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Glasgow Grin
aka: Glasgow Smile

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No points for guessing why they call him "Slit".
"Let's put a smile on that face!"
The Joker, The Dark Knight

When a character suddenly breaks into an ear-to-ear grin, it's a Cheshire Cat Grin. When this is permanently part of their facial structure, whether they're happy or not, it's a Glasgow Grin. It may have curlicues or stitches at the ends. This also happens a lot with puppets, intentionally or not.

Named, of course, after the Glasgow Smile, an act of violence (supposedly popular with Violent Glaswegians) in which a person's cheeks are sliced open starting at the edges of the mouth. Not all characters with a Glasgow Grin have been scarred; some of them were born with it. Generally, characters with Glasgow Grins tend to be evil, insane, or both. If it is a protagonist character who is not a villain, it also just shows that they are a somewhat dark character. It's sometimes known as a Chelsea Smile, in reference to the London football team, whose more violent fans were reputed to inflict it on people as a Finishing Move, or as a Traveller's Smile, also called "sourire de l'ange" (the angel's smile) in French.

Compare with Cheshire Cat Grin and Slasher Smile. Contrast Perpetual Frowner. An inversion is Mouth Stitched Shut. Sub-Trope of Facial Horror. Not to be confused with the "Glasgow Kiss".


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • There's an infamous ad for Durex condoms that shows a woman with bandages at the edges of her mouth (the implication apparently being that her recent partner's endowment was a little too big).

    Anime and Manga 
  • Attack on Titan:
    • The Female Titan opens her mouth so wide it splits so she can devour/capture Eren after defeating his Titan form. She pretty much redefines Body Horror.
    • Another well-known example is a titan that wears a permanent grotesque grin and can unhinge its jaw to bite, known as the Smiling Titan.
    • Holders of the Armored and Jaw titans receive scars resembling Glasgow grins when they stay in their Titan form for an extended period. The Armored Titan has one in its Titan form too, but it's a downplayed case as it's formed by his bony exoskeleton and is not a scar to begin with.
    • In the prequel Attack on Titan: Before the Fall, Ogre, a pure Titan has a significant case of this, which defies all logic as Pure Titans are usually pretty scarless.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: A pretty grotesque example with Obanai Iguro. It’s inflicted on him as a child due to his family worshipping a snake demon, and her wanting to make him more like her before she eats him. However, it’s also the reason he wears the mask/bandages.
  • Franken Fran:
    • The eponymous character has stitches going ear to ear. In her case, it's because she's an Artificial Human (the similarity of her name to Frankenstein's Monster is deliberate), so presumably her head and jaw come from different "donors".
    • An omake features a kuchisake-onna, a woman in Japanese legend who wanders around wearing a mask over her slashed ear-to-ear mouth and asking people whether she's beautiful. What happens after this varies, but it always includes the threat of her slitting your cheeks like hers, whether you say "yes" or "no" (the word she uses for "pretty" is a homophone of the verb form of "cut", which is why she will attack you if you say yes). The woman does her thing to a guy, but it backfires completely as it turns out her mouth is fetish fuel for him, and she ends up running away calling him a pervert.
  • Heinkel from Hellsing gets one of these toward the end after taking a sniper round through the mouth. She doesn't seem too bothered by it, but it makes her dialogue a nightmare to read.
  • Ichi the Killer: The deranged gangster Kakihara has cut cheeks that he let his fellow gang members inflict on him. His is interesting in that he kept the cuts in his cheeks from sealing together when they healed and scarred, so the slits are permanent. As a result, his mouth opens far wider than it normally should, and he uses piercings to hold his cheeks together.
  • In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run, these are the aftereffects of Scary Monsters when turning from Dinosaur back to human. This sometimes happens to the Stand User, but each time it's creepy as all hell.
  • My Hero Academia: Dabi has one as part of his facial scarring.
  • Naruto:
    • While in the four-tails form, Naruto's mouth slits go further back than usual, though it healed after.
    • Kakuzu has most of his joints modified by his kinjutsu to come apart at will; this results in disturbing Glasgow Grin-like disfiguration of his face.
    • After injecting himself with Orochimaru's genes, Kabuto has a new snakelike form. In this form, he can open his mouth so wide it practically rips open. This results in clear cut marks on the sides of his mouth even when it's closed.
    • The Ten-Tailed Beast has naturally far-back mouth slits, better showing how it's filled with rows of jagged teeth.
  • The Perverse Puppet Chachazero of Negima! Magister Negi Magi smiles while saying the most twisted or acidic of things, if only for the fact that she was carved that way.
  • One Piece:
    • Doctor Hogback has stitches that extend beyond his permanent smile to encircle his whole face. It fits right in with his expertise of Frankensteinian assembly of corpses via stitching. Despite this smile, Hogback can express a full range of emotions via body language.
    • Absalom's mouth may be even worse since thanks Hogback he has entirely different mouth (a Lion's) stitched on to his face.
    • Katakuri's mouth aside from his massive fangs has two asymmetrical stitches on his cheeks. Katakuri ''really'' doesn't take kindly to his mouth being seen or talked about. As he kills the three chefs who see his face.
  • Joejoe of Toriko has what looks like stitches on the entire length of his mouth, which runs for the entire width of his visible face. Zebra has half of a Glasgow Grin — his left cheek is torn, exposing his teeth up to the wisdom ones. It might be intentional — he claims that it's useful for shoveling food in, and might be possibly useful for all his shout-based attacks. For a short time, Zebra's cheek was sewn together, but the stitches gave way quickly.

    Comic Books 
  • In American Vampire, Hattie has one of these after losing a fight with another vampire.
  • Batman: Though not typical, some artists do depict the Joker this way, particularly in out-of-continuity stories such as Brian Azzarello's Joker graphic novel.
    • The Batman Confidential story arc Lovers and Madmen, a re-telling of the Joker's origin, has the Joker given his Glasgow Smile by a thrown Batarang.
    • On a similar note, the Joker's Earth-3 counterpart, the Jokester, does have one of these from his encounter with Owlman I and Talon.
    • In Flashpoint (DC Comics), Thomas and Martha Wayne survive the infamous shooting while Bruce dies. Martha is traumatized by the event and cannot let go of Bruce's death. When Thomas tells her that he misses her smile, she cuts open her mouth in a permanent grin. This turns her completely mad and turns her into the Joker.
    • The Ame-Comi Girls universe's version of Duela Dent, the Joker's Daughter, received such scars after being attacked by dozens of bats.
  • Green Lantern has Karu-Sil of the Sinestro Corps, a Wild Child who cut off her lips and sharpened her teeth into fangs so she could look more like the large beasts that adopted her, giving her a permanent predatory grin.
  • A Hellblazer storyline has Constantine encountering a version of the Chelsea Smilers.
  • Klak from Pocket God has half a Glasgow grin on the left side of his face. He's not a bad guy, just clumsy.
  • The clowns in Sink have these and inflict them on those they forcibly induct into their ranks.
  • Inverted with Whiteface, Supreme Power's Alternate Company Equivalent of the Joker. After being assaulted in prison, he's left with a set of scars that make him look constantly sad, or like a nutcracker or some other strange puppet. Differs from a Perpetual Frowner in that other than the scars, he has no affect display at all.
  • Mr. Rictus from Wanted has this, though it's due to horrible burns rather than cutting.
  • Andrea from The Walking Dead has half of one cut into her face by a psychopathic serial killer named Thomas early on in the comic.
  • The Comedian in Watchmen has half a Glasgow grin, after being slashed by a Vietnamese woman whom he'd gotten pregnant and whom he ruthlessly shoots down.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animated 
  • Boogie has the titular character's arch-nemesis, Blackburn, who got his face graphically ripped open at the cheek during their fight fight in the hotel. In the next scene, Blackburn is seen stitching his face while swearing revenge on Boogie, and his race remains stitched for the rest of the movie.
  • In Coraline, the Other Wybie has a perpetual, blankly cheerful smile on his face. When it starts to falter, the Other Mother attempts to keep it that way, permanently...with a needle and thread.The doll used by the Other Mother also has one, because she slits open the mouth to remove the stuffing and turn it inside out for a different skin tone when remaking it for her next victim.
  • In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sally has a wide-stitched mouth, but only a fairly small central part of it seems actually functional as a mouth.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The ABCs of Death: When Gertrude starts cutting herself in "X", she cuts her mouth into a Glasgow grin in an attempt to have a permanent smile like the skinny girl on the television.
  • Call of the Undead: The murderer/rapist has half of one in the form of a giant scar that runs of the side of his face from his mouth.
  • City of Joy (1992): The main antagonist Ashok Ghatak, the son of a Godfather-like mafia figure in India, use this as his preferred punishment against females. He does it once to a minor female character, and late in the film, he attempts to do it to Anouar's daughter in retaliation to his defiance, but is unable to go through with it.
  • The Dark Knight: Instead of the character's traditional rictus grin, the Joker's mouth was apparently torn open, given the ragged, uneven scarring on his cheeks and lower lip.note  He gives two completely different explanations for how and why this happened, and tries to give Batman a third.
    Joker: It's a funny world we live in. Speaking of which, you know how I got these scars?
    Batman: No. But I know how you got these!
  • One of the most fearless of the Dead Rabbit warriors in Gangs of New York is a large Irishman named Jack Mulraney whose left cheek is curved up in a permanent grin thanks to a long-ago knife injury. Because of this peculiarity, the other gang members call him "Happy Jack."
  • Godzilla:
    • The MonsterVerse version has a "born with it" variation, though it's only really visible when he opens his mouth to roar or use his atomic breath. Its design seems to be based off the similar "smiles" of many real life reptiles.
    • Likewise, the Godzilla of Shin Godzilla has a "born with it" version, due to his large and ragged mouth and the amount of teeth he has.
  • Green Street sees Matt threatened this by a group of Birmingham Football Hooligans. Being hooligans, of course, they refer to this as a Chelsea Grin.
  • The Hobbit: Smaug's mouth has a curving shape to it which makes him look like a Smug Smiler when he's calm, and it outright looks like a Slasher Smile when he's baring his sharp teeth.
  • The Tragic Villain of Home Sweet Home (2005), a deformed woman who became insane after losing her family. She had half a grin like this after her son's death, when attempting to pry open a can of meat while in a confused trance. She couldn't find a can opener, tries to use her teeth instead, and there are sharp edges on the side of the tin...
  • Howl (2015): When Jenny's transformation into a werewolf has reached the point where she's lost her human mind, the skin around her mouth appears to be pulled back so it looks like she's constantly sporting a deranged, sharp-toothed Slasher Smile.
  • I Saw the Devil has a horrifying variation, wherein one of the cannibals gets "A permanent smiley face" by having his lower jaw pulled until his cheeks begin to split.
  • Kill Bill: The Bride gives one to a hapless Mook during her battle with the Crazy 88. Compared to some of the other wounds she inflicted, it's hardly the worst way to go.
  • Psychotic clown Sergio sports one of these in The Last Circus.
  • Life (2017): As the alien lifeform Calvin grows larger, the monster gradually forms a "face" with shapes on it resembling a pair of "eyes" and a static, grinning "mouth".
  • Slit from Mad Max: Fury Road has a very prominent one, hence the name.
  • Matt Cordell, the eponymous villain in Maniac Cop trilogy, received one on the right side of his mouth when he got fatally shanked in prison.
  • Mirrors (2008): After Angela is murdered by her possessed reflection via Jawbreaker, the mutilated cavity where her mouth used to be looks like this on her corpse, and when the Mirror Demon manifests an apparition of her in a rear-view mirror.
  • In Pan's Labyrinth, Captain Vidal gets half a Glasgow Grin on his right cheek, courtesy of Mercedes.
  • Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride has a downplayed version with a Dueling Scar on each cheek. These scars don't touch his lips, and they came from neat nonlethal cuts rather than deeply carved incisions from the corners of the mouth, inflicted by the six-fingered man responsible for killing his father. During his duel with Count Rugen, the six-fingered man in question, Inigo inflicts similar wounds on the man's face before finishing him off.
  • Robin Hood (2010): Robin and his friends happen upon the carriage delivering King Richard's crown to London being attacked by what they believe are bandits, but are actually The Heavy Godfrey and disguised French soldiers. Robin et al. fight them off, and Robin catches Godfrey in the corner of the mouth with an arrow as he flees, leaving a scar on his cheek for the rest of the film that he passes off to King John as a hunting accident. John suggests he say it's a Dueling Scar to impress the ladies. It also sets up Book Ends for the film: in the final battle, Robin shoots at a fleeing Godfrey again, this time fatally catching him in the neck.
  • The Saw franchise contains two examples of this trope:
    • In Saw IV, lawyer Art Blank receives one after being put through a trap that involves his lips and cheeks being stitched shut. The injury itself seems to leave him with a hint of a lisp.
    • In Saw VI, Detective Hoffman gets half of one of these as he barely escapes a reverse beartrap with his jaw intact. There is a scene in the seventh movie where he stitches his torn cheek shut.
  • In Smile (2022), The Entity is defined by its distorted grin, most infamously slicing Laura's face and throat open to give her a gruesome "smile".
  • The killer in Smiley is named for carving a smile into his face (in addition to stitching his eyes shut).
  • Society: Bill's psychologist Dr. Cleveland sports one in the climax.
  • Keiko sports one after her transformation to the latter half of Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl.
  • In The Witches (2020), the titular antagonists have enlarged mouths which appear as Glasgow grins when undercover.
  • In Wrong Turn, Francine meets her end when one of the murderous, cannibalistic hillbillies sneaks up behind her and uses barbed wire to tear her mouth open. We later get several prolonged views of her mutilated face when the hillbilly trio bring her corpse back to their cabin.

    Literature 
  • Alex Rider: Mr. Grin from Stormbreaker is a former circus performer who used to catch a knife between his teeth as the finale of his act, until his mother came to see his act and distracted him at the crucial moment. In addition to the scars on his cheeks, he has no tongue.
  • In Alex Grecian's The Black Country, the "gray-eyed American" has a huge gash in his face from his lip up through the cheek, courtesy of Calvin Campbell.
  • Blood Fever has a fellow named Smiler, who is Count Carnifex's head henchman and assassin. He got his name from the scars that he bears on his cheeks, which he received for betraying his last gang... in Glasgow.
  • Demon Copperhead: One chapter tells the story of why Damon's best friend Matty Peggot (aka "Maggot") has a mother in jail. It seems that Matty's father, who was even more abusive than Damon's stepfather, once said she should smile more. So when she'd finally had enough, she took a razor blade and slashed a smile into his cheeks.
  • In the Deptford Mice trilogy, a rat who offended Jupiter's lieutenant Morgan in his youth had his lips sliced off as punishment. Because of his permanent grin, he was given the nickname Smiler.
  • The Discworld novels play with this when describing Death, who carries the personage of The Grim Reaper. "Death grinned" is a frequently-used description, with occasional lampshading that he never stops grinning, being a skeleton in a robe.
    Death grinned because, as has so often been remarked, he didn't have much option. But possibly he meant it this time.
  • Everworld has a Viking by the name of Sven Swordeater. Guess what his cheeks look like.
  • Vestara from Fate of the Jedi has a deformity near her mouth that gives her the appearance that she is smirking. The fact that it resembles a smirk is also the only reason the Lost Tribe of the Sith let her live (as they don't want their members to have birth defects).
  • Early in Fight Club, the protagonist gets a hole punched in his cheek, which he covers with two fingers when he drinks coffee. Later, he tries to commit suicide by fighting fifty guys, splitting the cheek completely. The he shoots out the other cheek. He points out that he now looks like a piece of vandalism from earlier in the book.
  • Go to Sleep (A Jeff the Killer Rewrite): Liu is horrified to find Jeff's carved smile gushing with blood when he takes off his Jason goalie mask. After he kills Liu, Jeff carves a similar smile into Liu's face, tearful that the usually happy boy went out with a frown.
    Jeff: Now, you can smile forever...
  • Katniss from The Hunger Games would've gotten one if Thresh hadn't stepped in when he did.
  • Mentioned in "Journal of a UFO Investigator" by David Halperin. The Men in Black discuss cutting the protagonist one "so he looks better". (At least that he is spared.)
  • The title character of The Man Who Laughs, whose face was permanently deformed into a grin as a punishment for his father's misdeeds. Despite having this trope, he isn't that bad.
  • In Joanne Harris's Peaches for Monsieur le Curé, Inès Bencharki turns out to have one of these.
  • The Rifter: Kyle has the "Glasgow smile" scar. He was a supposedly celibate initiate at a monastery; the senior priest Dayyid cut him as a mark of shame after catching him with a man in an alley. Dayyid needed him to become the Kahlil and so couldn't have him publicly accused of homosexuality and executed, but everyone in Rathal'pesha knew what the scar meant, and he was utterly ostracised.
  • Invoked and subverted with Dagmer Cleftjaw from A Song of Ice and Fire, who took an axe blow to the mouth. His scar actually runs from nose to chin instead of from ear to ear.
  • In The Thief of Always, Rictus has a Glasgow Grin.

    Legends and Mythology 
  • Kuchisake-Onna, a woman in Japanese legend, wanders around wearing a mask over her slashed ear-to-ear mouth and asking people whether she's beautiful. What happens after this varies, but it always includes the threat of her slitting your cheeks like hers, whether you say "yes" or "no" (the word she uses for "pretty" is a homophone of the verb form of "cut", which is why she will attack you if you say yes). Some versions also give her More Teeth than the Osmond Family on top of it, just to up the creepiness factor. However, there are several third options for dealing with her, such as apologizing that you have to be somewhere else right now or saying you're neutral or ambivalent on her appearance.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Marcie intends to do this to Cordelia in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Out of Mind, Out of Sight".
    Marcie: Your smile... I think it should be wider.
  • Counterpart (2018): After being grazed by Howard Prime's bullet in "The Crossing", Baldwin has this on her right cheek, the scar making it look like her lips are extended.
  • In Dollhouse, Alpha gives one to Victor, though it later heals.
  • In Hannibal, the mentally ill girl Georgia Madchen does this to a friend in an attempt to 'take off her mask'. Later, Hannibal uses the same method on another victim to frame Georgia Madchen for the murder.
  • In Marco Polo, a hashshashim is given one of these as the first step in being tortured for information regarding an assassination attempt on Kublai Khan. The one doing the cutting cautions him not to scream as he cuts, as the prisoner will only tear his mouth.
  • The disfigured prostitute in the Masters of Horror episode "Imprint" has half of one as a result of a genetic defect.
  • In season 3 of Nip/Tuck, this is the identifying mark of victims of the Carver.
  • Arthur Shelby Sr. has the scars of a Glasgow Grin in Peaky Blinders. His actor Tommy Flanagan has them for real, and is mentioned in Real Life below.
  • On the season 3 finale of Sons of Anarchy, Chibs (see "Tommy Flanagan" in Real Life, below) gives Jimmy O a payback Glasgow Grin just before killing him.
  • There's a minor character on Wizards of Waverly Place who has this.

    Music 
Examples by creator: Examples by title:
  • Bring Me the Horizon's song "Chelsea Smile" has lyrics about one, as well as the title being another phrase for the Glasgow Grin.
    I may look happy
    But honestly, dear
    The only way I'll ever smile is if you cut me ear to ear.
  • In GHOST and Crusher-P's song "Novocaine", the Depraved Dentist singer is shown to have these scars. It's implied to be due to the dentist ripping off the jaw of the previous song's singer and replacing their own with it.
  • Steely Dan's "Sign in Stranger" (about a hideout for wanted criminals) features the lines:
    Pepe has a scar from ear to ear
    He will make your mug shots disappearnote 
  • The Voltaire song "The Straight Razor Cabaret" is about a performer who would give these to people who wouldn't laugh at his show.

    Podcasts 
  • A Welcome to Night Vale episode about Desert Bluffs Too describes All Smiles' Eve, the winter holiday when worshipers of the Smiling God tell stories about a family doing this to themselves to smile more gloriously.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Monster Clown from AAA has one, with his forcibly exposed teeth being yellow.
  • Jessicka Havok sported two cuts on her face at Welcome to The Combat Zone. Though they had gotten better by The Heart of SHIMMER, Amber Gertner couldn't resist slipping in a reference.

    Theatre 
  • Grinpayne, the title character from The Grinning Man, an adaptation of Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs. Like his book counterpart, he is a very good guy, despite his scary features.

    Video Games 
  • Double B. from All Points Bulletin has a half-Glasgow Grin scar (it's also a selectable scar for player characters). Britney Bloodrose has a full one... drawn on.
  • You can choose a Glasgow Smile for your character in Brink!, and, just like in real life, it's permanent.
  • Alvina and the Great Felines from Dark Souls. They're basically Catbeargators, with their grin coming from their alligator-like mouths.
  • Some of the monsters you fight in Deadly Premonition sport a Glasgow grin.
  • Every single hurlock from Dragon Age: Origins sports a Glasgow Grin. In Dragon Age II, they've been modified to have a more skeletal appearance.
  • Final Fantasy:
  • Gotham Knights (2022) sees Red Hood sport half of one of these.
  • The Injustice series sees both the main universe and the Regime universe versions of the Joker sport one of these, like in Joker and The Dark Knight.
  • Zant of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has his mouth cut both upwards and downwards at each end of his lips, so he has both a Glasgow grin and a Glasgow frown at the same time overlapping each other so it is impossible to tell if he is smiling or frowning.
  • Metal Gear:
    • It's only visible for a few seconds, but in Metal Gear Solid, Psycho Mantis sports a small, half-Glasgow grin on the right side of his face; its origins are unknown.
    • Raiden, of all people, seems to possess this in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. He had a similar but less noticeable example in the ending of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. The reason is, before the fourth game began, Raiden's body was replaced by an artificial cyborg version, leaving only his head sans lower jaw intact. That line is where his organic parts connect the cybernetic parts.
  • Mileena's new character design in Mortal Kombat X gives her a fully functional set of human lips, bordered on both ends by razor-sharp Tarkatan teeth that form a menacing grin. This was still not enough to make her ugly in the eyes of some players.
  • Croagunk, Toxicroak and Scraggy from Pokémon. Scraggy loses the Glasgow Grin upon evolution, however.
  • Doctor Loboto from Psychonauts is the definition of the curlicue version; his lips are thin and go halfway up his head, ending in partial spirals.
  • Salt and Sanctuary has Lenaia, the Queen of Smiles. Following the death of her husband, the gregarious king Adnan, she began to spiral into violent madness as she fell under the influence of the Black Widow. Her epithet as Queen of Smiles was earned by her habit of cutting a grotesque smile into the faces of the many, many people she had executed for increasingly frivolous and nonsensical reasons before hanging the corpses up as decoration. When her reign was finally cut short by a mob of vengeful villagers, it was seen fit to leave her with "the greatest smile of all." Judging by the state her wraith is in, they outdid her by tearing off her jaw.
  • Sleeping Dogs (2012) has "Big Smile" Lee, named for the giant scar that gives him a half-Chelsea Grin.
  • One of the scar options for characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic is a Glasgow Grin.
  • Mentioned in one of the Sniper's lines in Team Fortress 2:
    "I'm gonna cut a smile into ya!"
  • Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse in Wolfenstein: The New Order.
    Strasse: You call me "Deathshead". I don't like it. [points to his grin] I'm a happy man. You see?

    Webcomics 
  • Chimneyspeak's Chelsea Grinn has one that completely bisects both cheeks. One of the for-pay side stories, "Smile", gives the backstory of how she got it.
  • In Judecca, this is Nayako's defining feature.
  • The 15 Mar 2015 strip for Precocious has Alt Text showing that the artist likes the subtle hint of this when Dionne Crup's cheetah markings touch her mouth to give her a suggestion of this. The only one who hasn't commented on her being utterly evil is the Naïve Newcomer Ursula.
  • Red from Ruby Quest used to sport one, courtesy of Ruby herself. It healed, but it developed into a Slasher Smile.
  • Zoophobia's Skoni has this, though whether or not it's a scar isn't known.

    Web Originals 
  • Jeff the Killer of Creepypasta fame (best known for the infamous "Go to Sleep" picture) carves himself a wider smile in the attached story so that he could smile forever without his face getting tired of it.
  • RWBY has the monstrous dragon Grimm called the Wyvern, whose jaw extends past its head and into its neck.
  • The Tale of the Exile: The Jester, master of Le Cirque d'Aberrations, has one of these as a magically induced deformity.
  • Vita Carnis has the Mimics, a race of skinless Humanoid Abominations whose mouths are permanently contorted into a horrific grin.
  • In Worm, Jack Slash inflicts half of one on Tattletale.

    Western Animation 
  • The very first episode of Batman Beyond features a Joker pulling a huge knife on Terry and declaring his intention to "put a smile on his face". This is probably something Jokers do a lot.
  • Final Space: Invictus' demonic-looking astral form has a permanent, jagged-looking grinning shape for a mouth which never moves. It fits with how the Slasher Smile is Invictus' default expression when it's possessing a body, but what fully drives this trope home is that the grin is on Invictus' astral face even when it's pissed off.
  • In the Love, Death & Robots episode "Good Hunting", the bionic Huli jing prostitute Yan fights off the Governor of Hong Kong who was beating her, reaching into the sides of his mouth and ripping hard...
  • In one episode of Mighty Max, Skullmaster holds Max hostage and threatens to "cut the boy a new smile".
  • The Secret Saturdays: Thanks to his surgically altered jaw, Piecemeal looks like he's permanently grinning.

    Real Life 
  • Character actor Tommy Flanagan (who was in Braveheart and Gladiator, among other things) has what a healed Glasgow Smile really looks like, having received one after being jumped outside a bar. Also, Tommy Flanagan is from Glasgow. His most frequent role is as Chibs in the series Sons of Anarchy, where his scar is part of the plot.
  • The body of Elizabeth Shortnote  was found with a Glasgow Grin carved into her face. (Don't go looking for pictures unless you have a strong stomach; it is disturbingly easy to find incredibly gruesome crime scene photos of Short.)
  • A particularly gory real life example, David Faber, a Holocaust survivor, once visited a school and calmly told an auditorium of middle schoolers how his Nazi interrogators put a vice inside his brother Romek's mouth and proceeded to slowly crank it open until Romek's jaw broke and his cheeks tore open. All this to get information from David, who knew nothing about what they were asking him about.
  • UFC featherweight champion José Aldo received a partial one in a childhood accident. Though long healed, the scar is easily noticeable, attributing to his nickname: Scarface.
  • Union general William Rosecrans of the American Civil War had been injured badly in a fire; he got reconstructive surgery on his face that left him looking like he was permanently smirking.
  • A common myth among Portuguese school students is the existence of a gang called "Clown Face". If they catch you, they give you a choice: death, rape, or clown-face. The first two are Exactly What It Says on the Tin, and you can guess what the last one is.
  • Stand-up comedian Doug Smith received half of one when he distracted an attempted rapist.


Alternative Title(s): Slitmouth Grin, Sewn On Grin, Glasgow Smile, Chelsea Grin, Chelsea Smile

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