Improbable Hairstyle: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:bigolhairdo.jpg|frame|From a [http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/09/waiter-theres-hair-in-my-satire.html series of political cartoons] circa 1760-1780]]

 

{{quote|''"And Kate... Harmony Hairspray, anyone?"''|'''AlMiles''', of [[The Doctor Who Forum]], on ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]''}}

 

May sometimes be because of the [[Rule of Sexy]], or because [[Magic Hair|the hair has actual magic properties]].

{{examples}}

* ''[[Red Line]]'': [[In-Series Nickname|'Sweet']] JP's hair, best described as the most epic pompadour to ever be shown in anime.

* Mugen, from ''[[Samurai Champloo]]'', manages to maintain a strangely spiky hairstyle in ([[Anachronism Stew|approximately]]) 18th-century Japan without raising eyebrows. But, you know, hair can get pretty stiff when you ''never'' bathe.

* ''[[Black Butler]]'': While mundane by Anime standards, most characters' haircuts would be ridiculous in Victorian England. Though Sebastian's [[Bishonen|Bishie]] bangs are [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in the manga, Undertaker's, Druitt's and Edgar Redmond's ''fabulous'' 'do's are [[Unusually Uninteresting Sight|Unusually Uninteresting Sights]].

 

* ''[[Monica's Gang]]'': The Gang has a few, most notably Cebolinha/Jimmy Five, which has only five spiky -- [[Prehensile Hair|and sharp]] - strands of hair (so weird that dolls and live-action portrayals give him six instead, so his whole head is covered) - the unnoticed part is mostly averted.

 

* Takeshi Kitano's version of ''[[Zatoichi]]'' is blonde. Very, very blonde.

* In ''[[Marie Antoinette]]'', before she goes to France, she is very clearly seen with a modern hairstyle, complete with hair cut in layers and multiple shades of highlights.

* Elizabeth Curtis from the Deborah Kerr adaptation of ''[[King Solomon's Mines|King Solomons Mines]]'' gets sick of her waist length hair in the humid African jungle and hacks a slice out of it. When it cuts to the next scene she has cut it short into a perfectly styled short do. That style might have been fashionable in the 1950s when the film came out but the film is set in the 1800s when women didn't have short hair. Test audiences actually laughed their heads off at the scenes when they first saw them that the producers nearly removed them. But they couldn't explain Elizabeth's change of hairstyle so they kept the improbable scenes in the film.

 

* ''Shadow In The North'' features a black guy in late 1870s London with dreadlocks. While dreadlocks are one of the oldest hairstyles known to man and common in African societies, it was not exactly common in London at the time.

 

* ''[[Little House on the Prairie (TV series)|Little House On the Prairie]]'' was infamous for Michael Landon's huge [[The Seventies|1970s]] perms in [[The Wild West]].

 

* ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series.

** Seymour from ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' has one of the most improbable hairstyles in any work of fiction, such that only [http://www.google.nl/search?tbm=isch&hl=nl&source=hp&biw=1680&bih=902&q=seymour+guado&gbv=2&oq=seymour+guado&aq=f&aqi=g1g-S1&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1619l3421l0l3645l13l9l0l2l2l0l178l590l6.1l7l0 pictorial evidence] could do it justice. Wakka from the same game definitely qualifies. He swims underwater, rides on the deck of an airship, traverses the world, and he maintains the same physics-defying hairstyle throughout the game.

* Agent J from ''[[Elite Beat Agents]]'', whose hair looks like some of it got caught in a candyfloss machine. [http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/3715/788744-fff_large.jpg See for yourself.]

 

* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Dragon Ball]]'', where it's explained that full-blooded Saiyains like Goku and Vegeta keep the same hairstyle from where they were born.

** Goku's even had his hair chopped off, only for it to return to normal in the very next panel (or so).

* [[Inuyasha]] has two locks of hair over his shoulders that remain separate from his [[White-Haired Pretty Boy|considerably long hair]] no matter what he goes through, up to and including getting smashed through cliffs.

 

* [[X-Men]]: In one issue of his own comic, Wolverine has all his hair cut off. It grows back in minutes, ''in the same style''.

* [[Spider-Man]]: Norman Osborn has what appear to be horizontal corn-rows of brown and red hair. It's not entirely clear what this is supposed to actually represent but even in universe characters repeatedly appear unable to figure what he did to his hair.

* In the first issue of [[Nightwing]]'s own series, a thug attacks Dick with a knife and hacks off the ponytail he'd been sporting in ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|New Titans]]'' and ''[[Batman]]''. His hair instantly resolves itself into a neat, not-quite-shoulder-length 'do.

 

* Alice's fluffy triangle in ''[[Dilbert]]''.

 

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'': Legolas's miraculously tangle-free hair. Aragorn's, on the other hand, gets pretty grubby-looking.

* In ''[[Superman Returns]],'' Superman falls to earth like a meteor, charring his suit, and falling into a coma, but his forelock is still in a perfect curl throughout.

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'': Jack Sparrow's famous hair may be long and wild, but it's also very clean. On sailing ships, fresh water is too precious to wash with, and soap/shampoo don't work in salt water.

 

* If [[Anne Rice]]'s vampires get haircuts, while they sleep their hair grows back to the length it was at when they were created.

* ''[[Dragon Jousters]]'' by [[Mercedes Lackey]]: Averted in the last book. Great Queen Nofret needs to wear extremely elaborate hairstyles, different styles for different royal duties. She cuts her hair short and wears wigs instead.

 

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'': Buffy's {{spoiler|fresh-from-the-coffin hair in "Bargaining" is neatly combed and has only a few leaves in it after she ''clawed her way out of the grave''}}.

* ''[[Torchwood]]''

* ''[[Falling Skies]]'' features the survival of humans [[After the End]]. Despite the lack of running water and electricity the women, teenagers, and children maintain perfectly-styled hair even months after the invasion. The men, on the other hand, have greasy locks and rough beards.

 

* Sora from ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]''. Seriously, how much gel does that guy use? His hair keeps its shape ''underwater''. In fact, most of the cast are examples.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'':

** Pearl Fey has a pretzel.

 

* ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'':

** Samsonite is caught in a form of homeostasis that grants her utter and complete invulnerability. This includes her hair, which is always perfectly straight and hangs down to the middle of her back, no matter what she tries to do with it.

* Wyn's hair from ''[[Dimension Heroes]]''.

 

* Mike Warner of the ''Walkyverse''. It was actually a problem when creating the figure because his hair defies the laws of gravity (not to the extent of many of the other examples, but it's still not gravity-friendly).

* In ''[[Megatokyo]]'', [[Dark Magical Girl|Miho]]'s hair often has a ribbon wound through it, which cosplayers (or just people who think it looks cool) in real life have had difficulty keeping in. However, the comic heavily implies that this has something to do with her powers, as whether the ribbon is present, absent, or mussed up depends on her emotional state and how in-control she is.

* Thae from ''[[Overlord Academy]]'' often wears her hair in an incredibly large, [[Rapunzel Hair|incredibly long]] ponytail which seems to defy all laws of physics, especially since she's the series' [[Action Girl]].

 

* ''[[Jem]]''. Most of the main characters have hair larger than their own heads, with colorful shades.

* ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]'', who has hair shaped like soft serve. ''All the time.'' That and his enormous head are the only reasons he is as tall as the other characters his age. Cosmo from ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' even comments on it in one of the Power Hours; he repeatedly calls Jimmy a "fudge-head."

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'': The obvious example is Katara, who keeps up a pretty high-maintenance-looking hairstyle throughout all kinds of trials (although it does fall out of place during one duel), but Zuko is an even better example, given his ability to keep his head shaved except for a perfect diamond on the back of his head, even when trapped in a cave during a blizzard.

** Justified in that he was royalty and likely had someone to assist him. As soon as he goes on the run, it grows out normally. (As for the cave, he wasn't in there long enough for anything significant to grow in, especially if he had his dome chromed right before.)

 

* Women (and occasionally men) will show off their wealth with crazy hairdos by way of embedded jewelery, hair extensions, or just the sheer amounts of time and hired help it takes to make (and maintain) such a hairdo. [[The Eighties]] alone may have been responsible for the hole in the ozone layer given the copious amounts of hairspray it took for some of those crazy styles.

* [[Marie Antoinette]] had to sleep on a wooden block instead of a pillow to preserve some of her more ridiculous coiffures.