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What is it about bad guys and facial hair? For some reason, we often take being clean-shaven as an indicator of being strait-laced and, under more traditional morality, a good person, pure of spirit. In older, simpler days, a traditional hero would not even have five o'clock shadow, even if he's been on the run and well away from his shaving mirror for a week.
 
Conversely, a man with facial hair is less pure, at the very least a [[Darker and Edgier]] [[Anti -Hero]] -- more often, he's an outright villain, and his chin is deliberately contrasted with the depilated chin of the hero.
 
Note that this generally applies to small, well-groomed beards, especially goatees. Having a [[Beard of Barbarism|huge bushy beard]] turns one into a [[Nature Hero]], [[Seadog Beard|sailor]], grizzled old prospector or [[Boisterous Bruiser]]. Except, of course, for the beards recommended by certain religions that are in the public focus at the moment.
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[[Satan]] is also frequently depicted with a goatee (which probably came from depictions of [[Faust|Goethe's Mephistopheles]] as a 16th-century gallant).
 
A subset of [[Good Hair, Evil Hair]]. Not to be confused with [[Growing the Beard]] or the [[Badass Mustache]]. No real reason why a beard can't be [[Beard of Evil|evil]] ''and'' [[Badass Beard]].
 
{{examples|Examples:}}
 
== Anime & Manga ==
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* "That Man" from ''[[Excel Saga (Anime)|Excel Saga]]'' is a [[Yakuza]] thug with a beard, the only recurring character with facial hair {{spoiler|and the real leader of ACROSS, making him the closest thing the show had to a [[Big Bad]]}}.
* In episode 12 of ''[[Dennou Coil]]'' beards start appearing on the (pre-adolescent) main characters. These beards are actually Illegals, virus programs that occasionally cross over into reality and are generally antagonistic. These particular Illegals are sentient, forming their own mini-civilizations on each person's face and revere the person they exist on as gods. They then go on to launch missiles and wage civil war on each other and, once that's stopped, "interplanetary" war. After realizing the futility of war, the Illegal beards leave their hosts to find their Promised Land.
* General Regius of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S (Anime)|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S]]''. [[Fat Bastard|Fat frame]], [[Good Eyes, Evil Eyes|beady little eyes]], [[General Ripper|nasty demeanor]], and [[Beard of Evil|neatly maintained beard]] give him all the markings of an obvious villain. {{spoiler|So naturally, he turns out to be a [[Well -Intentioned Extremist]] who just found himself too entangled in [[Government Conspiracy|the TSAB's darker secrets]], with his [[Being Evil Sucks|final scenes showing him filled with guilt when he realized how far he had fallen]]}}.<br /><br />Before him there was {{spoiler|Gil Graham, the [[Treacherous Advisor]] of ''A's''}}.
* Lordgenome is about the only human on ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Anime)|Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' with any significant amount of facial hair. He's the main villain of the first half. (And it seems to be fireproof, given that it isn't too badly damaged when he gets serious and his head ''bursts into flames''.)
** His beard also gets significantly larger and begins to curl at the ends as he gets angrier (most notably when his head bursts into flames).
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* Referenced in a universe-hopping arc of ''[[Cable (Comic Book)|Cable]] & [[Deadpool]]''. "How do I know you're not the anti-Siryn? Then again, you're not sporting the alternate-universe mandated evil goatee.."
* Minor [[Superman (Comic Book)|Superman]] villain Amalak the [[Space Pirate]] was originally a rather forgettable-looking clean shaven guy with a red haired crew cut. In his final appearance, though, he had let his hair and beard [[Growing the Beard|grow out]] all scraggly, and it made him ten times scarier-looking than he had ever been before. Sadly, he got [[Killed Off for Real]] at the end of that story, and took his cool creepy beard with him.
** A [[Post -Crisis]] version of Amalak was introduced a couple of years ago. With the cool beard, naturally.
 
 
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* [[Yellow Peril|Fu Manchu's]] evil beard was so famous that the mustache style is named after him. In the original novels, however, he is clean shaven.
* In ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|Batman Begins]]'', Ra's al Ghul's and Henri Ducard's fu manchus are our first clue that the League of Shadows is [[Knight Templar|evil]]. (Well, the first clue for those who hadn't read the comic books.) Bruce Wayne also sports a rather scraggly beard at the beginning of the film, but it's gone by the time he [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|disavows killing]] and severs ties with the League.
* [[Morally -Ambiguous Doctorate|Doctor]] Smith in [[The Film of the Series]] ''[[Lost in Space]]'' gave away his role as villain this way.
* Zod did much to increase the fame of this style in ''[[Superman II]]''.
* A staple of [[Disney Animated Canon]] villains:
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* In ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]: [[Prince Caspian]]'' the Telmarine aristocrats are bearded and bad, except for the eponymous Caspian, who is clean-shaven and a good guy.
* ''[[The Matrix]]'' has Cipher's beard to couple with his [[Bald of Evil]], as noted in that article.
* In ''[[Die Hard (Film)|Die Hard]]'', [[Alan Rickman]] as Hans Gruber sported one, contrasting a beardless [[Bruce Willis (Creator)]].
* Averted in ''[[Once Upon a Time In The West]]''. Henry Fonda planned to grow a beard as well as wear brown contact lenses to play the film's [[Complete Monster]] villain, but director [[Sergio Leone]] talked him out of it, since Fonda having his usual appearance in a role so different from his usual humble and noble characters would make it all the more shocking.
* Count Dooku possesses such a beard in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' prequels.
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* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'':
** The Master's most iconic appearance, as portrayed by Roger Delgado, is bearded, as is that of Anthony Ainley. Ainley was intentionally trying to look like Delgado. There was substantial disappointment that Eric Roberts did not "sport the goat" as the Master in the 1996 telefilm. The Master also had a beard as portrayed by Jonathan Pryce in the [[Comic Relief]] spoof "The Curse of Fatal Death," and as voiced by [[Derek Jacobi]] for the animated "Scream of the Shalka," though fans were sufficiently used to the idea that no one was seriously bothered {{spoiler|when Sir Derek Jacobi and John Simm played beardless Masters in 2007}}.
** Inverted in that the Brigadier has a mustache, while his evil-universe counterpart is clean-shaven. He sports an [[Good Scars, Evil Scars|Evil Scar]]-and-[[Eyepatch of Power]]-combo instead.
** And for maximum cross-trope linkage, in the 2007 Children In Need mini-episode "Time Crash," when the Tenth Doctor mentions the Master to the Fifth Doctor, this exchange ensues:
{{quote| '''Fifth Doctor:''' Does he still have that rubbish beard?<br />
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* Ming The Merciless in ''[[Flash Gordon (Comic Strip)|Flash Gordon]]'', perhaps unsurprisingly, sports what is known as a Fu Manchu.
** And Dr Chaotica in ''[[Voyager]]'''s [[Show Within a Show]] homage ''The Adventures of Captain Proton!''
* In the comic strip ''[[Mark Trail]]'', ''[[Beard of Evil]]'' is played straight but ''[[Bald of Evil]]'' is subverted: Story-arc-specific male characters have a full-on [[Good Hair, Evil Hair|inverse relationship between levels of evil, and levels of hair on head and face.]] One arc featured an immoral bearded man (and another, with mutton chops), a very moral completely bald man (so moral, he was keeping his construction company from leveling a field because of a family of ducks he found), and a morally conflicted balding man.
 
 
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* The Prowler "La Lupo" from ''[[Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Video Game)|Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood]]'' has a soul patch and close-cropped goatee, contrasting with Ezio's full beard-and-'stache. Cesare, Rodrigo, and the Engineer also have beards.
* The [[Obviously Evil]] Ser Alrik in ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' sports one.
* [[Rabid Cop]] [[Heavy Rain|Carter Blake]] has a small beard which contrasts with [[By the -The-Book Cop]] Norman Jayden's clean-shaven face.
 
 
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* In ''[[The Gamers Alliance (Roleplay)|The Gamers Alliance]]'', Koschei and Pronin have beards and are very much evil.
* Mars, a [[One -Scene Wonder|minor but memorable]] villain from ''[[Broken Saints]]'' features a little goatee, but otherwise sports a [[Bald of Evil]].
* In the first episode of ''[[Space Goose (Web Animation)|Space Goose]]'', the title character discovers that he has an evil doppelganger with a goatee.
* During the [[Christmas Special]] of ''[[Dragon Ball Abridged]]'', Goku realizes that Turles is his [[Evil Counterpart]] in all but one way.
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== Western Animation ==
* Pastiched on ''[[South Park (Animation)|South Park]]'': in their mirror universe, ''everyone'' has a goatee, including the "Evil" Cartman, who, as the opposite of the "real world" Cartman, is polite, helpful, and a genuinely good person. The unbearded Cartman rips off his beard (as a unit...) after he finds out that Stan and Kyle want to send him to the alternative universe and keep the "evil Cartman."
* David Xanatos, the [[Anti -Villain]] of ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'' fame [[Xanatos Gambit|well known for his convoluted plans]] sported such a beard. He bore more than a passing resemblance to his actor, who played [[Star Trek the Next Generation (TV)|Commander Will Riker]] and whose beard was notable for [[Growing the Beard|another reason]].<br /><br />In one {{spoiler|dream}} episode set 40 years in the future, Xanatos has gone all [[Big Brother]] on Manhattan. He's still using his Steel Clan robot minions, but they now inexplicably have Riker beards.
* ''[[Transformers]]'':
** Unicron the [[Planet Eater|giant, planet-eating, robotic, chaos god]] had a mustache and goatee. He also gave one to his minion Scourge, along with a lovely set of pink fingernails.
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* [[Osama Bin Laden]], Al Qaeda, and the Taliban have all sported large, bushy beards as part of their interpretation of Islam. However, the idea that it is preferable for a Muslim man to have a beard is actually rather uncontroversial, and there are plenty of Muslim men who aren't terrorists and prefer the large, bushy beard. Shortly after 9/11, this was satirized in a Capitol Steps song in which they warned Bin Laden & Company that the USA has "a new beard-seeking missile!"
* Averted by many, many, many real-life, movie, and comic book stage magicians, only some of whom are evil.
* [[Adolf Hitler]], the size of his mustache being inversely proportional to his evilness! It also greatly reduced the number of [[Good Hair, Evil Hair|toothbrush mustaches]] among the world's population after WWII.
* [[Rasputin the Mad Monk]], though it was more a Beard of Crazy.
* The prolific serial killer [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_L<!-- C3B3pez_(serial_killer) Pedro Lopez]] (a.k.a. the "Monster of the Andes") wore a straggly beard and mustache at the time of his arrest. Frighteningly, he may still be alive and walking the streets today... -->
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[[Category:Hair Tropes]]
[[Category:Beard Of Evil]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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