoat is inscribed with artistic roses.
 * Mr. Champloo of Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice makes Home Ec the most Hot-Blooded subject there is.
 * Cloud from Final Fantasy VII really fits the trope. Because real men crossdress.
 * There is also Sephiroth. As Crisis Core tells us, real men use a whole bottle of perfumed shampoo and conditioner daily and then smell of roses and vanilla.
 * Final Fantasy XII: Reddas - real men wear pink pants.
 * Final Fantasy IX: Zidane has pink fur while in his Trance state.
 * Shinjiro Aragaki in Persona 3 is very fond of cooking and is a regular viewer of the family cooking show—although, as shown in one of the omake videos in the FES expansion pack, he would have preferred the rest of SEES not to realize this.
 * He's also a big softy when it comes to animals. Take him to the film festival, and his response to the "Amazing Pet Adventure" films is a shocked, "The river... it just... washed that dog away..." He then turns to keep you from seeing him cry.
 * BlazBlue: Adding to the list of videogame chefs is...Ragna the Bloodedge. Yes, that Ragna.
 * And in the spiritual precursor Guilty Gear, there's Potemkin. More powerful than an armored division, capable of delivering four tons of pressure with two fingers. Now, you might be asking, "Two fingers? How would that be common knowledge?" And no, so shut up. Well, it's because of what he dislikes: pencils that can't withstand said four tons of pressure. And his most treasured possession: a pencil case that can withstand being trampled by a dragon. He's an artist, and apparently quite an avid one.
 * Iron Tager, a tricked-out, super-strong cyborg. One of his hobbies? Making ships in a bottle.
 * Deconstructed in Persona 4 with Kanji Tatsumi, The Big Guy whose interest in crafts and sewing caused him to be mocked by others for not being "manly", which in turn led him to cultivate a tough and violent attitude, which still caused others to reject him, this time out of fear. It also gave him a bit of a complex about his sexuality thanks to people assuming that his hobbies are a sign that he's gay.
 * The Player Character can play the trope straight, since depending on the player's choices he can be a very good cook and work at several part-time jobs involving caring for children, and he can also be quite gung-ho about the cross-dressing competition.
 * Super Robot Wars: Elzam V. Branstein Ratsel Feinschmecker: Real Men are gourmet chefs. And ride each other.
 * Leaving canon and entering the realm of Memetic Mutation, he and Sanger make pretty badass Idol Singer... robot... warriors.
 * Only real "men" (bioroids, actually) of Shadow Mirrors have the gall to ride on the battlefield riding an angel-shaped mecha with skirt and boobs, painted on PINK (I'm talking about Lamia's girly mecha Angelg). You won't see it in OG, though, you only see it in Advance, and only if you use Axel.
 * The uber-manly yet pink-clad Dan Hibiki from Street Fighter. On the other hand, Dan was clearly meant as a Joke Character, so his pink uniform is more of a jab at his worthlessness as a fighter.
 * Unless you use him in Marvel vs. Capcom, Street Fighter Alpha, or Street Fighter IV, that is. Lethal Joke Character ahoy!
 * Regal Bryant of Tales of Symphonia is the Team Chef of the group, and is also The Atoner who could kick your ass With His Hands Tied. (And he does, in fact. Regularly.) Not to mention he wears a... belly shirt.
 * Zelos runs around in a pink vest shirt. He also has very nice hair.
 * Try Reid, from Symphonia's spiritual predecessor Tales of Eternia. Pink, embroidered "man-bra", as it has been described elsewhere on this wiki. The boy can cook, which is as well, since he's also a Big Eater. And he's as close as the team has to a Team Mom, serving as a cautious, responsible foil to Farah's brash impulsiveness and Meredy's childish curiosity and enthusiasm (compare to every other series lead). He also has a good case to be the straightest-played lead in the entire series, and he's got the potential to wield the power of Seyfert.
 * Jowd wears a pink artist's smock in Ghost Trick. Though, arguably, when you're in jail for murdering your wife, your manly reputation is probably not such a big deal.
 * Ace Attorney's Miles Edgeworth embraces his trope as he wears a magenta blazer with matching trousers. And on the off-chance that it's actually red, there is also his totally-not-sissy-but-incredibly-manly ruffles. In one Breaking the Fourth Wall commercial, he has a pink Nintendo DS.
 * All of the buttons on the touch screen of his own game are magenta/pink.
 * Subverted, however, with his half-way closeted love of the children's Show Within a Show The Steel Samurai. Edgeworth spends a lot of time trying to pretend he doesn't like it as much as he does.
 * Furio "The Tiger" Tigre from Trial and Tribulations. Ruthless loan shark and spiked-haired lawyer impersonator extraordinaire... drives a pink moped.
 * Detective Tyrell Badd, a grizzled noir man in a zany world, a Memetic Badass whose very name has 'bad' in it...constantly sucking a pink lollipop. It does not at all detract from his manliness.
 * Not to mention Phoenix in his dashing blue suit... and pink tie.
 * Arachnos Spymaster Vridian in City of Villains loves his soap operas and is not ashamed to admit it.
 * Marluxia from Kingdom Hearts may have auburn-pink hair, a penchant for flowers, and the ability to confuse gamers, but trust us when we tell that his huge-ass scythe isn't for show.
 * Some of the gender confusion was alleviated in Re:Chain of Memories when he gains a manly voice in both versions.
 * Real knights also wear pink, as Ragnar of Dragon Quest IV will have you know.
 * The warriors in Dragon Quest III also wore pink armor with wings on the helmet, whether they were a gigantic, stern-faced man or a temperamental, no-nonsense woman.
 * Kirby proves real men ARE pink.
 * One of Captain Falcon's alternate costumes in Super Smash Bros. is pink. His Falcon Punch isn't fazed one bit by this.
 * Similarly, one of Snake's palette swaps is a neon pink-orange camo suit. You don't get any manlier than Snake.
 * Dedede looks like a straight out pimp in his pink outfit. (even has the Playboy logo on the back!)
 * Might be there only because Kirby is pink, but there is a pink color for Meta Knight - the Badass of the Kirby series.
 * Donkey Kong's only item of clothing is a monogrammed tie, which can be pink with the right team color.
 * And then there's "Gayweegie"...
 * Real men use items.
 * Jack Turner, Mighty Glacier and bad guy overall from the Art of Fighting games is portrayed like this in his (English) Art Of Fighting 2 ending: The "Neo Black Cats" gang that he talks about is actually going to be, unbeknown to his followers. Not necessarily canonical, though, as most of the English endings for said game seem to be jokes.
 * Suikoden's Georg Prime, the world's greatest swordsman, has an incredible sweet tooth. He even has cheesecake in his inventory when he joins you.
 * Castlevania: Newer protagonists are far too pretty to count, but the oldschool Belmonts fit this perfectly, seeing how they were brawny macho men who ventured out to battle evil in outfits that would have been considered somewhat revealing on a female character.
 * Real men wear tiny leather mini-skirts!
 * Amano Hyo from Last Blade wears a flamboyantly pink kimono patterned with bright red flowers. His weapon is only a stick, and he doesn't see this as something bad, because it means he can slam people over the head with it even more than required by a better weapon before they're knocked out.
 * Annoyingly, he tends to show up about half way through the game, which makes him the first serious opponent. Also, there is actually a sword inside that stick...
 * Shinobi on the Game Gear had a Pink Ninja. His Weapon of Choice? Bombs, bombs, and more bombs.
 * Starman from Pro Wrestling. While his entire skin is pink (in addition to a purple painted star on his face), he is an accomplished acrobat.
 * Roy Koopa, probably the biggest and meanest of the Koopalings from the Super Mario Bros games, is also bright pink and wears magenta shades.
 * In New Super Mario Bros. Wii his shell has been recolored a darker purple... the top of his head and shades are still pink, though.
 * In former instances of Koei's Dynasty Warriors franchise, Blood Knight Lu Bu's costume always fittingly consisted of gold, red and... purple? In the lastest sixth installment of the series, he dropped the purple for a mostly black and red full body armor, but instead got some nice make-up. Of course, nobody would ever dare to question Lu Bu.
 * Ikaku Madarame of Bleach wears similar eye-makeup. It's shorthand for "Bad Ass" in both Chinese traditional theater and Kabuki theater.
 * Link, in several installments of The Legend of Zelda, wears tights...or no pants at all. Hey, ya gotta be a MAN to wear tights!
 * In real life many medieval societies had men who wore skirts without being seen as feminine (indeed woman wearing them might've been considered cross-dressing). It's possible Hyrule is like them, with might make this not this trope.
 * And in the The Legend of Zelda Four Swords mythos, when he draws the Four Sword and is split into a quartet, one of the Links dresses in lilac purple.
 * When he enters the Dark World, in A Link to the Past, he turns into a pink rabbit. The best part: it is explained in game that your form in the Dark World represents your inner self. In that same game, Link's sprite also has pink hair (though this may be due to a limitation of the SNES's palette at the time).
 * Street Fighter's Hugo and his family from Final Fight and various other Capcom games wear trademark leopard-print tank tops. Doesn't help that licensing issues resulted in his constant companion Poison being declared a transsexual.
 * Almost every male in Valkyria Chronicles has some of this about him. Team Captain Welkin loves going on nature hikes and has discovered six new insect species, and big man Largo, who carries around the VC equivalent of a bazooka as his personal sidearm is an avid vegetable grower and actually gets combat bonuses from standing near vegetables.
 * It's... arguable how Badass No More Heroes' Travis Touchdown is, but any anime-loving Troper has to respect how he can go out and kill people while wearing a pink ensemble of made-to-order merchandise for his favourite anime. Incidentally, it's the most expensive outfit.
 * Also, his favourite anime is a Magical Girl show featuring incredibly Moe characters, and if Sylvia's comments are anything to go by he knows how to give massages too. He also loves his cat.
 * Judging from Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Solid Snake is into women's figure skating.
 * However, given the figures necessarily required for said women to remain athletically competitive, this might be a subliminal subversion that flows nicely with the programmers' tendency to put up photos-as-posters throughout the series...of their wives in highly revealing swimsuits/underwear.
 * Big Boss likes cute things, a little more than you'd expect. In Metal Gear, he insists on asking Snake if the enemy uniform is a 'cute little sailor suit', and in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater he loves the Ga-Ko camo, because "What's wrong with being cute?" He also develops a fondness for the Oyama face paint (which emulates a woman's makeup), and - let's not start on the "Love Pack" in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker.
 * From Flashback, we have Conrad Hart, a fearless government agent who fights aliens. He wears a pink shirt in all versions except the Genesis and Sega CD ports.
 * Ace Combat 6 has downloadable Idolmaster-skinned planes, including a pink F-22, but none of these are Joke Characters.
 * Gryphus One from Skies of Deception has a cutesy cartoon bird on his insignia along with the Southern Cross.
 * Unzan of Touhou Project is a giant pink cloud. He's also by far the manliest character of the series that has had any screentime at all. Granted, that's not a crowded field, but still...
 * Doom: The original berserker-packin' man-and-a-half's reason for blowing up hell? The demons killed his pet bunny. Named Daisy. Seriously, play the fourth episode of Ultimate Doom and see for yourself.
 * While not ripping the faces off of representatives of the living dead, Lovecraftian horrors, and/or demon lords, player characters in World of Warcraft may spend their free time learning to cook, sew, and pick flowers. And yes, there is pink armor.
 * Herbs. Grognok gather herbs.
 * Paladins are notorious for getting the pink treatment. Their Tier 5 armor set from the raids in The Burning Crusade was all bright sparkly lavender in color. Their Tier 10 armor set from Wrath of the Lich King features a plate skirt. And in the default raid U.I., every character's name appears in a different color based on his/her class: warriors are tan, priests are white, mages are light blue, etc. ... guess what color paladins are!
 * In Fate Stay Night Archer himself, epitome of manliness, enjoys cooking, cleaning and making tea. Not that he really gets the opportunity to do so more than ten minutes into the game or so but...
 * As does Shirou, who also owns a pink apron on top of it. Although the housekeeping side of him is only shown before he starts doing anything badass.
 * He still does quite a bit even after he starts fighting. At the end of the Unlimited Blade Works route, right before the final battle, Shirou decides to get pumped up for the fight... by cooking everyone a gorgeous dinner. Also, in  Heaven's Feel, he starts to make a big meal for everyone, and this is after he
 * Minsc from the Baldurs Gate series, a hulking beast of a man whose weapon of choice is a BFS, has a pet hamster. Named Boo. He also takes time out from smashing bad guys with a sword longer than the average troper is tall to watch said hamster play with squirrels.
 * Although he is more a Man Child with a strong hint of the Cloudcuckoolander than Manly Man.
 * Sengoku Basara--
 * Chousokabe Motochika is leader of an infamous Pirate crew, sports a Badass Eyepatch of Power, beats his enemies to a pulp with an Anchors Away and has abs you could grate cheese on. He also wears a full pink and purple ensemble, complete with Flower Motifs. Plus his sobriquet is the "Demon of the Western Sea". When he was younger? People called him "Little Princess".
 * Then there's Maeda Keiji, a six foot-tall muscle bound tank who fights with sakura petals, wears flowers in his hair, has an adorable pet monkey, and frequently gives heartfelt speeches on Love Freak, even while he's brutalizing enemies with his BFS.
 * And these two are some of the manliest characters in the series!
 * Duke Nukem kills robot armies, kicks alien ass, and shits down their throats... he also likes to watch Oprah, and wore a pink vest in his original incarnation.
 * In Pokémon, the female Nidoran line is indigo, while the male line is pink/purple.
 * In Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, a big burly Roughneck trainer named Kirby is in the Lost Tower and has a Cleffa as his lone Pokémon.
 * Cormano Wild, from Sunset Riders, is a Mexican who wears a hot pink sombrero with a lighter pink poncho. And he's a shotgun-toting badass who breaks empty tequila bottles over his own head.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog. In Sonic X and its comic adaptation, as a Mythology Gag based on him being a defender of nature in the original games, Sonic really loves picking flowers. Striking compared his fellow franchise characters and especially considering his Personality Powers.
 * The most notable example is the Sonic X episode 9. In both versions, Sonic's friends go for a day at the beach, while he goes on a hike before laying down in a field of flowers. He returns with two flowers, putting them in a vase and exclaiming how beautiful they are and how they match the room interior perfectly.
 * Lampshaded by Knuckles in the English dub of episode 5, in response to Sonic brandishing a flower.
 * In Sonic the Hedgehog The Movie, "Sonic's favourite clothes" are shown. They're pink.
 * Sten from Dragon Age Origins killed an entire family with his bare hands, wears massive plate mail, wields a large two-handed sword, is a bad ass warrior ... and enjoys relaxing with a little flower picking.
 * Leliana notices and has several dialogues where she tries to come to terms with him being a 'softie', as she puts it. We don't believe him when he says the flowers are 'medicinal'. Also, Sten likes cookies, and plans to introduce them to his homeland. As well, Leliana teases him after catching him playing with a kitten, despite his protests that he was "Merely helping it train..."..."Sof-tee..."
 * One of the quests in Ultima VII has a man accused of stealing a the honor flag of a fighter's guild. To save him from dying in a duel, the player can take his place or convince a retired soldier to sew a new one. It is strongly implied that the soldier shows true valor, as most of the other fighters are merely concerned about fighting duels.
 * Mass Effect has the potential to make every single male squad member into one of these, with the infamous pink Phoenix armour. This includes Shepard, naturally.
 * Mass Effect 2 includes the ability to customize the colors of Shepard's armor—so you can invoke this trope yourself by giving male Shepard hot pink armor.
 * And the opening includes Kaidan in a set of heavy Phoenix armor if he is alive and Liara wasn't romanced.
 * Jacob Taylor enjoys watching Old Yeller
 * Sukapon, the Main character of Joy Mecha Fight, is a pink comedian robot.
 * Malik of Tales of Graces has a very special DLC costume. It needs to be seen to be believed.
 * Isaac Washington from House of the Dead: OVERKILL. Scary Black Man and Badass Cowboy Cop who blows away mutants with Guns Akimbo, is on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Big Bad for killing his father, and almost literally can't go a minute without dropping a Cluster F-Bomb. Also manicures, hates bugs, and was visiting his mom when the mutants attacked.
 * In Sigma Star Saga, a Kril wearing gold insect wings is a pretty girly thing, as the females grow these when in love. Said wings are detachable, and are sometimes given as a gift to her boyfriend. The average Male Kril wouldn't wear them, but Star Pilot Recker does, and with pride. The powerup is even called Girl Wings.
 * Captain Reginald von Winslow, the sun-baked old seadog in Tales of Monkey Island, wears pink frilly underwear.
 * According to the dye descriptions in Fable II, pink is an ominous color in Albion. One dye color is 'Insatiable Butcher Pink'. Dyeing all of your male avatar's clothes in it subtly increases how much the civilian populace fears you.
 * Mira Han's mercenary company in StarCraft II has all its armor and uniforms painted pink. Like the hair of their boss.
 * Hagel Boldness of Atelier Rorona (and reappearing from many other Gust games) is a huge, burly man's man whose massive, tree-trunk-sized arms were built working the forges... and who is not at all sensitive about his lack of hair, likes to design cute, frilly dresses in his spare time, and breaks into tears just thinking about dear ol' mama. And there's nothing the least bit unmanly about any of those things, got it?!
 * Among the list of insults that Umberto levels at Tommy in Grand Theft Auto Vice City is the claim that he is exploiting this trope, dressing effeminately so that people will assume he's a tough guy.
 * The Pink Knight wades into every battlefield, slaying countless enemies and powerful bosses dressed in pink armor and firing off rainbows and stuffed animals as magic.
 * Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress currently don't have any tastes in fashion programmed in, so it's perfectly normal for them to pick up and put on the most expensive clothing available, regardless of make. Which means it's pretty typical for your horde of Eldritch Abomination-slaying,  angry beer-soaked beards on legs to be wearing a superbly-dyed masterwork silk dress under their full plate armor.
 * Raven from Tales of Vesperia wears a pink shirt and a purple Badass Longcoat.
 * In Episode 2 of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, during the cutscene following Charles' defeat, Gabe (who is a brute in his 1920s incarnation) comes out of the kitchen with a pie, while wearing a pink apron and pink oven mitts.

Web Animation

 * Strong Bad enjoys bubble baths and baking. And owns a pink shower cap with a cherry-red heart print. In his case, however, it's more proof of how he fails to be as cool as he thinks he is.
 * For that matter, his big brother Strong Mad qualifies. 7 feet tall? Check. 100,000 pounds of muscle? Check. Ability to lift A.T.M.s, chomp computers, and bash your face in? Check to the third power squared. Purple singlet??? Check mate.
 * In the Lady Lumps VS Boy Bumps video Metro City, Mike Haggar's clothes are burnt off in a car accident, so he makes a skirt out of the fire like any real man would.

Web Comics
"Li'l Sis: "You're more secure in your masculinity than I thought." Indie Pete: "Like a vault! Of testicles!""
 * "Real men wear pink" is practically Donovan Deegan's Catch Phrase, especially given that it dominates almost his entire wardrobe, from suits and dress coats to a "banana hammock" and a complete set of pink scale mail armor. Yeah. Really. His honorary orc name actually means "little pink man in pink", and the orcs affectionately refer to him as "Uncle Pinky".
 * Indeed, in his first appearance, it's one of the first things he says..
 * Ken, the drunken, BFS wielding Sociopathic Hero of No Need for Bushido is revealed to have a passion for Kabuki theatre and berates the other members of his group for a lack of interest in high culture. Said group includes a feudal princess.
 * Black Mage of Eight Bit Theater recently redecorated the Temple of Fiends. This is his room.
 * Not to mention Red Mage's crossdressing, and the fact that he had a specific female name he wanted to be called by.
 * Sluggy Freelance
 * Bun-bun takes the Killer Rabbit trope to such Sociopathic Hero and Jerkass extremes that it's a little unsettling when he acts like a cute widdle bunny.
 * He's also been known to wear pink silky dresses.
 * Lord Horribus of the Dimension of Pain has a teddy bear called Mr. Boo-boo. According to a presumably non-canon guest artist story, he also has a thing for unicorns. This is all the more extreme considering that he belongs to a species that feel Good Is Bad and Bad Is Good so strongly they are repulsed by the smell of flowers.
 * Big Badass Wolf Reynardine from Gunnerkrigg Court seems to be in denial about this. In public, he protests that "Reynardine The Great does not play with dolls!"; in private, he arranges tea parties with Kat's Hellboy, Batman, and Fox Mulder action figures. In public, he's seen reading classics like El Cid; in private he reads Nancy Drew with barely-concealed glee.
 * Then again, we see him doing stuff like this.
 * Indie Pete tries to invoke this trope by wearing pink in Diesel Sweeties:


 * Sparklelord from The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is a unicorn with a rainbow horn and mane from a magical dimension called the Radical Land, and is named Sparklelord. You should fear him. (Also, his Baleful Polymorph form (which is more of a forced Form You Are Comfortable With) is a frickin' sweet motorcycle.)
 * Manly Guys Doing Manly Things, which is about Manly Guys of video games attempt to find work in real life. The main character, Commander Badass, repeatedly points out that it's far more manly to be a decent human being (and caring father) than a macho jackass.
 * He also watches cartoons with his daughter and develops strong opinions over Jem's dating habits, among other things.
 * Before fine tuning his rogue skills, Rocky from Our Little Adventure worked making flower arrangements with his father.
 * Belkar Bitterleaf, the Ax Crazy mass-murdering psychopath ranger from Order of the Stick who multiclassed to Barbarian and describes himself as having two skill sets, killing things and gourmet cookery.
 * Let's not forget his beloved pet cat
 * And of course, Vaarsuvius, whose magic aura is bright pink. If V is a he, that is.
 * Karkat Vantas from Homestuck is a brash, rude, and no-nonsense dude. Who happens to love romantic comedies.
 * The post-scratch version of Bro Strider seems to love ponies. He's shown to have done a MST of a book about ponies, and a look into his room reveals that he has horse-themed posters, including a picture of Rainbow Dash.
 * Daren of Wapsi Square is a big, rather muscular guy as well as a bartender. He also has a rather interesting taste in movies.
 * Alex Rayne from Wright As Rayne wears a big purple trenchcoat when in his own body. He even states to a friend that he "Adores purple." And Alex is a Badass Normal superhero.
 * Taken perhaps to its logical conclusion in Questionable Content: Angus uses hot pink condoms. "Angus: It's really more of a puce."


 * A Sentai team in The Non-Adventures of Wonderella notes that Pink is for VENGEANCE!

Web Original
"Yugi: "There's nothing girly about the Dark Magician Girl, and only Real men use Watapon..." Jaden: And oh, FYI, Yugi, I’ve been taking ballet for six years regardless"
 * The "Pink Pulverizer", seen in Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog wears a pink mask, boots and boxing gloves. His bedroom is also pink, and filled with teddy bears and lace bedsheets.
 * A pair of fuzzy bunny slippers are a part of Doctor Steel's lounging wardrobe. (He's also been photographed with a teddy bear.)
 * Arkada of the Desu Des Brigade, a Canadian internet reviewer of anime that makes peanut butter by smashing peanuts off of live Narwhale's skulls, is a fan of Princess Tutu and Fruits Basket.
 * Professor Otaku tops him by being a Super GALS! fan. And it seems he enjoyed the heck out of Tutu as well.
 * Lester of Awkward is a big fan of Korean romantic comedy My Sassy Girl.
 * Spoony, upon hearing the suggestion that he was a cheerleader in high school: "Fuck you, I was in the marching band! I played the fucking glockenspiel! You don't even fucking know what a glockenspiel is!" (Hint: In marching band at least, it's this thing. Not the manliest-sounding instrument...)
 * Pfft, glocks are so manly, they should be rated M.
 * The rap battle between Yugi and Jaden have few moments of this.


 * Husky Starcraft will always root for the StarCraft II player who wears pink, and is a proponent of this trope.
 * CR of Familiar Faces is a brony and proud of it, having done a two parter My Little Pony retrospective, drawing Fi M fanart, and even starting his own segment of Fi M episode reviews called "Reviews are Magic."
 * Blister Thumbs members Jew Wario has also been revealed to be a brony.
 * PewDiePie says "Real men Scream Like Little Girls."

Western Animation
"Brooklyn Unicorn: You'se thinks we're girly, huh? (they all point their horns at him)"
 * Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls, an evil, ruthless, scheming, diabolical villain whose main goal is to Take Over the World, shows a hidden cooking talent when forced to babysit the girls (although the girls didn't like it so he might be a Lethal Chef.) The Grand Finale plays it straighter with him, when we discover that his whole reason for wanting to rule the world was  Though again subverted when.
 * Also, HIM is the ultimate example of this. An effeminate Satan who's described as the ultimate evil, a villain so terribly diabolical that not even his name can be said... who does yoga and owns a breakfast café, among other things. He's also the biggest threat out of all the villains the girls face.
 * Chef Hatchet from Total Drama Island is the manliest character in the series. Yet, he is always crossdressing and enjoys activities like cooking or playing the lira.
 * Dave the Barbarian is a perfect example for this trope.
 * Zuko's uncle on Avatar: The Last Airbender. Iroh is always seen enjoying activities like drinking tea or enjoying sauna bath, among other things. Nevertheless, he is one of the kick-assiest characters at the time of fighting.
 * Sokka, too. "I'm not the one who's purse matches my belt," Katara teases him, but that doesn't change the fact he's a Badass Normal.
 * Jorgen von Strangle from The Fairly OddParents. He kicked a whole negative universe's worth of Fairy ass and was a five-stars officer in the fairy military. His hobbies? Baking delicate pastries and watching mushy soap operas. Not to mention he married the Tooth Fairy and a whole episode is dedicated to him being broken-hearted after she temporarily dumped him.
 * Now, now... there is no shame in marrying the Tooth Fairy.
 * Timmy Turner's shirt and hat are pink. This was because, in the episode "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker", Mr. and Mrs. Turner were expecting a girl, and thus they bought girl-related stuff, like girls' toys and clothes.
 * At the end of "The Boy Who Would Be Queen", where after spending a whole day as a female, Timmy decides to give himself a treat and goes to the local beauty salon. The ladies who work there are so delighted that they even wish he'd date their daughters. And in the beginning of the episode, he was shown enjoying soap operas.
 * Francis is decked out in bully attire, but if his name weren't a hint to this trope, his room is also wallpapered with posters of pink unicorns.
 * Dark Laser, a very powerful Captain Ersatz of Darth Vader and master of dark powers, is extremely concerned with the interior design of the Death Ball, insisting it be "cozy".
 * An example of the trope's name, Manly McDiverman, a pink diver decoration named by Cosmo in the episode featuring Greek Gods and Goddesses.
 * In Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders, one of the suspects is a large, muscular Native American who refuses to explain why he is mysteriously roaming the roads at night. It turns out that his hobby is collecting pressed flowers.
 * The big, hulking, muscular and gentle warrior Lian-Chu, from the French/German animated fantasy series for children Chasseurs de dragons (English: "Dragon Hunters"), is very fond of knitting, something that his best friend since childhood and dragon-hunting partner Gwizdo, a Lovable Rogue, often makes fun of. In the 2008 CGI prequel movie of the same name, Lian-Chu's knitting needles even play an important role.
 * Binky Barnes in Arthur lives in fear that his night light and interest in fine arts and ballet will be discovered and trash his tough reputation.
 * Nelson in The Simpsons loves Andy Williams, and cries when he attends a live performance. Ironically enough Nelson does wear a pink shirt.
 * In another episode, he's seen earnestly explaining to his classmates the proper way to clean, and apply powdered sugar to, freshly-picked huckleberries. When Principal Skinner wanders within earshot, Nelson quickly ad-libs something about punching a kid in the face.
 * In yet another episode, one of his prized possessions is seen to be a photo from Disneyland of a girl dressed as Snow White. When a shady private eye tells him she's just an actress, Nelson snaps "Shut up! Some of us prefer illusion to despair!"
 * And in "Lisa on Ice", Principal Skinner tells him he's failing history, geography and math, but compliments him for doing well in home economics. "Keep it down, will ya?" whispers Nelson.
 * Jimbo also these moments. In the season six episode "The PTA Disbands!" (in which the teachers of Springfield Elementary go on strike), Jimbo is seen in a fancy living room watching soap operas with his mom ("I haven't cried this much since The Joy Luck Club!")
 * And of course, there was Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney's reactions to Bart's ballet performance in "Homer vs. Patty and Selma" and their mock therapy session in "Whacking Day."
 * The first episode of season 3 has Homer wearing one thanks to Bart placing his lucky red cap with the white laundry. Of course, this gives him trouble since wearing a pink shirt leads to him being sent to a mental institution.
 * The Unicorns from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends object to be called girls by Terrence simply because they're pink, with fanny marks no less. At least one of them has a tough-sounding Brooklyn accent.

"Bender: Bender is a lone wolf, a solitary eagle, a cuddly baby tapir, and that's the way I like him."
 * Bender from Futurama fits this temporarily in his stint in the Ultimate Robot Fighting League. He's forced into the character of The "Gender Bender", complete with a pink tutu and curly, blond wig. Though he appears to hate the outfit, he DOES take the time to carefully put it on a hanger and store it in his personal storage space, in the middle of a fight no less.
 * He has many straight up examples: his earnest enjoyment of the robo soap opera All My Circuits, his "pregnancy" with beer, his number two most repeated word is "Daffodil", he has a deep love of cooking (and his hurt reaction when it sucks), is obsessed (and stalked) the aforementioned soap-opera's star, and the TIME HE ALMOST MARRIED SAID STAR. And displayed some emotional aftermath at episode's end.
 * How much of his girlfriend's (the Planet Express Ship. Yes, he dated a ship. He likes a girl with a nice, 400 ton booty.) personality stuck with him?

"Mrs. Buttowski: Oh, how cute, Gunther! You're a darling little ballerina! Gunther: Actually, Mrs. Buttowski, I'm famed Viking warrior Thor Thorson. He was so fierce in battle, he wore purple tights to avoid intimidating his own men."
 * Jack Bennett of the Bionic Six is a test pilot and vigilante who possesses super enhanced senses and optic blasts thanks to his enhancements. He's also rather good with his four (adopted and natural) children (A Genius Bruiser, a Hot-Blooded martial artist, a baseball team captain and a Genki Girl) and quite a good cook.
 * Brock Samson, of The Venture Brothers, is a hulking secret agent/berserker, who displays great concern for his herb garden and shares coupons with Doc Venture. Not only that but he seems to enjoy poetry, as evidenced by one of his conversations with H.E.L.P.eR.
 * Spoofed in an episode of Johnny Bravo, where Johnny is getting badass training from Mr. T. At one point, T tells him to put on a tutu, claiming that only real men would wear something like that. When Johnny asks him why he isn't wearing one, he responds "You think I'd be caught dead wearing that!?"
 * Buford's love for his goldfish in Phineas and Ferb.
 * Let's not forget Agent P, who has been seen watching mushy soap operas on his days off.
 * In Justice League, John Stewart alias Green Lantern: The Comically Serious big black Ex-Marine who eats Bob and Terry's ice cream and cries at the ending of Old Yeller.
 * Pinky is likely the most masculine of the Ghost Monsters on the old Pac-Man cartoon, being The Brute of the group with a thuggish Brooklyn accent.
 * Darkwing Duck, the Badass Normal hero of the series of the same name, wears a purple costume (the cape is pink on the inside). He's also a loving parent to his daughter, whom he raises together with his Heterosexual Life Partner Launchpad McQuack.
 * In Hey Arnold!, Helga's father, Big Bob, is big. And when he throws his back out and can't work, he is shown becoming addicted to watching soap operas (and demanding his wife videotape them when he goes back to work).
 * Cliff from CatDog practices ballet, though he had no shame in doing so as he did it in order to learn new moves to beat up CatDog with like a wrestler he looked up to.
 * Cow and Chicken had an episode where Cow, Flem and Earl summon Sgt. Weenie Arms, a hero one of their action figures is based on, so they can become "Weenie Marines." One night of Training from Hell later, they awaken to find that they have huge muscular bodies and manly stubble, and Sgt. Weenie Arms presents them with action figures worthy of Weenie Marines..."Pencilneck Cissy," a Barbie analogue. When they object, he tells them that real men aren't afraid to play with dolls.
 * Alan in The Amazing Chan and The Chan Clan, a purple-clad mechanical genius who's portrayed as being just as masculine as his brothers.
 * Ron Stoppable of Kim Possible plays into this territory. Sure, as Kim's sidekick and master of Mystical Monkey Powers he regularly saves the world, but he is also a dab hand at cookery, keeps a (pink!) naked mole rat as his pet, and is obsessed with trick-or-treating (the photo of him and Kim dressed up as a princess and a cowboy... respectively) and a certain Christmas animated special.
 * Inspector Gadget has no problem cooking for his niece while wearing a pink frilly apron over his trenchcoat.
 * On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Lucius wears a pair of pink bunny pajamas to bed.
 * Windsor Gorilla, from My Gym Partner's a Monkey, collects cut-glass animal figurines.
 * Johnny Test's dad is secure enough in his masculinity to be a stay-at-home dad. With a pink apron.
 * Magnus from Kick Buttowski: "THIS NOT SKIRT, THIS WARRIOR KILT!! I VIKING!! I CHALLENGE YOU ALL TO FIGHT ME!!!"
 * Also from Kick Buttowski, there's this scene from the Halloween Episode:


 * Vlad Masters from Danny Phantom is a very powerful human-ghost hybrid... who enjoys knitting. The love for knitting is also true for his arch-rival Jack Fenton
 * In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Lesson Zero", Twilight Sparkle enchants her childhood plaything with a spell that causes everyone to want it for themselves. After the spell is dispelled, the doll is left on the ground, and then picked up by Big Macintosh, one of the few recurring male characters.
 * Spike seems especially prone to this trope, what with gradually developing a desire to attend the Grand Galloping Gala in "The Ticket Master," wearing a pink apron in "Dragon Quest," and even playing with pony dolls in "A Canterlot Wedding."
 * Meta-example: Some Bronies consider the show to be extremely manly.
 * Goof Troop: One of Goofy's friends is a huge and muscular man who works as a waiter. Pete commented that a man must be huge to wear an apron without a problem. The man secretly leads a double life as an undefeated wrestler. He'd rather quit but can't unless he loses and won't throw a fight.
 * Father, most powerful villain of Codename: Kids Next Door, a terrifying silhouette of an old-time sitcom dad who can emit flames from his body and become a living bonfire...likes baking. ("For me it's more than a hobby, really.") He also has a yellow bathrobe with pink, fluffy lining.
 * in The Emperor's New Groove, Kronk, the tough-and-macho henchman to the evil Yzma, has a flair with gourmet cooking not seen since Julia Childs.
 * The Pink Panther is male despite his color. Of course, he is one Cool Cat.
 * Rhinox in Beast Wars believes you should always stop to smell the flowers. He also dual-wields chainguns; when sufficiently annoyed he can pick Dinobot up by the neck and shake him like a maraca until he stops carping; and, when forced into a Face Heel Turn by Megatron in season 1, proceeds to roflstomp his way to the top of the Predacon hierarchy in about 15 minutes.
 * Star Trek: The Animated Series, in its episode written by Larry Niven, had the Kizinti flying a pink spaceship.
 * Star Trek: Lower Decks; the episode "The Least Dangerous Game" introduces K'ranch, a huge, mean, hulking Expy of the Predator who enjoys hunting humans for sport (which Boilmer stupidly volunteers for, thus the title of the episode). You'd expect this guy to be the type who'd eat raw meat and drink the blood of his foes - until, that is, he stops mid-hunt to thank Captain Freeman for  the mimosas they had at brunch.

Real Life - Sports

 * There is a breast cancer charity that is run through rodeos and sponsored by Wrangler called Tough Enough to Wear Pink. This was developed after 8-time world champion Joe Beaver's wife developed breast cancer, and led to the Pink Shirt Night for one of the go-rounds at the National Finals Rodeo.  One year, they even painted the bucking chutes pink!  Cowboys wearing pink shirts coming out of a pink chute on top of a bull pretty much embodies this trope.
 * Several Truth in Television examples from the ultra-manly National Football League:
 * Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier, one of the (American football) L.A. Rams' legendary "Fearsome Foursome", was a prototypical Scary Black Man... and needlepoint enthusiast. Specifically, petit-point, one of the fiddly-est daintiest forms of needlepoint.
 * The late Craig "Ironhead" Heyward did a famous TV commercial based on this trope. He implored men to try Zest's lather-producing but unmasculine loofa, by answering the questions viewers were undoubtedly thinking: "But Ironhead, aren't body washes for ladies?" "But Ironhead, what's with this thingy?"
 * Joe Namath famously wore fur coats on the sidelines. He also wore women's pantyhose in a feminine pose for a commercial. Behind the scenes, however, Namath was very reluctant to do the commercial in spite of the sizable paycheck. He also denies wearing pantyhose during the commercial, though some football players are said to wear it beneath their pants on cold days for extra insulation.
 * A lot of players wear pantyhose beneath their football pants on cold days. It stretches better than long underwear. If it means being able to outrun the other players and score a touchdown, who has the last laugh?
 * Ian Johnson. Record-setting runningback at Boise State. Hero of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, possibly the greatest college football game of all time. Accomplished crocheter.
 * The Hogettes are a famous group of Washington Redskins fans who wear women's dresses to the games.
 * One-time teammate (and later NBC broadcaster) Merlin Olsen, who went on to a supporting role on Little House On the Prairie and did commercials for flower delivery service FTD.
 * Troy Polamalou of the Pittsburgh Steelers is widely regarded as one of the best defensive players of all time. In his spare time he grows flowers. He has also starred in shampoo commercials thanks to his trademark long, curly hair.
 * Athletes sometimes wear pink attire for Breast Cancer Awareness.
 * On October 4, 2009, the NFL had a breast cancer awareness, week where many of the athletes and officials wore pink cleats, gloves, sweatbands, etc.
 * In Australia, for Breast Cancer Awareness month, there's a pair of badges with the very Trope Name on them alongside a pink ribbon. I'm wearing one right now.
 * A cricket test match in Sydney January 2010, which helped support breast cancer awareness. In order to get in, you had to wear pink.
 * During the first season of World Series Cricket, the West Indies were presented with bright pink kits and raised hell, insisting on a different colour. This was how they ended up with their current maroon kit. Many years later (2012) Sir Viv Richards (one of the coolest, and best, cricketers in history) explained on Test Match Special that this was just because it clashed horribly when they wore it and he had no other objections - "Real men do wear pink" - indeed, he was wearing pink while he had this conversation.
 * Australian rugby league team the Penrith Panthers have a set of jerseys in bright pink. And the referees, for the last few years, have worn bright pink shirts on field.
 * Pink bats, pink shoes, and in some cases pink helmets and jerseys are worn by many baseball teams for breast cancer awareness in October, along with ribbons, necklaces and bracelets. They're also worn on Mother's Day. Then they're auctioned off to raise money for the Komen Foundation.
 * USC quarterback Matt Leinart finished all his required credits in 3 years, but chose to stay in school and play a fourth. He only took Ballroom Dancing during that semester.
 * The German ice hockey team Berliner Eisbären (current title holder) also wore pink to increase awareness of breast cancer in a match against the Hannover Scorpions (currently second-best). Neither manliness nor skill seemed to have suffered from the colour, as they trounced their opponent 6:1.
 * Sean Avery, of the Dallas Stars in the equally ultra-manly National Hockey League, took the summer between seasons to work an unpaid internship at VOGUE Magazine.
 * Retired boxer Pinklon Thomas was briefly Heavyweight Champion and, according to Mike Tyson, gave Tyson his hardest fight prior to Tyson' first loss. And he did it in trunks that were pink or at least had pink borders. (Although obviously it's as much a pun of his name as anything).
 * When Anthony Bourdain went to Sweden for No Reservations, he interviewed two ski and snowboard champions who took up crochet after being injured. They were so good at it that they even sold customised hats, scarves, etc.
 * Dancing shows:
 * Also, ex-boxing champion Evander Holyfield and ex-UFC champ Chuck Liddel have both competed on Dancing with the Stars.
 * Mariusz Pudzianowski, five-time World's Strongest Man, came second on the Polish dancing show Taniec z Gwiazdami (Strictly Come Dancing).
 * Raivis Vidzis who was the WSM who won Dejo ar zvaigzni, the Latvian Strictly Come Dancing.
 * Warren Sapp, Jason Taylor, Emmitt Smith, and Jerry Rice all appeared on Dancing With the Stars. All four were either the first runner-up or the champion of his respective season.
 * Helio Castroneves appeared on Dancing With the Stars''. He's the most recent of only five men to win the Indianapolis 500 in consecutive years.
 * Many sports teams (such as the Los Angeles Lakers) established their early identities with bright, traditionally "girlish" colors and soft, cartoonish logos; it's to the point that hardcore fans actually prefer they stay (or revert back to) this way rather than adopt the bolder, more aggressive themes and styles that became pervasive amongst newer teams and redesigns in the '90s.
 * When Brazilian football team Atlético-MG decided their training kit would be pink, the uproar was tremendous (specially because their rival, Cruzeiro, wears blue, leading to many Pink Girl, Blue Boy jokes). Most supporters of the team replied with the trope name.
 * The Sicilian football club US Palermo wears pink jerseys at home and white trimmed with pink for away games. According to one legend, the change of team colours from red and blue to pink and black in 1907 was the result of a laundry accident.
 * In the 1970s, the German football club Hamburger SV was re-dressed in pink (alternatively sky blue) jerseys in an effort to attract more female spectators. It was a quite successful time for the club, they won the German FA cup in 1976 and the European cup-winners' cup in 1977.
 * After Max Guazzini bought the French rugby club Stade Francais Paris, he changed the club logos to three pink lightning-flashes. Since 2005 the team is dressed in pink and combinations of blue and pink. They became national champions in 2007. He was inspired to do this by Juventus Turine, who in their centenary year 1997 wore pink away jerseys.
 * Don Cherry is well known for his vocal opinions on Hockey Night in Canada, but more recently he's become just as known for his increasingly colorful and flamboyant outfits, especially his ties. No one would ever question Cherry's machismo, though.
 * Antonio Garay, a 6'4", 320 lbs defender for the San Diego Chargers, rolls around in a Hello Kitty car.
 * Montreal Canadians goalie Carey Price had a pink mask and pads made by Reebok to raise Breast Cancer awareness in the 2011/12 season. They will be auctioned off to support the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation later in the season.
 * In the New Zealand division of Twenty20 cricket, the Northern Districts team wears a pink uniform in support of breast cancer research.
 * The rugby union team [wikipedia:Bulls (rugby_union)| Bulls] wear a bright pink away strip. Justified as a tactic to distract the opposition.
 * Famous grappler Gene LeBell was known for competing in, and frequently winning judo competitions while wearing a pink gi. He didn't set out to do this, however. As LeBell tells it, he washed his judo gi (which was white) the day of a tournament and didn't realize that there was a piece of red clothing bunched in with it, so naturally the gi was pink when it came out. He had no time to try and bleach it or put together another one, so he decided to go ahead and wear it. The extreme reaction Gene got from angry judo fans prompted Gene to make it a tradition.
 * The Minnesänger Ulrich von Liechtenstein (d. 1275) went on a jousting tour in 1227 dressed as Lady Venus.
 * The most successful club in the Italian football (soccer) league, Juventus Turine, originally played in pink jerseys. The change to the now-traditional black-and-white ones came about by accident, when a shipment of jerseys striped black and pink was ordered from England and the producer through a mix-up made them black and white instead.
 * Italian football team Juventus' 2011-12 season away top is bright pink.

Real Life - Military

 * In the German army all uniforms have color coded edgings on the rank insignia that designate unite type. Pink markings identify a soldier as belonging to a tank unit. It has been so ever since the Wehrmacht years.
 * Philippe I, Duke of Orleans, an officer in pre-Revolutionary France, was an out-of-the-closet homosexual who loved ribbons, fashion, jewelry and such things, but it never prevented him from being a talented and brave general... much to his brother Louis XIV's chagrin.
 * Nothing outdoes the Evzones of Greece for girly looks with (historical) bad-assery. Underneath those stupid-looking pompoms on the shoes? 6-INCH NAILS. Specifically designed to be used on the crotchular regions.
 * Swiss mercenaries and the German Landsknechts who imitated them were known as the most effective troops in the western world for hundreds of years. So notable was their reputation that they developed an outrageous fashion style to advertise their identity on the battlefield. They took to wearing puffed-out and frilly doublets bestrewn with brightly colored swatches of fabric, giant floppy berets topped with tall feathers, and candy-striped hose. The rainbow-colored uniforms of the Swiss Guard in Rome are based on this historical outfit.
 * During the nightmarish Liberian civil war, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia gained a well-earned reputation for brutality, raping and slaughtered over 150,000 people. They also fought wearing women's clothing and brightly colored wigs, believing that this would terrify their enemies and confuse their bullets. Remember, this is the same country that produced the Butt Naked Brigade.
 * This U.S. Soldier, who rose to fight off a surprise attack in naught but his vest, helmet, and pink undies. Underdressed to kill?
 * The "Pink Panzers" of the German Love Parade, a small convoy of pink tanks. An utterly adorable one showed up one year, the 'Goliath' suicide tank last glimpsed in WW2, pink and full of candy instead of deadly anti-tank mines. That's right. An exploding tank full of candy.
 * Similar to the above example, in World War II Lord Mountbatten favored a certain shade of pinkish-grey for ships in his fleet. As German artillery sometimes used pink dye to see where their shells hit, this might have been justified. Not only that but you only have to wait till twilight to blend in, not darkness.
 * The British Army's SAS (Special Air Service), the nation's high water mark of manliness, rode desert patrols in their "Pink Panther" Land Rovers. Real Men don't just wear Pink, they drive it too!
 * One of the things recruits are taught in Basic Training is how to sew. The one thing that no one tells you about is aside from lots of pushups the other thing Basic Training is big on is uniform inspections. Soldiers are expected to know how to properly care for and maintain their uniforms as well as how to properly wear them. This means that basic repair work is your responsibility and if for some reason your clothes don't fit you properly it's your job to fix it.
 * Classical Officer's Swiss Knife comes with a small scissors (perfect for nail clipping) and a sewing needle (more like a sewing blade actually).
 * Contemporary illustrations tend to picture Britain's redcoats in bright, shining red. Unfortunately, this was only the case for the officers - the men were issued such crappy dye that their coats usually ended up pink in a couple of months (especially in hot climates). Campaigning armies took it even further - they patched their coats with bits of cloth and even enemy uniforms, so the average redcoat in the Napoleonic Wars was more a pink-with-technicolor-patchescoat.
 * The Chevalier d'Eon was a famous 18th century soldier, spy and crossdresser who spent the second half of his life as a woman. He was also a Master Swordsman, defeating the Chevalier de Saint-George in an exhibition match while wearing a dress.

Real Life - Other

 * Truth in Television for many ancient cultures, where fashion was Serious Business for the aristocracy because it demonstrated your place in the wealthy warrior elite. Frills, loops, and other intricacies were expensive to create, and therefore displayed your status as upper-class. Tyrian Purple was a royal color since it was made from several thousand sea snails in an era without scuba gear. Look at any portrait of someone from 17th century Europe and remember that most of those guys in frills were also trained killers.
 * In the Wodaabe tribe men are the ones who wear makeup and have pretty contests to attract females.
 * In spite of its sissy reputation, ballet dancing is physical grueling, causing many manly men to take up ballet or have it in their background.
 * Lynn Swann took ballet, and even invited Mr. Rogers along to teach kids that Real Men can. It helps that his name is Lynn Swann.
 * Several NFL teams require (as depicted in at least one or two movies) their players to take ballet lessons, in order to give them the grace and balance required to run 100 yards in anywhere from 60 to 140 pounds of padding. Though that may make it more like Training from Hell...
 * Rugby players, notably the England squad, also take ballet lessons.
 * Jean-Claude Van Damme had ballet training, which is the origin of his trademark splits. He once claimed that if you can get through a ballet work-out, you can get through anything.
 * There are a few pictures of James Dean taking ballet classes. One of which shows him with Eartha Kitt.
 * The macho (and, it is alleged, violently temperamental) Russell Crowe likes to crochet.
 * Real Mathies Wear Pink Ties. Long live the Tie Guard!
 * Sir Edmund Hillary is notable for two things: Making the biggest mountain on the planet his bitch, and beekeeping. Traditionally the preserve of willowy ladies in big hats.
 * Skater punks in skirts and punks in skirts in general. Only an idiot argues with a real punk. Combines with exhibitionism since they often wear a flowing skirt with nothing under it that easily flies up during a particularly involved thrasher or punk dance move....
 * The balaclava, as seen here, is a common military head-warmer while in cold warzones. They're usually made as gifts by civilians and have been around since at least the Crimean War.
 * Rapper DMX fails the manhood litmus test. Apparently he felt it was "ridiculous" and "disrespectful" to be forced to wear pink undergarments while serving time in Maricopa county jail.
 * Dee Snider, frontman of Twisted Sister.
 * Kai Hansen has a pink signature guitar.
 * Real Men Wear Pink is a common slogan on pink shirts sold during the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, Georgia. How seriously it is taken varies with the wearer.
 * Inverted by David Lee Roth, a rather feminine-looking chap with a love of feather boas and other flamboyant stagewear who happens to be the on-again-off-again frontman for Van Halen, a high-level black belt, and probably nailed more women than Wilt Chamberlain.
 * There are three cultures in the world that are well-known for having especially big, strong, tough men that you do not want to cross. Scots, Polynesians, and some parts of Africa. In all three cultures, these men traditionally wear some sort of skirt.
 * "Ae's no' a fuckin' skirt, ae's a kilt!"
 * Google "Darth Kitty." We'll wait.
 * Back yet? Google "Hello Kitty AK-47". For extra credit, picture them both together.
 * The Hello Kitty AK-47 is a fake, unfortunately. However, the Hello Kitty AR-15 is very much real and very much awesome.
 * Also "Hello Raiser". Keeping the Safe Search on is advisable, however.
 * Gangsta rapper Cam'ron developed a fascination with the color pink later in his career; he even attempted to trademark a shade of pink to call his own.
 * Spoofed in the song "Pink Tee" by Crime Mob.
 * FIRST Robotics Team 233 chose pink as their team color. At competitions, the women and men of the team will paint their entire bodies pink and cheer. They also hand out buttons with this trope title.
 * Al Capone invited press to a cookout he was hosting while wearing a pink apron during a campaign to improve his image by making him seem more personable and relatable. In this case, he was wearing pink to deliberately soften his image (tough guys don't wear pink?).
 * As a camouflage measure (it works far better than it sounds like it should) many spitfires used for photo reconnaissance were painted pink. Not a good idea to mock fighter pilots.
 * Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's tough-as-nails Memetic Badass former chief of staff (soon to be Mayor of Chicago), studied ballet as a boy, and was so good at it he earned a dance scholarship. He turned it down to go to study at Sarah Lawrence instead. Where he graduated with a degree in... ballet.
 * While on the ice, legendary NHL Hall of Famer Jacques "Jake the Snake" Plante would wear toques that he knitted himself. Coach Toe Blake was not impressed; he felt that his players shouldn't wear anything that set them apart from their teammates. Plante is also the guy who popularized the goaltender's mask.
 * Many frat boys who try to act macho in most other ways wear pink or lilac polo shirts, apparently to capitalize on this trope. Still others just wear pink and hope the "tough guy" part will simply fall into place, not realizing that the trope is Real Men Wear Pink, not Wearing Pink Makes Real Men.
 * The seiyuu Tessho Genda. The voice behind big gritty Badasses like younger Toguro, Takeda Shingen, Largo The Black Lion and Kratos. The dub voice of Optimus Prime and Batman. A guy who's into ballet and got himself the nickname "Pirouette Genda".
 * Pink Day, which is pretty much where everyone's expected to try this out. It started because one kid got picked on all day because he wore pink, went home and killed himself.
 * Yuichiro "Jienotsu" Nagashima is a professional K-1 fighter who recently won the K-1 World MAX 2010 Japan Tournament. He's also known for cosplaying during his ring entrances, and some of his cosplays include Haruhi, Ranka Lee, Hatsune Miku, Dokoro-chan, and several Touhou characters.
 * A trope universally adhered to in Scotland in regards to the kilt. Suggesting otherwise will result in a cry of "Aht's nae a bluddy skirt!" and a broken nose.
 * Many a brave and bonnie traditional Scotsman knows how to knit. They make their own socks.
 * The Early Medieval Norse were noted for their strict hygiene, combing their hair and beards daily, washing their faces every morning and bathing fully at least once a week. Many neighbouring peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons considered these habits to be rather effete and unbecoming of a "real" man. And then the Vikings happened.
 * The Anglo-Saxons themselves were known for their hair care: combs are among their most common grave artifacts (men's graves, since you ask). So the Vikings must have been extra-effete...
 * The Pictish people of North-East Scotland didn't go in for writing, but left behind lots of standing stones with inscribed symbols. A particularly common symbol is called the "comb and mirror", leading some archaeologists to assume the Picts had women tribal leaders ... except that there is one Pictish stone showing a king and his warriors, all with long, flowing hair, the king's being noticeably more long and flowing than the others.
 * Pancho Villa's Badass Mustache didn't like alcohol, he actually enjoyed strawberry milkshakes.
 * Luciano Martiniano de Silva, ruthless Brazilian drug lord is apparently a great fan of... Justin Bieber.
 * Patrick Stewart. He's a real man and he loves his pink shirts.
 * "Bronies," the adult male Periphery Demographic of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. Or My Little Pony in general, because there were definitely male fans before Friendship is Magic started.
 * One YouTube comment featured a tale of a guy who wore a Pinkie Pie shirt to see his hardass ex-military father...only for the man to take off his jacket and reveal a 20% cooler Rainbow Dash one.
 * And Youtube comments, as we all know, are a great source of sincere and unexaggerated truths.
 * There are bronies among the United States Marine Corps and the German Air Force, along with other military branches, as evident in this thread.
 * Pony-themed sprays are a common sight in Team Fortress 2. Can be rather disconcerting to see blood and severed body parts next to a picture of a pink pony.
 * There are also several Brony-Founded Servers in Team Fortress 2 that feature permanent Pony sprays on the walls or custom maps made to resemble locations from the show like Cloudsdale and Ponyville. It's not uncommon to pop in and hear people on the Mic playing songs from the show or discussing their favorite episodes as they brutally kill each other.
 * The name Philippe greek roots are "Philo" (love) and "Hippo" (Equin) the name literally means "he who love Horse/pony" despite that the name as a whole is masculine.
 * Bruce Lee, martial arts god and winner of the 1958 Crown Colony Cha-Cha Championship.
 * He was also a Soap Opera junkie who became very upset if he was forced to miss General Hospital.
 * Those rugged, manly pioneers? Cookers and sewers every one of them, and a lot of knitters, too. How else are you going to eat, mend your own stuff and make new pairs of socks out there in the wild frontier with none of them womenfolk about?
 * Pink is still a normal color for men's dress shirts, even if the wearer tries to play it off as "Salmon."
 * Ancient China has many legends and chronicles of mighty heroes who dressed up and took pride in their appearance. When they would meet their comrades, several verses are often devoted to them complimenting each other on how nice they look.
 * A lot of men like to knit, probably for the same reason those football players do needlepoint; it's relaxing. Good for a person's blood pressure.
 * Male beadworkers can also be found. Many of them are Native Americans making regalia for pow-wows.
 * James Rolfe made prominent usage of his Cinderella DVD in a rant about DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs with overly complex packaging.
 * Actor Gregory Peck, known during his career to rarely need a stunt double and did many of the fights in his movies, wasn't drafted into the military during WWII because of back injuries. Fox Studios made a statement saying that the injuries were the result of a row boat class, but the actor had gone on the record in later interviews saying that the injuries were actually the result of a dance class, saying that the studios didn't think dance classes were "macho" enough.
 * Kentaro Miura, creator of the ultra-manly (and disturbing) manga series Berserk, also happens to be a huge fan of the Idolmaster video games.
 * Former UFC Middleweight champion Rich "Ace" Franklin has for most of his career worn custom-made shorts with one brown and one pink leg.
 * This guy.
 * Hugh Jackman has scored enough Badass points as Wolverine to survive him through the next Ice Age. He's also one of the few surviving song-and-dance men who admits his love of musicals, idolizing the greats like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, and winning a Tony for playing Camp Gay Peter Allen in "The Boy From Oz."
 * Some World War II spy planes were painted pink. Justified in that these planes were intended to be flown during sunrise or sunset, where they would blend in better with the pink skies. Also, pink planes been found to blend in better with cloud cover than purely white planes. It should be noted that spy planes like these took some of the most dangerous missions, often flying behind enemy lines to photograph enemy troop movements and installations. Plus, their pink camouflage would only work in situations where flying conditions weren't perfect.