An Expository Hairstyle where most of the hair is kept long except for an evenly straight "fringe" in the front that falls over the forehead, stopping at the eyebrows. Because it keeps hair out of one's eyes without using clips or pins, it's a popular style for young girls. Accordingly, this hairstyle is visual shorthand for a character being physically or mentally immature.
When combined with Dawson Casting, actors will have bangs when portraying their younger selves, in contrast with more "adult" hairstyles as they age. Artificial clip-on bangs make this much easier, since an actor doesn't need to cut their hair or wear a full wig to change their appearance for a few scenes.
This is not every instance of a character having bangs. For the trope to apply, the bangs need to indicate or emphasize a character being childish. Bangs that are part of a Funny Flashback Haircut are not this trope unless the flashback is to their childhood, or at least a time when they were significantly less mature.
Can be part of an Expository Hairstyle Change, if the character loses the bangs as they get older or more experienced. Often combined with Girlish Pigtails. Generally an Always Female trope (although boy geniuses sometimes have them). Contrast with Hiding Behind Your Bangs (where the bangs indicate secrecy or mystery), and Hime Cut (a specific hairstyle which involves even bangs, but signifies a proper Japanese lady).
Examples:
- Buddy Daddies: Four-year-old Miri wears her hair in a bob cut with blunt bangs.
- Inverted in Doki Doki! PreCure: Despite being the youngest Cure, Aguri has no bangs and a big forehead, while her older, more mature teammates Mana and Alice do have bangs.
- Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure: Hinata, the most carefree and goofy, has fluffy bangs.
- Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure: Princess Elle, The Baby of the Bunch, has notable bangs.
- HuGtto! Pretty Cure:
- Hana, who is initially the least mature of her Cure group, has self-cut bangs. In the first episode, once finished with her haircut, her sister Kotori makes fun of her for being immature.
- Halfway through the series, the teenage Cures are joined by grade school-age Emiru, who has long bangs to express her youth compared to the other Cures.
- Smile PreCure!: The shy crybaby Yayoi has the most obvious bangs of the Cures.
- Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure: Genki Girl Hikaru has bangs to go with her Messy Hair, while her more mature teammate Elena has no bangs at all.
- Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure: Laura, who is trollish, hotheaded, and overall the most immature of the Cures, has medium-length bangs.
- Zombie Land Saga: Lily—a 12-year old girl and the youngest of the main cast—has her bangs styled like this.
- In The Swan Princess, Odette has bangs as a young child and preteen, and loses them when she becomes a savvier teen and then adult.
- In Turning Red, Abby has this hairstyle and in both appearance and attitude is the youngest of Mei's friend group.
- The Bad Seed: Rhoda Penmark seems to be the perfect little girl- she's charming, courteous, polite. But under those perfect braids and bangs lies an evil child that only her mother seems to notice.
- Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber sports a childish fringe, one of the many subtleties to show that he really doesn't act his age!
- Interview with the Vampire: Claudia's bangs and golden curls are a bitter reminder that no matter how much she mentally matures, she will forever appear as an innocent little girl.
- In Little Women, Florence Pugh plays Amy March as both a child and an adult, the only difference between them being Amy's childhood bangs.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe: In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Natasha Romanoff has bangs in her visions of being trained in the Red Room as a child.
- In Matilda, both Matilda and Amanda Thripp have bangs. Even after Amanda loses her Girlish Pigtails after Miss Trunchbull throws her by them, she keeps the bangs.
- Double Subverted in Sabrina: Sabrina has bangs and a ponytail as the unremarkable chauffeur's daughter, but when she returns home from Paris far more beautiful and sophisticated, she's eliminated the bangs by cutting all her hair short.
- Karen Dotrice as Mary in The Three Lives of Thomasina provides the current page image, and she has an identical hairstyle as Jane in Mary Poppins.
- In Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, Jane (and the doll version of her) has these bangs combined with Regal Ringlets as a child star. As an adult, she keeps the ringlets but no longer has the bangs. Her sister, Blanche, also has these bangs, but cut unflatteringly high to give her a more sinister look.
- What Maisie Knew: The title character sports dark-brown hair with straight bangs, which characterizes her precocious, innocent, and sometimes despondent nature.
- Most cinematic and animated adaptations of Pippi Longstocking give her these bangs along with her braided pigtails. Notable in that the original cover art version of Pippi does not have bangs.
- Ezra Pound's version of the Chinese poem "The River Merchant's Wife" opens with the narrator referring to her childhood: "While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead."
- The Brady Bunch: Cindy Brady, as she's described in the opening as being The youngest one in curls was forever wearing bangs in contrast to her older sisters.
- In Bridgerton, Eloise has bangs, in contrast with her older sister Daphne, in order to emphasize her immaturity (and to make her actress, who is in her 30s, look more like a teenager).
- Punky Brewster: Punky wears a mildly tomboyish, if not quirky version of this. Her bangs are long, and uneven in places as if she cuts her hair herself.
- In War and Peace, Lily James plays Natasha Rostov from teenager-hood (with bangs) to adulthood (without bangs).
- In Wednesday, the titular character has these bangs with braids. Notable in that all other incarnations of the character, including the the original cartoons, the 1960s sitcom, and the the 1990s films, don't have bangs. In Christina Ricci's case, the lack of bangs is highlighted by her Villainous Widow's Peak to make her even creepier.
- In Arthur, D.W., another Bratty Half-Pint, has face-framing bangs with a bob cut.
- As Told by Ginger: Dodie Bishop wears bangs and pigtails even into adolescence, signifying that she is by far the most immature friend of Ginger's.
- Hey Arnold!: Helga Pataki's brash attitude clashes with her feminine outfit and hair — which includes pigtails, perfect bangs and a giant pink bow.
- Muppet Babies (2018): Because he's too young to have his distinctice Big Ol' Eyebrows and moustache, Baby Chef has long bangs covering his eyes.
- In Rugrats, the three-year-old Bratty Half-Pint Angelica has bangs.
