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Common in modelling as well as fiction, this is when a person's hair intentionally covers one of their eyes. Sometimes it's just for style, while other times it might function as an Eyepatch of Power, or cover a disfigurement such as horrible scarring or a blind eye (in which case its removal may serve as The Reveal).
It frequently serves as some kind of symbol:
- To show that the character is sexy and seductive
- To show that the character is shy and demure
- To show deception or concealment
- To show vulnerability, by acting as a fragile shield or barrier, i.e. the character is an Emo
- To represent a veil:
- Wedding veils: as a signal that this is the serious Love Interest, particularly when the male lead is a Casanova, this combined with a stunned look on the Casanova often means that he has finally fallen, and wedding bells are in his future - if he doesn't die first that is.
- The veil separating God from Man (see the Jewish Temple): implying the person behind it is mystical or supernaturally knowledgeable, maybe even a messenger from God.
In real life, the style is called "peek-a-boo", or more recently, " emo bang", and was popularized by actress Veronica Lake in the 1940s (who was asked to change it when it proved impractical for women working in factories during the war).
It may only happen for one scene, or it may be a permanent feature of a character. May be a consequence of Slipknot Ponytail. If the style sticks through all sorts of action, it veers into Improbable Hair Style territory.
A person with this hairstyle may also be victim to some of the same jokes as characters who actually have only one eye, such as lacking depth perception. A common emo hair style for males also features this and calls it emo fringe.
Contrast Hidden Eyes, where a character's eyes are temporarily in shadow to indicate a change in emotional state — this is usually a more permanent effect and can mean many things.
If both eyes are covered by the locks, then those are Blinding Bangs. For the real use of hair in a Scenery Censor situation, see Godiva Hair.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
Comics — Books
- Marvel Comics villainess Viper wears her hair over one eye. Like Dr. Blight (see below), this is to cover scarring on that part of the face.
- Talia al Ghul, a love interest of Batman.
- Throughout her numerous looks, one of the stable features of Joseph Michael Linsner's Dawn is her hair always covering her right eye.
- To the point where, when her lover brushes her hair out of her face, he's genuinely surprised that she has a right eye.
- X-Factor's Oracular Urchin Layla Miller. After escaping from a future mutant concentration camp where prisoners get an M branded over one eye, she steals a wig to cover her brand.
- Jane in Insane Jane has this sort of hairstyle in scenes that take place in the present day, to hide the fact that she practically burned half of her face off trying to give herself superpowers, though it's difficult to say whether she styles it deliberately for this reason (she's kind of extremely delusional).
- In Australian comic Platinum Grit, Nilson Kerr's right eye is never seen.
- Oyuki from the Archie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures has this. The only time she ever showed both eyes was in a flash-forward to her in her twenties.
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
- When Peter Parker gains the evil symbiote costume in the film Spider-Man 3, one of the first things he does is brush his hair down over one eye. Oh sure, he does lots of other mean stuff — like telling Ursula to make him cookies, with nuts! — but that's your first big clue that he's going over to the dark side.
- Mui from Shaolin Soccer starts out as a shy girl with hair covering most of her acne-ridden face. Towards the end, she shaves her head when she joins as a replacement goalkeeper and turns out to be Beautiful All Along.
- The Ring: Sadako for the Nightmare Fuel variant.
- "The Bad" in The Good, The Bad, The Weird, who is The Dandy and has an anachronistic "J-pop" look.
- Star Spangled Rhythm ridiculed Veronica Lake's hairstyle in song, along with Paulette Goddard's sweater and Dorothy Lamour's sarong. The musical number's punchline was a "peek-a-boo bang" on the face of Adolf Hitler, who is blamed for dictating the fashion.
Literature
- Shadowy Severus Snape, in the Harry Potter books, often hides all or part of his face behind his "curtains" of long black hair.
- Asher in the Anita Blake books has beautiful long golden hair that usually covers most of the right side of his body as that side is covered in burn scars from a long-ago torture session with holy water.
- Ciri from The Witcher series starts wearing her hair like this in Tower of the Swallow to conceal an extremely messy shuriken-inflicted scar on her cheek. Most men interpret it as simply sexy.
Live-Action TV
- Peter Petrelli from Heroes. First season, at least. It grew back in Season 4.
- Peter's haircut in Season 2 had to be written in because Milo Ventimiglia hated the long hair so much that he chopped it all off after filming of Season 1 was completed. He had to wear a wig in flashback sequences and when the show was cancelled, he shaved his head.
- Cameron of The Sarah Connor Chronicles uses this sometimes; Summer Glau said that she had to deliberately train herself to not do "human" actions like brushing her hair out of her face during fight scenes, which sometimes leads to one side of her face being obscured after a battle or action sequence.
- And speaking of Summer Glau, this was also deliberately invoked in certain scenes in Firefly and Serenity where her hair was used to obscure parts of her face during some of her less-than-lucid scenes.
Video Games
- Rosalina in Super Mario Galaxy.
- Though she did not have one as a little girl in her storybook, however. Her iconic bangs start growing after the realization that her family is long dead.
- Lulu from Final Fantasy X.
- Illua from Final Fantasy Tactics A2
- Leon Kennedy from the Resident Evil series is pretty much notorious for this.
- Gannayev from Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, possibly symbolic of his deep-seated and carefully hidden fear of letting someone see who he really is.
- Lumine and Layer in Mega Man X8. Layer has them over both eyes, but her eyes are visible during certain reaction shots.
- Pandora from Guitar Hero has this in some of her outfits.
- Angel Starr, Matt Engarde and young Mia Fey in Ace Attorney. In Angel Starr's case, she swishes her bang over to the other eye whenever her mood changes from sweet to bitter. In Matt Engarde's case, with his hair down, he seems enthusiastic and innocent. And then he slicks it back, revealing an Evil Scar, grins an evil grin, and pulls an Evil Wineglass of brandy out of Hammer Space. Eeeeevil!
- Mia Fey meanwhile flicks the hair out her eye just before making a particularly effective point in court.
- Lucia in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.
- Nailah has this as well in Radiant Dawn. This is because she is able to turn other people to stone from the eye's gaze.
- Sialeeds from Suikoden V.
- Lucia in Devil May Cry 2.
- Tear Grants from Tales of the Abyss.
- Sniper Wolf in Metal Gear Solid. This drew snarky comments in The Last Days Of Fox Hound.
- Zexion from Kingdom Hearts. Not an example of vulnerability or being emo, like many seem to think. Instead, it's to show his deceptive and manipulative nature. This is also shown in his title: "The Cloaked Schemer"
- As well as Fuu(jin), replacing the eyepatch worn by the original version (which would probably look out of place on a kid).
- Alma from F.E.A.R.
- Mitsuru Kirijo of Persona 3. She even lampshades this in her Victory Pose.
- The male Main Character has the emo hair variant.
- Pokémon Gym Leaders Falkner, Cress, and Flannery, and Champion Cynthia. Some Pokémon may appear to be this way (Gardevoir, Staraptor and Darkrai in particular), but they're perfectly symmetrical from the front.
- Shouldn't that be Pokébangs?
- Actually, in the 10th movie, in Pokémon: Battle Revolution, and in its trophy in Brawl, Darkrai's right eye is completely covered. Although, for some odd reason, in the hand held games its right eye can be seen clearly in its back sprite.
- Gilliam Yeager from Super Robot Wars and related franchises. He has something to hide in every appearance, although at this point his biggest secret is that he's had so many appearances in different continuities, all being the same Gilliam.
- Lemon Browning also sports this look, and sure enough turns out to be an Undead Alternate Universe Robot Clone of Excellen. Incidentally, the other UAURC, Wodan Ymir, manages a similar look by losing half of his mask in his final scene.
- Certain hairstyles for female draenei and orcs, and for male draenei and blood elves, in World of Warcraft. The male styles are actually referred to in-game as the "emo".
- Many hairstyles in City of Heroes cover one of your character's eyes.
- Some of the hairstyles in Rock Band cover up one of the character's eyes, most obviously the Emover and the Femover.
- Hanako from Katawa Shoujo hides the burn scars on her face behind her bangs.
- The King of Fighters: Iori Yagami has this, as he's somewhat of a tribute to Yashiro Nightow's character designs. NOT Emo either, as he predates the fad by several years (his debute game was in 1995).
- Kratos Aurion in Tales of Symphonia, although whether it's the "deception" or "vulnerability" variant depends on whether you're asking a fangirl.
- Rao from Okami. Perhaps with reason, her true form of a fox is missing her right eye.
- When the spirit of the real Rao is leading you through the temple, both her eyes are visible and the prayer beads she wears are blue. There are blue beads on the corpse down there as well.
- Drowned Ophelia from Brütal Legend. She avoids Blinding Bangs with the aid of a pink hairclip that holds the other half of her bangs in place.
- Cheiron Archer from Sakura Taisen V. She normally doesn't wear her hair like this, but during the mock trial in Chapter 2, you learn that she used to dress up this way when she was the leader of the Centaurs gang.
- Marina Wulfstan from Valkyria Chronicles sports these, along with an Idiot Hair.
- Mr. R from Boy Love Game Kichiku Megane only ever shows his right eye thanks to this trope, even in scenes where the camera angle changes. His usage of it qualifies as deception/concealment.
- Sis from Alpha Protocol.
- Yuina Himoo, the resident Mad Scientist of Tokimeki Memorial.
- Lucia "of the Ice and Fire" Rinanore in Mitsumete Knight.
- Pleinair from Disgaea.
- Vincent in Catherine, though only for a time after Katherine breaks up with him.
- Ghirahim sports Peek A Bangs in The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword to make him look more Bishie and to emphasize his evil, regal demeanor.
- Captain Schwann in Tales Of Vesperia, in contrast to Raven.
- Ashley's new look in Mass Effect 3 replaces her Prim and Proper Bun with this.
Web Comics
- Nimmel Feenix from Dominic Deegan had his right eye slashed to uselessness, so he combed his previously slicked-back hair in such a way as to cover it up. His hair also covers terrible facial scarring.
- He likes to lift his bangs and show his eye when he's being Badass (or at least trying to be).
- His most recent appearance ended with an Important Haircut, exposing his entire face.
- El Goonish Shive
- Raven is a male example. Which, like many other, can become a female example
 at the drop of a hat (but still with the peek-a-bangs).
- Noah in is another male example. Though frankly, female Noah wouldn't look all that different.
- Also, in a recent EGS:NP comic, Tedd, as a female. Many viewers didn't realize at first that Tedd was female. This led into another comic, where Tedd, now male again, berated the viewers for not noticing he was female. This only made it funnier, as his hair was still the same, so some viewers didn't notice that he'd changed back to male.
- Rain, from the webcomic Rain has these.
- One of the (as far as is known) unnamed regular customers in Unshelved. I believe Dewey has made a few scathing remarks about it from time to time.
- Ardam from Adventurers!, as well as everyone from his hometown.
- Ash from Misfile. In this case, the eye can be seen through the hair.
- Agent 32 in Cheer!!. When we finally see the covered eye, there's a nasty scar going over it.
- The Operator in The Easy Breather also uses this hairstyle to hide a scarred face.
- Both eyes are visible through the hair, but Daisy Archanis in Last Resort often has one. It's not always covering her face, but it's there enough.
- Sadako of YU+ME: dream .
- Sal Walters of It's Walky!, symbolizing her incapacity for introspection and subsequent lack of perspective. When she goes through a spurt of character development and learns to see things from other points of view, she goes back to having two eyes.
- Geilen from Garanos is shown with these after revealing that she's The Mole.
- Faith from Alone in a Crowd wears her hair like this, although the reason for it (if any) has not yet been specified.
- Bay from Sailor Sun, likely symbolizing her discomfort with living as a girl.
- Lifolei of Juathuur, a scary, scary woman.
- In Nerf NOW!!, Demogirl has this in place of Demoman’s eyepatch.
- This is Darren Blake's hairstyle in The Fan.
- Hiro of Overlord Academy has the entire right side of his face completely obscured by bright blue bangs, leading one to wonder how he can see well enough to use the scope of that sniper rifle.
- Monica of Wapsi Square has this style sometimes. it is quite noticeable in the first panel here.
- Ginger from Ginger's Bread.
- Sister Iceland from Scandinavia and the World.
- Rage, from Wright as Rayne, sports some Peek-a-Bangs, serving to make him look slightly mysterious and stoic.
- Saves-a-Fox from Goblins.
- Drummer and metalhead Ashley from Soul Symphony
- Margo in chapter 34 of Gunnerkrigg Court.
- Shan'rekk from Prophecy Of The Circle
- Taisei of Sakana usually has Blinding Bangs instead, but sometimes one of them peeps out, depending on what makes the expression work. The reason for the concealment is that his eyes are naturally set in a particularly crazed expression at odds with his inherently friendly personality, so he grows his hair out to keep from putting people off.
Western Animation
- Captain Planet's Dr. Blight had this hairdo, and hers covers horrible facial scarring.
- Alpha Bitch from Chaotic has this hair style as well.
- Nicky from Pepper Ann.
- Gordon Gibble has this hairstyle, of the "deception" variety.
- Jun from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
- Terra from Teen Titans, as symbolism that she was working for Slade. (The eye her hair covers is the one that, in Slade's case, is missing. The first sign that she was actually The Mole.)
- Although she only has one big eye, Leela's hairstyle in Futurama covers one half of her eye and is meant to suggest this style.
- Debbie from The Wild Thornberrys, which is more or less simply part of her outfit.
- Pete White of The Venture Bros. is a male example. It's fitting for a guy whose tastes are stuck in The Eighties. He was even designed after the singer of the Human League.
- In the anime parody episode of Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter finds himself in a fight early on against a kid with this hairstyle.
- Marie Kanker from Ed, Edd n Eddy wears her hair in the emo finge style.
- Desiree from Danny Phantom.
- Dolph from The Simpsons.
- Carmen in Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego??, when she's not wearing her signature fedora.
- Jimmy Two-Shoes: One of the members of Runny and the Nosebleeds.
- Fluttershy from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic.
- In MMMystery on the Friendship Express, Rarity starts wearing her mane over one eye a bit into the episode. It's to cover that she lost a false eyelash, which occurred when she took a bite of the Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness.
- Fifi from Tiny Toon Adventures.
- Talia in Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, and Batman Beyond.
- Carrie from The Amazing Worldof Gumball.
Real Life
- Actress Veronica Lake, as mentioned above.
- Michael Jackson, sometimes.
- Singer Gabrielle has been known to do this as one of her many ways of hiding her lazy eye (she has also used sunglasses, hats, and an eyepatch to cover it).
- Aaliyah. Rumor has it she had a lazy eye.
- Asagi, vocalist for the Japanese band D, always has his right eye covered.
- Ian Watkins of Welsh band Lostprophets wore a particularly painful example◊. Thankfully it's now short again.
- Lzzy Hale of Halestorm.
- Bassist Alex James of blur, sometimes.
- Jimmy Page
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