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Sio Bibble: I'm Governor Sio Bibble, the Queen's trusted advisor.
Qui-Gon: Advisor? Hmmm. Does he have a goatee?
GM: Yes, actually, he does.
Qui-Gon: We keep an eye on him.
"My God, Fry. Just because a guy's got a beard you label him as evil? Well, I've got a label for you, pal. An ugly little word called 'prejudice'."
What is it about bad guys and facial hair? For some reason, we often take being clean-shaven as an indicator of being straight-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 huge bushy beard turns one into a Nature Hero, grizzled old prospector or Large Ham. Except, of course, for the beards recommended by certain religions that are in the public focus at the moment.
The characters who sport a Beard of Evil are usually either the Big Bad or a second-in-command. This may play into the fact that in both western and eastern culture, goatees are traditionally worn by members of the aristocracy, and authority is evil.
The Beard of Evil has a long history of being associated most closely with the Evil Twin or Evil Counterpart, and you probably already know why. It also scores extra evil points if combined with a shaven head.
Satan is also frequently depicted with a goatee.
A subset of Good Hair Evil Hair. Not to be confused with Growing The Beard.
Examples:
- The mirror universe of Star Trek more or less gave us the cliché of the Evil Twin with a Beard of Evil, as evil Mr. Spock has a goatee. Ironically, Evil Mr. Spock is far and away the least evil person in the mirror universe.
- On Knight Rider, Michael's twin, Garth, sports a Beard of Evil.
- Pastiched on South Park: in their mirror universe, everyone has a goatee.
- Including the Alternate Cartman, who, as the opposite of the "real world" Cartman, is polite, helpful and a genuinely good person.
- Doctor Who: The Master's most iconic appearance, as portrayed by Roger Delgado, is bearded, as is that of Anthony Ainley. Admittedly, 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 Johnathan 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 when Sir Derek Jacobi and John Simm played beardless Masters in 2007.
- Subverted in that the Brigadier has a mustache, while his evil-universe counterpart is clean-shaven.
- 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:
Fifth Doctor: Does he still have that rubbish beard?
Tenth Doctor: No, no beard... Well, a wife...
- In Order Of The Stick, Elan's Evil Twin brother Nale has a blond beard to serve as his distinguishing villainous mark.
- Amusingly subverted in the Warcraft universe; it seems almost as if the opposite is true and male facial hair is directly proportional to goodness.
- Kane in Command And Conquer complements his evil beard with his complete lack of other hair on his head.
- As seen in the page quote, in Darths And Droids, Qui Gon suspects Sio Bibble (or "Bubble", as he calls him) of being evil due to his beard and position as Amidala's trusted advisor. He is, as usual, 100% wrong.
- Having established his firm belief in the Beard Of Evil as a guaranteed indicator of a character's untrustworthiness, Qui Gon's player refuses to let anyone see his character sheet, claiming the Jedi knight is clean-shaven.
- In Batman Begins, Ra's al Ghul's and Henri Ducard's fu manchus are our first clue that the League of Shadows is evil. (Well, the first clue for those who hadn't read the comicbooks.) Bruce Wayne also sports a rather scraggly beard at the beginning of the film, but it's gone by the time he disavows killing and severs ties with the League.
- David Xanatos, of Gargoyles fame and well known for his convoluted plans sported such a beard. He bore more than a passing resemblance to his actor, who played Commander Will Riker and whose beard was notable for another reason.
- Though it should be pointed out that Xanatos was not "evil" per se. He was fairly self-serving, and manipulative, but he never held a grudge, was Affably Evil even when he was the bad guy, and did a Heel Face Turn later in the series.
- Doctor Smith in the Revival Movie of Lost In Space gave away his role in what plot there was.
- Zod did much to increase the fame of this style in the second Superman film.
- Though a lion and therefore ineligible for a beard, Scar in The Lion King has an appropriately shaped mane.
- Ming The Merciless in Flash Gordon, perhaps unsurprisingly, sports what is known as a Fu Manchu.
- Hugo Drax of Moonraker plans to remake the world to make it a better place to have an evil beard in.
- Though he later redeems himself, Captain Bialar Crais of Farscape keeps his beard.
- This seems to be a defining character trait in the God of War series, with all of the main villains (ie. Aries, Zues, etc.) having massive scruffy beards. Kratos also has a Beard Of Evil, which is pretty damn appropriate.
- Ares has a Beard Of Evil in Hercules The Legendary Journeys and Xena Warrior Princess. Notably, his Mirror Universe counterpart, Ares, God of Love, is clean-shaven.
- Semi-averted in the Discworld universe, wherein Lord Vetinari is commonly depicted with a tidy goatee. At worst, he is Lawful Neutral rather than evil.
- Parodied in Making Money, where the Head of Necro- Post-Mortem Communications is described as having tried to grow a beard like this, but not being evil, ended up just looking sheepish.
- In the Futurama episode "Lesser of Two Evils", Fry assumes that Flexo, a bending unit who looks identical to Bender except for a pointed beard, must be Bender's Evil Twin. He isn't of course, Bender is his evil twin.
- Vlad Masters from Danny Phantom. Also Skulker and even Danny's Evil Counterpart Dark Danny sports one.
- Lampshaded in Tales Of The Abyss, where a skit involves Anise spinning a tale to Natalia how the Big Bad's beard is a source of his evil powers. Just one source, mind you: You don't want to know what his ponytail does.
- The Evil Zombie Pirate LeChuck from the Monkey Island series has a rather impressive beard for being, well, dead, and therefore technically not having hair growth. And this one is actually a source of his evil powers, as Guybrush discovers in the second game.
- Subverted in both the comic book and movie versions of Iron Man, in which Tony Stark wears a neatly trimmed signature goatee. Although depending on your opinions of Tony Stark, this may or may not be a subversion.
- Subverted also by many, many, many real-life, movie, and comic book stage magicians, only some of whom are evil.
- This is played with in The Venture Brothers, with the character of Dr. Orpheus, a good guy who looks evil (the eponymous brothers describe him as looking like "a Dracula.") The Monarch and Dr. Venture, on the other hand, are both rather unsavory characters with beards.
- Played with by Lost: in Tom's first two appearances, he has a beard, and is very scary. Then we see him without the beard, and learn that it's fake, and he becomes much less scary.
- Inverted in Fiddler on the Roof
- Serial killer/rapist Mr. Gone from The Maxx combines Bald Of Evil with a wild Beard Of Evil. After a Time Skip during which he does a Heel Face Turn, he no longer has any facial hair.
- Rasputin in Hellboy has a Beardof Evil and Baldof Evil.
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