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Good Hair, Evil Hair: Difference between revisions
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It used to be that things were simple: [[The Hero|The Heroes]] had faces smoother than a baby's bottom and [[Villains]] had long, thin, oily moustaches to twirl after tying the [[Distressed Damsel]] to a [[Chained to a Railway|set of train tracks]]. Then along came the grizzled [[The Drifter|Drifter]] with his five o'clock shadow, [[The Gunslinger]] with his proud beard, and other [[Anti-Hero|Antiheroes]] who broke out of old archetypes. Thanks to these brave pioneers in the fight for facial follicle freedom it's been okay for heroes to have beards, villains to be clean-shaven, and [[Anti-Hero|Antiheroes]] to blur the lines. However, much like superhero costumes there are still guidelines for who can get away with what.
By default [[Heroes]] tend towards clean shaves, whether it's because of artistic inertia or simple cultural popularity is up for grabs.<ref> It is worth noting that the last United States President with any facial hair whatsoever is William Howard Taft, meaning our last century of Presidents has been clean-shaven.</ref> Sometimes movies made in countries or/of eras that are friendlier to facial hair have a higher number of heroes and extras with beards and mustaches, though it is still very common to find anachronistically clean shaven male main characters. A full, thick, and above all '''well trimmed''' beard is almost always a sign of the good guys (Dwarfs, Santa, mentor characters, etc). [[The Obi-Wan]] often has one. You will never, ever see a good character with a [[Yellow Peril|Fu Manchu]] mustache, nor one with a pencil thin moustache, unless you are watching an Errol Flynn movie, or in fact any movie from the 1930s or 40s. [[Perma
Speaking of which, any moustache resembling [[Adolf Hitler]]'s is off-limits (see the example below), even to villains, and can only be used to mock a character by photoshopping said moustache onto them (unless it's [[Charlie Chaplin]], because it was his look ''first'').
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[[Villains]] with beards tend to either have long wispy ones, short fancy ones, or wild and unkempt ones. This depends entirely on [[Evil Makeover|what flavor their villainy has]]. Sophisticated villains tend towards clean shaves and devil goatees and will almost always be very fastidious about their appearance. [[Beard of Barbarism|Savage villains are likelier to have a full on uncontrolled beard, possibly with braids or dreadlocks]]. Back alley thugs or unsavory types are likely to keep thin and scraggly beards, in line with their ratty appearance.
An [[Anti-Hero]], of course, can go either way, although they rarely have the wispy beards. [[Perma
For [[Evil Minions]] and foot soldiers one of the few perks they enjoy is complete freedom to go overboard with their beards: long braids, intricate patterns, pencil thin flame designs and more are common. The punk/grunge/barbarian image their intricate styles boast is an excellent cue that they'll soon be wishing they'd spent less time grooming and more practicing to dodge an [[Offhand Backhand]].
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==== [[Video Games]] ====
* [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario and Luigi]] are two of the more iconic mustachioed heroes, as a simple mouth on the primitive game sprites wouldn't show as well.
** In ''[[
* Kai Kitamura from ''[[Super Robot Wars]] Original Generation''. The [[Super Robot]] Soulgain also sports a metal moustache, though its pilot Axel Almer doesn't sport one. And yes, he's still a military man.
* Colonel Stephon Ely, from the ''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'' series of games, has a thick moustache and chomps a cigar (which he never actually smokes, probably because the actor didn't).
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=== A Five O'Clock Shadow or [[Perma
This kind of facial hair is a classic way of saying "gritty".
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