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John McClane of Live Free or Die Hard. Shiny head, stubbly jaw! "I’m trying to think of the last action movie I saw with realistic facial hair. I sometimes wonder how these guys go through days of unremitting action while still finding time off to use an electric shaver on the stubble setting"
So you’re an Anti Hero, or maybe The Drifter or an equally gritty protagonist Made Of Iron. Now, how to get street cred as a Bad Ass Mofo? Cause big explosions? Shoot with Guns Akimbo? Nah, just stop shaving!
In the wonderful land of Hollywood, the law of Good Hair Evil Hair is so ingrained it makes the Indian Caste System seem like a liberal paradise. To wit, the only people who don’t shave are Action Heroes; everyone else has good hygiene. Even Mooks are better groomed, or are ugly and easily distinguished from our hero.
Especially fun when the hero has a perfectly shaved head and a five o’clock shadow. Even when starting a film with a perfectly smooth jaw, all it takes for the hero to grow their five-o'clock shadow is the sound of gunfire; y'see Big Damn Heroes don’t sweat when anxious, they grow facial hair.
Contrast Beard Of Sorrow, which is usually temporary.
Examples
Anime
- Kaji in Neon Genesis Evangelion. His stubble is even lampshaded a few times - Misato thinks it makes him look lazy, slobbish and complains about how rough it feels, but Hikari thinks it makes him look cool.
- It's pretty subtle (as in, you might not notice it unless you pay close attention), but Mugen has some very slight stubble and the faint beginnings of a mustache throughout Samurai Champloo. Makes sense, as he's suppose to be 19.
- The MIB from Serial Experiments Lain; their perma-stubble makes it very clear they're dangerous and that something very wrong is going on.
- Father Alexander Anderson from Hellsing, Church Militant Juggernaut.
- Nicholas Wolfwood from the Trigun anime.
- Sanji from One Piece, as well as a number of less frequently seen characters, among them Shanks, Buggy and Smoker.
- Any and all cool older mentor figures from anything written by Ken Akamatsu. Including, but not limited to, Takamichi from Mahou Sensei Negima and Seta of Love Hina.
- Francis/France, Sadiq/Turkey and Ancient Italy aka the Old Roman Empire from Axis Powers Hetalia.
- Kobayashi, the Sink Or Swim Mentor from The Law Of Ueki. It seems more to show laziness than badassitude, though he does have his Bad Ass moments.
Comic Books
- Also, Gambit, from X-Men. Until vey recently, I think.
- Wolverine as well, though the movies have him pretty well cleaned up at times.
- Depending On The Artist, clean shaven Bruce Wayne sometimes grows an instant rugged stubble the moment he puts on the Batman mask.
- Lampshaded in the case of Desperate Dan of the British Dandy comic: his stubble, like everything else about him, is super-tough, so removing it is very, very hard. It also grows back super-fast.
- In Fables Bigby Wolf has to constantly shave because of his ancestry. This becomes a minor plot point in one issue because members of the SS were expected to be clean shaven and Bigby need to impersonate one.
- Gen, Miyamoto Usagi's bounty hunter friend. Also Sanshobo.
Film
- John McClane of Die Hard has the shaved head variety in the latest.
- Van Zan in Reign Of Fire also sports a cue ball head and grizzly jaw.
- Indiana Jones has this in all four films. He might START clean shaven, but as soon as he puts on the Hat, he has at least 3 days growth.
- Aragorn of The Lord of the Rings has about two weeks of stubble for three films, until he becomes king and instantly grows a regal beard.
- Toshiro Mifune plays a gruff and disheveled samurai in various films who usually goes unshaven. Mifune often sticks his arm up through his collar to absently rub his stubbly chin, which has become an iconic image for the actor and the character.
- Nearly every Terminator has an example. Kyle Reese in T1, John Connor in T3 and Salvation, not to mention most of the resistance in Salvation including Marcus Wright which makes this a rare form of cyborg perma stubble!
Literature
- In many variants of Our Vampires Are Different (Such as Ann Rice's), vampires can't change the length of their hair, because their regeneration simply causes it to grow back to the original length in minutes. Hence, they're basically stuck with whatever hair-length they had when they were 'turned'. Thus, for a vampire, having permastubble could actually be justified.
- This troper admits to wondering how Miles Vorkosigan was able to grow a beard during Lois McMaster Bujold's Brothers in Arms, when all of his hair follicles had been "permanently stunned" immediately previously (The Borders of Infinity) leaving him "permanently clean-shaved and crew-cut". Presumably permanent stunning is reversible.
- Samuel Vimes from Discworld . Even though he shaves regularly, he always is drawn with a stubble.
- Ditto Nobby Nobbs, who was described in one book as "clean-shaven, at least he was clean-shaven the last time he shaved."
- Bendel, from Pettersson & Bendel.
Live Action TV
- House. When does he shave? Before he goes to bed?
- Lampshaded in one episode. Dr Wilson tells him, "I lied. I've been lying to you in increasing amounts ever since I told you you looked good unshaved a year ago."
- Now Chase has stubble too, causing many fangirls to go "squee...."
- Dr. Mc Dreamy on Greys Anatomy
- Several guys on on Men In Trees.
- Lost has an interesting case of this. Despite having very limited access to a razor, none of the males have grown beards. Maybe slowing down the growth of facial hair is yet another special quality of the island. The rest is covered under Improbable Hairstyle.
- Though Locke is shown shaving his head in the hatch.
- Jacks Perma Stubble is actually parodied in a sketch on Mad TV. Apparently the only razor Jack has access to is a sharpened seashell which apparently only keeps his beard at 5'oclock shadow.
- Shawn from Psych, who has actually woken up with less stubble than when he went to bed.
- Dr. Cox on Scrubs, for the most part.
- The title character on Dexter. Especially egregious, since he is shown shaving in the title sequence of every single episode, and retaining his stubble for the rest of that very title sequence.
- This troper is pretty sure that Dexter only shaves his neck, leaving his face-stubble intact.
- One of the signs that Wesley on Angel Took A Level In Badass is when he got the Perma Stubble.
- Sonny Crockett on Miami Vice.
- Sylar, the brain-stealing supervillain from Heroes. In his meek Clark Kent-ish persona, Gabriel Gray, he is clean-shaven and wears glasses. As soon as he manifested his powers and learned that Evil Feels Good, he grew a Perma Stubble. (Well, alright, not immediately. But the only time we see him shaving off the stubble is when he visits his mother, who didn't know what her son had been up to.)
- Dean Winchester from Supernatural. This was also done to make his actor, Jensen Ackles, look older than Jared Padalecki, the actor playing Dean's younger brother, Sam.
- To an extent, it's pretty necessary as well. Take a look at him in 4x17 where he's quite clean shaven - and looks about five years younger than he does in the rest of the episodes. There were some other factors at play there, of course, but still.
- Michael Weston of Burn Notice grows a five-o'clock shadow in the second season mid-finale. This episode he portrays a hard-drinking bodyguard to catch the attention of a would-be kidnapper. It fits the character personality, but also makes him that much more Bad Ass when he "gets religion" and fights back.
- Derek Reese has what is dubbed as a "permanent three day growth."
- Kyle has some as well, even as a hallucinated ghost!
- Cyrus Lupo from Law And Order, particularly since Ed Green left and he's now the senior partner.
- Subverted in NCIS by CIA Agent Trent Kort, who has a shaved head and three days of stubble but tends to kill inconvenient people.
Video Games
- As of Devil May Cry 4, Dante has one. Oddly, it's a different color from the rest of his hair.
- The characters in Street Fighter 2 were given a minor makeover in the Champion Edition, and one of those was giving a shadow to Ryu.
- If you look hard enough at the large posters, you can see that Assassins Creed protagonist Altair has stubble.
- With the exception of the Scout and the Medic, all of the Team Fortress 2 classes that don't have face-covering masks sport some amount of facial hair.
- When Solid Snake's being an angsty self-proclaimed bastard in the first Metal Gear Solid, he's clean-shaven. In Metal Gear Solid 2, when he's being far more personable and open, cue a shadow - apparently to invoke a vagrant living on a miserable budget, according to the character designer. Interestingly enough, an Easter Egg on the harder difficulty modes allows Raiden to give Snake a shaver as a present right at the start of the game, which causes him to be clean-shaven towards the end. (His friend Otacon also has perma-stubble, but that's more about being an unkempt Otaku than a badass.)
- In the Metal Gear Solid graphic novel, the artist draws Snake smooth-faced
 ◊ at the start of the story, gritty◊ towards the middle, and with a young beard◊ towards the end (and on the cover of the PSP version), suggesting he just grows facial hair very quickly.
- In the fourth Ace Attorney game, Phoenix Wright sports one, signifying his significant change in life and personality.
- As a gentle send-up of the Action Movie Hero type, Double H from Beyond Good And Evil sports perma-stubble.
- Volke, an assassin in the Fire Emblem series, has permanent stubble in Path of Radiance. He also happens to be one of the most badass and wittiest characters in the game. In the sequel, Radiant Dawn, he's wearing a scarf that covers his chin, but he exchanges the stubble for even more badass lines.
- Henry and Walter of Silent Hill 4 are in dire need of a razor.
Webcomics
- Dimo the Jaegermonster from Girl Genius is a Badass, and he has the stubble to match.
- Displayed by semi-fallen angel Rumisiel in Misfile, in stark contrast to his clean shaven overgrown boy scout of a brother. You can guess which of the two characters is more likely to be badass at any given moment.
- Stubble Comics.
Western Animation
Real Life
There are personal anecdotes in Troper Tales: Perma Stubble.
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