History Main / ImportantHairCut

[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mulans_haircut_1.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[SweetPollyOliver And then she decided to change her life.]]]]

[[quoteright:297:[[WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mulans_haircut.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:297:[[SweetPollyOliver And then she decided to change her life.]]]]

* ''Fanfic/OutOfLuck'' as Lynn do this by undoing her ponytail. This is done out of shame as it was her actions and belief in so-called luck that cost her EVERYTHING. Her family. Her brother. Her popularity. AND her honor plus pride. Her ponytail was a symbol of how arrogant she became and the result of said pride.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "Thanks to Them", Hunter gives himself a haircut when he realizes his hair [[TraumaButton too closely resembles that of his past abuser]], [[BigBad Emperor Belos]]. Willow later helps him clean it up in a [[IntimateHaircut surprisingly tender moment]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "Thanks to Them", Hunter gives himself a haircut when he realizes his hair too [[TraumaButton closely resembles that of his past abuser]], [[BigBad Emperor Belos]]. Willow later helps him clean it up in a suprisingly tender moment.

* Outside of the ring, it's a bit of a tradition for some male wrestlers are known for their long hair to cut it short once they retire. {{Wrestling/Edge}} gradually shortened his after retiring but went fully short before his [[Wrestling/WWEHallOfFame Hall of Fame]] induction. Wrestling/TripleH shaved his head after his big loss to Wrestling/BrockLesnar and transition to a character role[[note]]The cut was also half-practical since he had to wear his hair up in the office and found it a pain[[/note]]. Wrestling/KevinNash cut him off after his 2011 program with Triple H had ended (he let the haircut from the above example grow out almost immediately). Wrestling/AdamRose had long hair well past his shoulders, but cut it all off as soon as he was granted his release.

* On the GenderFlip side, it's a tradition for a WWE Diva to change her hair after leaving the company. Normally blonde Divas go brunette -- Wrestling/TrishStratus, Wrestling/BethPhoenix, Wrestling/MichelleMcCool[[note]]though she reverted back to blond as of 2014[[/note]], and Wrestling/KellyKelly[[note]]she's gone back to blond as of early 2015[[/note]] and [[Wrestling/TenilleDashwood Emma]] are examples. Wrestling/{{Kaitlyn}} darkened her trademark two-tone hair to a simpler brunette look a couple of months before she left the company too. Wrestling/MickieJames stopped highlighting her hair after leaving WWE. Wrestling/EveTorres, Wrestling/Candice Michelle, Brie Bella, and Wrestling/{{Melina}} opted for shorter haircuts when they retired too. (Candice's was for locks for love, though) Wrestling/IvelisseVelez turned her hair brown after getting released, claiming she had wanted to do it while in the company but they insisted she remains blonde. Wrestling/SummerRae likewise went redhead.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'' (pictured above), the title character cuts her hair off with a sword in a half-practical (making her upcoming SweetPollyOliver charade easier), half-symbolic (breaking off with her past) move.

* [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]] had his long hair and beard trimmed during his tenure as [=SmackDown=] General Manager, though they grew to their familiar length by the time he got back into action. At the very end of 2019, he reverts to the hairstyle he originally had in his early career.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', [[WhiteMagicianGirl Princess Garnet]] goes into a period of mourning after her coronation as Queen of Alexandria is interrupted by an invasive attack by the BigBad -- a piece of unfinished business she left hanging when she went home to assume the throne. Eventually, she learns to put the incident, and her [[ItsAllMyFault sense of shame over it]], behind her. As an expression of her newfound devotion to give her all to finding and stopping the BigBad, for her people and for every kingdom in the world, she borrows one of [[TheHero Zidane's]] daggers -- which have a previously established significance in her sense of identity[[note]]Many fans of Final Fantasy remember her more as her alias "Dagger", which she adopts after the "abduction"... [[HelloInsertNameHere At least, it's the default]][[/note]] -- and uses it to give herself an Important Haircut. In a slight twist, her hair has grown back to its original length by the end of the game, although the symbolic weight of the Important Haircut doesn't seem to be diminished by it.

* Creator/RoseMcGowan decided to cut her hair short herself on a whim one day after she had decided to stop acting. According to her, she had kept it long all her life because she had once been advised that long hair would get her more parts and she eventually shaved her hair off, though she now sports a pixie cut.

** Michelle Fairley marked [[spoiler: Catelyn Stark's death at the Red Wedding]] by getting a haircut after filming. She also had her hair dyed for the role and this allowed it to grow back naturally.
*** Somewhat ironic, as her character's last thoughts in the novel was thinking that a Frey was going to cut her hair and that Ned always loved it.

* Creator/ElliotPage cut his hair short not long before coming out as a trans man in late 2020.

* Attempted by a robber in North Carolina who cut his long hair and drastically changed clothes in between two robberies.
* Creator/OdedFehr got famous for ''Film/TheMummyTrilogy'', where he had long flowing hair. Feeling it limited what roles he could go after, he cut it short in the 2000s and said he enjoyed a bit of anonymity for a while.

** Played with in the third season when Aang shaves off the hair that he'd grown between seasons: although this returns him to his original look, it also signifies his resolve to fight the BigBad.

* Riku is a LongHairedPrettyBoy throughout most of the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series, but come ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'', and he has much shorter hair to symbolize that he's now a true hero and no longer an AntiHero. It gets even shorter in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' thanks to a CloseCallHaircut.

* In ''VideoGame/PunchOut'' for UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}, before your second match with Von Kaiser, he is shown getting a military cut, symbolizing he's not letting his emotional trauma hinder him for the next match.

* Invoked in ''Videogame/{{Shadow Warrior|2013}}'', where Lo-Wang decides to shave his head because all the great heroes do this, citing Series/KungFu and ''Film/TaxiDriver'' as examples. His demon companion Hoji notes that Travis Bickle is far from heroic, but Wang ignores this.

-->-- ''Literature/InsideOut''

* This trope is often inverted by many WWE Divas, as getting weaves or hair extensions put in is a sign that they're about to be called up to a TV or used more prominently[[note]]RapunzelHair is favored by a lot of wrestling women both for {{Fanservice}} and the fact that longer hair flying around makes a lot of moves look more impactful[[/note]]. Wrestling/SashaBanks had shoulder-length hair when she was signed, but RapunzelHair by the time she had debuted. Wrestling/CharlotteFlair initially had shoulder-length hair but put extensions in right before her NXT Women's Championship win. It would probably be easier to list the WWE Divas who haven't put them in at some point.

** A conditional example appears in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden'': Should her lover Zeke fall in battle, the priestess Tatiana will cut her RapunzelHair short as a means of expressing her overwhelming grief. In the remake, ''Echoes: Shadows of Valentia'', Tatiana does ''not'' cut her hair but instead locks herself in a monastery for a while.
** A weird retroactive version of this trope occurs between ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' with Karel. In the prequel, ''The Blazing Blade'', he's a BloodKnight with [[RapunzelHair hair down to his waist.]] In ''The Binding Blade'', he has short hair and deeply regrets the way he used to act.

* Willow cuts her RapunzelHair in ''Webcomic/{{Earthsong}}'' after learning that she is Earthsong's Eve, but [[spoiler: created by Beluosus for his plans to become a star. The style isn't super short, but it does increase her resemblance to his original Eve, who rejected the plan in favor of revenge]].

* [[https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/little-girl-teased-short-hairstyle-teacher-got-haircut-003345113.html?guccounter=1 This report]] talks of a kindergarten teacher whose student's hair had to be [[TraumaticHaircut cut short due to headlice]]. After a few weeks of the girl being teased for it, the teacher had her own RapunzelHair cut to the same length in solidarity.

* Creator/MiaFarrow was known for her RapunzelHair when she first got fame for the TV series ''Peyton Place''. Having been raised Catholic, she felt uneasy when her hair became popular and then impulsively cut it all off herself with manicure scissors one morning -- right in the middle of shooting an episode. They had to hurriedly write in a reason for her character to do the same in said episode. In her autobiography she remarked:

* Attempted by Wrestling/Dolph Ziggler in 2011, where he cut his bleached blonde hair into a brunet buzzcut. But WordOfGod is that they realized it was a mistake immediately and re-bleached it as soon as it got long enough. He also reverted back to his previous cocky show-off persona.

* On the GenderFlip side, it's a tradition for a WWE Diva to change her hair after leaving the company. Normally blonde Divas go brunette -- Wrestling/TrishStratus, Wrestling/BethPhoenix, Wrestling/Michelle McCool, and Wrestling/KellyKelly[[note]]she's gone back to blond as of early 2015[[/note]] and [[Wrestling/TenilleDashwood Emma]] are examples. Wrestling/{{Kaitlyn}} darkened her trademark two-tone hair to a simpler brunette look a couple of months before she left the company too. Wrestling/Mickie James stopped highlighting her hair after leaving WWE. Wrestling/EveTorres, Wrestling/Candice Michelle, Brie Bella, and Wrestling/{{Melina}} opted for shorter haircuts when they retired too. (Candice's was for locks for love, though) Wrestling/IvelisseVelez turned her hair brown after getting released, claiming she had wanted to do it while in the company but they insisted she remains blonde. Wrestling/SummerRae likewise went redhead.

[[caption-width-right:297:[-[[SweetPollyOliver And then she decided to change her life.]]-] ]]

* Creator/ElliotPage cut his long hair short after coming out as a trans man in late 2020.
* Inverted for Creator/EddieIzzard as she grew out her hair not long before coming out as a trans woman in early 2021.

* Creator/ElliottPage cut his long hair short after coming out as a trans man in late 2020.

In many religions (Western Christianity, Ancient Egyptian religion, and others) priests and/or monks cut/shave their hair. Roman Catholic nuns also tend to cut and mantain their hair short under their veils when they enter the nunneries. The cutting of one's own hair is also a part of Buddhism, specifically something done by Siddhartha himself early on in his path to enlightenment, so anime examples might draw from this as an allusion. There are also some cultures, including Native American and many Asian ones, where a person would cut his or her hair as an act of grief, disgrace, or even rebellion. In the Confucian tradition, hair (like the rest of your body) is considered a gift from your parents and may not be damaged without a good reason. Furthermore, prisoners and psychiatric patients commonly have their heads shaved, often to prevent the spread of lice, but sometimes also [[TraumaticHaircut as a demeaning measure]].

* ''Webcomic/YourThrone'': Psyche cuts her long hair to shoulder lenght after dediding to stand up for herself.

** After Kim forced Ron Stoppable to cut his hair, his personality took a 180. He became secure in himself, dressed more slick than he ever did, and got to be popular with the attractive girls. But he became such a jerk that even his loyal naked mole rat didn't want to spend time with him, so he had his hair combed wrong, making the attractive girls overlooking him again.

* [[Series/TheRachelMaddowShow Rachel Maddow]] was once a closeted teenager with [[http://snakkle.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/rachel-maddow-yearbook-high-school-young-red-carpet-photo-GC.jpg long blonde hair]]; she went to college and came out as a lesbian, got a Rhodes Scholarship and shaved off dyed [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair blue hair]] as part of a [[http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2044/4518427131_99f1c4cc72_z.jpg bet]]; her hair grew back a [[http://i.huffpost.com/gen/777147/thumbs/o-RACHEL-MADDOW-570.jpg?6 little]] before ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' came out, then she got a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBfpV6Nga5k short, sensible haircut]] that would make 90s cartoon moms cream; now [[http://bandofthebes.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341cc27e53ef01630361c53e970d-580wi she has short brown hair]].