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"Oh, THESE sunglasses? You can't afford THESE sunglasses! And get your hands off the ropes!"
Wearing dark glasses or mirrorshades is long-standing visual shorthand for Badassitude. The act of putting them on means that it's time to kick ass, take names or do both. The act of taking them off is rarely, if ever, witnessed. (Which makes one wonder how can they put them on so often.)
Obligatory for a Cyber Punk setting, or for intimidating Deep South Lawmen. A nice accessory to a Badass Longcoat.
The opposite of Nerd Glasses, and the inverse of The Glasses Come Off.
Overlaps, but is not identical to, Scary Shiny Glasses. If the effect is to make the wearer look sinister rather than badass, this is Sinister Shades. If you're Making A Spectacle Of Yourself, the effect is to make you look just plain weird. But remember, sometimes the Goggles Do Nothing.
Aside from making them look Badass the reason behind them wearing shades is so they don't show that their eyes flinch when firing a weapon or having massive swords flung at their face. So when a character isn't wearing any shades and running around firing automatic weapons and manages to show no discomfort you know they're truly badass.
Another reason being that most people commonly have visual cues they give with their eyes subconsciously. Something a properly trained ((or badass)) opponent might pick up on. If they can't see your eyes, obviously they won't see you look at the gun before you leap into a roll for it, or look at the guy in the corner right before shooting him and making a break for it.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- The X-Men's Scott Summers, Cyclops, wears sunglasses (or a visor, when in costume) with special lenses to contain his unceasing Eye Beams all the time, even when asleep. In various depictions, these range from clunky to top of the range Oakleys. In this case, taking them off is the threatening move.
- Cassidy from Preacher always wears them, to hide his many years of drug abuse.
- In Transmetropolitan Spider Jerusalem has distinct "live shades" with circular red lens and rectangular green lens. The item maker that created them was on hallucinogenic drugs. Now how cool is that.
- The Corinthian also wears them to hide his nature. While his taking them off is a threatening move, his leaving them on isn't so reassuring either.
- It's also up in the air what he did before the invention of sunglasses— wear a blindfold? Fringey hair?
Film
- The first Back To The Future ends with Doc Brown showing up wearing some very Cool Shades. They're so cool, they're made out of sheet metal! Christopher Lloyd couldn't see a thing out of them. They were only written in as a gag for the first film. When the sequels came around, he ditched them ASAP.
- In Part II the glasses are revealed to be a part of the Delorean's modifications that allow him to see what's happening around the car.
- Note than you can now re-create this appearance with some brands of modern-day mirror shades.
- The Cool Shades in the film They Live! actually Do Something Unusual ; they allow the wearer to see the aliens in human guise, who are apparently responsible for the widening wealth gap, economic inflation, and a bubblegum shortage. That doesn't stop them from being used for Badass effect, though.
- Reservoir Dogs, in the intro sequence.
- John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd wore shades when performing as Jake and Elwood Blues. The Blues Brothers act originated on Saturday Night Live and got made into a blockbuster movie in 1980. Neither one of the Blues Brothers removed their sunglasses in the film... well, Jake removed his in the scene where he was apologising to the Mystery Woman (Carrie Fisher).
- The Blues Brothers had a not-so-successful sequel in 1998 called Blues Brothers 2000, in which Elwood takes off his shades (only) once—and he covers his eyes with his hand when he does. Even his driver's license has shades. New core members of the band also get cool shades; when Cable is converted to the true faith of R&B, his cop shades are turned into cool shades.
- The DVD of the original movie includes scenes omitted from the earlier versions, that include Elwood resigning his job as a menial factory worker, while he wears protective goggles instead of shades.
- Putting on sunglasses is just about all Ace Ventura does.
- The Men In Black also use their shades for a purpose - it keeps them from being affected by their memory-erasing Neuralizer.
- J actually trades his first pair in for a more styling set at the end of the first movie.
- Blade, in the movie and sequels of the same name, apparently stores his surplus Badassitude in his shades. In every movie, there seems to be a point where he loses them, and then regains them, just to put 'em on in a badass way. Usually this happens right before fighting the Big Bad.
- Cool Shades is what differentiates characters from extras in The Matrix. Virtually everyone that matters wears them.
- Regardless of what model it is, every Terminator cyborg is required to acquire cool shades before proceeding with its mission. They have to be cool. They have to be shades. They can't be uncool shades. The first T-800 used the shades to hide his damaged skin, but the next two seemed to just be concerned with style.
- Exception: "Cameron", the Waif Fu Terminator in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, doesn't bother. With Summer Glau
 in the role, they'd just be redundant.
- Subverted in Terminator 3, where the T-800 discovers to his dismay that the shades that come with the outfit he mugged off a male stripper are pink and star-shaped. He drops them on the ground and crushes them with his boot.
- In The Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick never puts on (or takes off) his goggles except to make a point. To be fair, his eyes are extremely sensitive to light (allowing him to see no matter how dark it is), so he actually uses them to shade his eyes.
- Done to great effect in Hot Fuzz: the main character is disenfranchised and giving up when he sees DVDs of Point Break and Bad Boys 2 in a little convenience store. Inspired, he buys a pair of cheap sunglasses that make him look disproportionately badass. He later hands off a spare pair to his partner when they meet up.
- Soultaker stars Martin Sheen's brother as a Cool Shades-wearing Grim Reaper who falls in love with the leading lady/scriptwriter. The SOL Crew insisted upon singing "Sunglasses At Night" to mock this.
- The blind character in Sneakers only wears dark glasses in one scene, apparently for the sole purpose of reflecting screens of computer code.
- Combined with a subversion of The Glasses Come Off in the movie Airplane, when Captain Rex Kramer whips off his sunglasses to make a dramatic point, only to reveal another pair of sunglasses underneath.
- He then removes those sunglasses to make another dramatic point. Unfortunately, he was not wearing a third pair, as the Rule Of Three cannot be applied to this trope for fear of implosion.
- Vincent Latello, from the movie My Science Project. "Because when you're cool, the sun shines on you twenty four hours a day."
- Rodney Skinner, Gentleman Thief, wears these to hide the fact that his eyes are invisible.
- The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, the The Film Of The Book: this campaign ad for Zaphod Beeblebrox puts forward the following argument:
"Zaphod Beeblebrox has the longest hair of any candidate
and he's got the coolest shades..."
- In other versions of the Guide these are "the greatest shades in the known sky": Joo Janta Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses. At the first hint of danger they turn totally black, and prevent you from seeing anything that may alarm you. Ford isn't impressed.
- The first Mortal Kombat movie has Johnny Cage wearing a rather pricey set of shades that get crushed by Goro.
Johnny Cage: Those were 500 dollar sunglasses, asshole.
Literature
- Molly (aka Rose, Sally, etc) from Neuromancer has mirrorshades surgically implanted over her eyes. The same surgery also rearranged her tearducts, so she literally can't cry. Instead, she spits.
- They're not just mirrorshades; they have microchannel image amps built into them so she can see in the dark. Somewhat cooler than your typical cybernetic replacement eyes, not to mention being rather easier to manufacture.
- Crowley from Good Omens wears a pair of sunglasses all the time to hide gold eyes with pupils slitted like a snake's.
- In Artemis Fowl, mirrored shades are on the list of items needed for a night-time mission, but they turn out to serve a practical purpose - deflecting the fairies' hypnotic mesmer ability.
- Minty Fresh from Coyote Blue wears Cool Shades to hide his golden eyes.
Live Action TV
- Horatio Caine of CSI Miami punctuates almost every Grissom One Liner by putting on his Cool Shades — if he's not already wearing them. (If he's already wearing them, he'll take them off and put them back on again.)
- This is then parodied in the Weebl and Bob toon CSI
- There's a good reason the fandom call them the SUNGLASSES OF JUSTICE!
- In an early episode of The West Wing, Josh puts on his sunglasses to punctuate his threat to a Congressman. "The President doesn't hold grudges. That's what he has me for."
- Power Rangers Jungle Fury features a set of shades as a Transformation Trinket.
- Parodied on Chef!
Gareth: Everton, why are you wearing sunglasses?
Everton: They make me look cool.
Gareth: Take them off.
Everton: I brought you a pair.
Gareth: Okay.
Gareth: Why do you keep checking the mirror? Are we being followed?
Everton: No. I'm just making sure I look cool.
- While most of the deputies on Reno 911! wear shades to take on the Badass Cop persona, Deputy Junior almost never takes them off. Not even indoors or at night.
- Kung Fu: the Legend Continues: Ex-mercenary/police detective Kermit Griffin virtually never takes his sunglasses off.
- On Chuck, shades-wearing secret agent Bryce Larkin tries to give his sunglasses to Chuck, claiming that he should have them if he's going to be a real spy.
- Harper's imaginary friend Mr. Lies sports a pair of these in Angels In America.
- One recurring character in the reimagined series of Battlestar Galactica, Romo Lampkin, nearly always wears shades, despite the fact that he's living in a fleet of dimly-lit spaceships. Justified in that he wears them so that people cannot tell what he is looking at - he is a kleptomaniac lawyer, after all...
- In the Firefly pilot, Simon is first shown wearing a pair of nice-looking sunglasses. The Better Days comic tie-in indicates these are actually functional, as they block retina scans.
- This troper is gravely disappointed that not a single mention has been given to the awe-spiring sunglasses of Michael Westen from Burn Notice. Sales of that particular brand of shades (Oliver People's Victory) shot up right after the show started to get popular, a testament to just how damn cool they are.
Manga & Anime
- Kamina of Gurren Lagann is constantly wearing cool shades (which stay on without any visible means of attachment and he wore despite living underground never seeing the sun for most of his life), and after he hijacks his own Humongous Mecha, Gurren, he melts down the pair of swords it had on it to give the mech a pair of shades too. Later on, those same shades (plus a second pair out of nowhere) are used to hold the enemy down for a final blow. Then the shades reattach themselves. Rule Of Cool indeed. This isn't even going into the far more ridiculous and over-the-top sunglasses that appear later on. These shades have undergone Memetic Mutation, instantly rendering any character they are shopped onto incredibly manly. Observe.◊
- To top it off, during a massive power-up, Simon's digging goggles morph into Kamina's shades, and then into five-point star shades.
- After finding out that Chouginga Gurren-Lagann's design was based on Shin Dragon, this troper can no longer see its face as anything other than a pair of six-pointed shades◊.
- Sanson from Nadia The Secret Of Blue Water has some pretty damn Cool Shades. They have a similar shape to Kamina's without being as over the top, and the generally extremely similar personality of the two characters leads this editor to think that the Gurren Lagann team were a little inspired by Gainax's earlier figure of goofball manliness.
- In Trigun, Vash the Stampede always puts on his yellow sunglasses right before he stops playing the fool and reveals his actual hypercompetence.
- This is actually because his eyes glow blue when he gets pissed and he likes to hide it.
- Wolfwood wears Cool Shades most of the time in the manga. In the manga, Knives occasionally gets cyberpunk-style ones.
- Dutch, Eda and Mr. Chang from Black Lagoon. Rotton the Wizard is a subversion.
- In the Pokemon anime, Ash's Squirtle kept the Cool Shades from his days leading the Squirtle Squad and has been known to pull them out from time to time.
- Compare Squirtle's shades with Kamina's. The ramifications of this don't bear thinking about.
- Something, perhaps, like this?◊
- The best part: Squirtle's shades predate Kamina's.
- Shino Aburame wears a pair of shades that never leave his face in Naruto, as well as most, if not all, of the Aburame clan from which he hails from.
- In Hellsing, Alucard's sunglasses, at least toward the beginning of the series. By later on, he's abandoned them, in what is probably the most Bad Ass way of having The Glasses Come Off ever.
- Nerima Daikon Brothers seems to reference the Blues Brothers. The not-quite-cool title characters seem to wear sunglasses...well, because they're in a blues band!
- Enishi from Rurouni Kenshin is always seen with a pair of purple-tinted John Lennon shades...which brings up the question of who sold sunglasses in the late 19th century...
- Sai Saici from G Gundam, when trying to look cool to a girl, wore a huge pair of pointed triangular shades.
- Suzaku Kururugi of Code Geass wears a pair of shades in his civilian clothing. Also, Schneizel sported a pair during the FLEIJA testing. They were only protective sunglasses, but still...◊
- Franky from One Piece wears very Kamina-esque ones. Before Kamina did it.
- Tooya of Ayashi no Ceres wears shades at the beginning of the story, while—you guessed it—he was still working for the Mikages. He begins to wear them less frequently as time wears on, which is cool because you get a glimpse of the first facial expressions he makes. In his life. This troper particularly loves how his shades were first removed in the manga.
- Iceman Hotty from Basquash! wears a pair of cool shades all the time. Though it's not until Spanky attempts to eat a pair of random lizards scampering through the desert that we find out his shades are actually alive. Though they're hardly the first pair of equipment to be alive in the series.
- Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist sports a badass pair of shades to hide his red eyes. He seems to have left them behind following his Heel Face Turn.
- How could ANYONE forget forget Zeta Gundam badass Quattro Bajina?!
- Matt from Death Note has goggles that never seem to be given a real purpose (though he does wear them at least), but are still thought to be one of the coolest things in the world by fans of his.
- Batou/Bateau takes this to its logical Cyberpunk extreme in Ghost In The Shell (all versions) by "wearing" night vision goggle lenses implanted in place of his eyes. They cannot be removed and his "real" eyes, should they exist, are never seen. Also double as Scary Shiny Glasses when he's being extra intimidating.
Video Games
- Cecile Forward wears a nice looking pair in intermission scenes in Castle Fantasia 2 Renewal, though they do tend to subvert their purpose in battle scenes, where she looks rather bug eyed.
- Dr. Robotnik from Sonic The Hedgehog wears a pair of round-frame sunglasses at all times with the intended effect of making him look more intimidating. It didn't really work, at first.◊
- To be fair, imagine what he would look like without them. At least they help build an image.
- In Sonic Riders, every character wears cool goggles. They never, EVER use them. See Goggles Do Nothing.
- In The King Of Fighters, K' always wears sunglasses and takes them off during his intro. Some official artwork shows him with white framed glasses with red tint. The shades aren't solely there for show as his Chain Drive move has him throwing them at the foe and when hit, follows up with an autocombo, he also seems to have an infinite supply of sunglasses as he can perform his Chain Drive whenever he has 1 power bar.
- Parodied in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, wherein Rude, upon having his shades destroyed during battle (because Reno steps on them), immediately produces a spare pair from his pocket and puts them on before returning to the fight. He seems rather distraught by their loss, though. Possibly he has a special "Make Sunglasses" materia in his pocket. Or he used the W-Item trick.
- Cloud has a (very sexy) pair at the beginning of the movie, though he loses them in the same scene.
- Al-Cid Margrace from Final Fantasy XII actually had someone to hold his glasses for him while he wasn't using them.
- Auron of Final Fantasy X, however, is always wearing his. Except during flashbacks.
- Subverted slightly in that his cool shades are small and worn low on the nose, so you can often see at least part of his eyes.
- Beyond the Grave, the main character of Gungrave wears a pair of small, yet neat, sunglasses (?) that have the left lens blacked out and a cross design on top of that. It serves a minor purpose in that the black lens slightly covers up the prominent scar on his face—and the fact that he no longer has a left eye, because it was shot out at point-blank range, and killed him back when he was still Brandon.
- Proto Man from Mega Man.
- J.C from Deus Ex never takes them off. When mocked by Agent Navarre for wearing sunglasses at night, he gruffly replies that his vision is augmented. Additionally it is suggested that the cool shades stop him freaking the public with his solid blue eyes.
- Duke Nukem is never seen without his signature pair of cool shades.
- With the exceptions of the Duke Nukem games before Duke Nukem 3D.
- All five members of the Elite Beat Agents from newbie Spin to veteran team leader Chieftain.
- Many characters from Unreal Tournament 2004
- Serious Sam started off wearing shades, but they were later removed from his design, allegedly to "make a less Duke Nukem looking character".
- Albert goddamn Wesker. Eventually, it's to cover up with bizarrely inhuman eyes, but mostly they're just there to be rockin'.
- He only takes them off twice in RE:5 the first time the throws them at Chris as distraction(and then wipes the floor with him before catching his glasses to put them back on) before the boss sequence begins and the second time was during the final battle.
- Ada Wong in Resident Evil 4 drops a pair, which then explode as a distraction.
- Johnny from Guilty Gear. His shades are removed only in his Burst sprite (to show he's serious now, of course).
- Cool Shades adorn the titular Spot in Cool Spot. They're also found in the scenery on occasion.
- Jake Armitage from the Super Nintendo incarnation of Shadow Run. Initially he needs to put them on to solve a puzzle. He needs to wear them to prevent the morgue guys from recognizing him as the guy who woke up at the morgue, so they won't flee and he can talk with them. But they can't be taken off once worn and show up in all the cutscenes from then onwards. Some characters also comment on them when spoken to.
- In Fallout 2, putting mirrored shades on actually gave your character +1 bonus to Charisma.
- Likewise, in Fallout 3, Mr. Burke wears a pair of these. Which you can later steal from his house, provided you are crazy good with lockpicks (or have discovered cheat codes).
- Fallout 3 also has the "Lucky Shades", a unique pair of sunglasses that gives you a +1 bonus to your Luck while you wear them.
- In Pen and Teller's unreleased game "Smoke and Mirrors, a minigame has a slider for the amount one wears sunglasses ranging from "hate them, never wear them." to "I'm Lou Reed, I never take them off." On Impossible in the main game, Lou Reed shows up wearing the shades, and kills the player characters with his laser eyes. Without removing the shades.
- Katsuya and Baofu, both from Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, sport some rockin' shades.
- Blank from Space Channel 5. His were pink variants of the classic Kamina 'boomerang' shades. His 'turn' icon even had a glint next to the glasses!
Webcomics
- Yuki from Megatokyo switched from Meganekko-style glasses to Cool Shades after Largo made her a Little Miss Badass.
- Brent Sienna from PvP is never seen without his trademark shades. He takes them off when he gets married, only to be blinded immediately because his eyes haven't been exposed to that much light in decades.
- At one point, Cole Wilson tries to emulate him by wearing aviator sunglasses, which Brent objects to because cool shades are his thing. A few strips later, Cole no longer wears them and admits he sat on them.
- Shadehawk's shades in Antihero For Hire. He (almost) only wears them for Cool, since he operates at night.
- Riff from Sluggy Freelance is never seen without sunglasses. Normally he wears black shades, but when he suits up for the Final Battle during "Dangerous Days," he switches to some even more Badass yellow shades.
- Mad Scientist Kevyn Andreyasn, from Schlock Mercenary. It's revealed, at one point, that he doesn't need them to see well. In the visual spectrum, at least.
- Shilo from 'Rhapsodies''
- Dave from the MS Paint Adventures series Homestuck sports a bitching pair of aviators (that are themselves a Shout Out to the mythical Stiller sunglasses from Problem Sleuth). However, he's later topped by his Bro, who has recently been revealed to wear Kamina shades.
Web Original
- Bandit Keith never takes off his sunglasses, even in a dark cave, because he's American, and Americans always wear sunglasses!
- The Shadow Men in Broken Saints both wear these in one scene, apparently just so artist Andrew West could have their enormous monitor reflected in the shades.
- Also, Mars' glowing red shades.
- Referenced/spoofed a few times on Homestar Runner. Strong Bad's Cowboy Cop alter-ego Dangeresque, from the Strong Bad Emails "stunt double" and "dangeresque 3", wears Cool Shades. In the Strong Bad Email "the bet", Homestar manages to win the titular bet with Strong Bad that he can "be's cool" by simply putting on a pair of Cool Shades and saying "'Sup?".
- Homestar Runner also subverted the trope in a different skit, where Homestar buys a pair of "cool shades" from Bubs but stashes them inside a can of yellow paint before wearing them. When he dons the shades, still dripping with paint, the result is that he looks even more foolish than usual and can barely see, causing him to apparently confuse Strong Sad for an old friend named "Dripping Yellow Madness".
Western Animation
- Throttle from Biker Mice From Mars wears a pair of sunglasses at all times—this is because as a result of being experimented on he lost his eyes and got them replaced by bionic ones. Although some Biker Mice fans say he's blind.
- Johnny Bravo wears black shades throughout every episode, and actively covers his face whenever they've fallen off.
- Many of the 'younger' Transformers (like Jazz and Prowl) have optics shaped like cool shades. Fans generally write fanfiction about them being blind underneath, or how they really have red Decepticon optics.
- Prowl and Soundwave of Transformers Animated both have similar pairs of shades as Kamina (though it's possible those are their actual optic sensors, being Mechanical Lifeforms and all; they even match their factions like most others eyes), and both are awesomeness incarnate (they're a nod to Joe Pineapple's optic visor from ABC Warriors of 2000AD comics). Jazz and Jetstorm also have sensors that look like visor shades, and Grimlock's are shaped like normal ones.
- "Hello, Lilo. I'm Mr. Bubbles." "Your knuckles say Cobra... have you ever killed anyone?"
Real Life
- Many celebrities attempt to invoke this trope; perhaps the most successful example is Roy Orbison, who originally wore them because he left his regular prescription glasses on the plane that was taking him to one of his concerts, and didn't have time to get a replacement set (in the 1960s, you couldn't get glasses in less than several days, unlike today's one-hour stores).
- Tom Waits has an incredibly badass instrumental piece simply called "In Shades."
- Corey Hart wears his sunglasses at night, so he can, so he can watch you weave an breathe your storylines.
- ZZ Top, "Cheap Sunglasses".
- Kanye West wears those neat 'Shutter Shade' sunglasses to many of his concerts, regardless of lighting.
- The late, great Eazy-E of N.W.A was rarely seen without his shades.
- Future World Emperor and musician, Dr. Phineas Waldorf Steel, has yet to be seen in public without his characteristic thick black-lensed goggle-glasses.
- Ozzy Osbourne and Geddy Lee perform wearing round framed sunglasses.
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