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Just a little off the top...
Jewelry, vast wardrobes, footwear, and facial beauty are not the most prized possessions for some societies and individuals; instead, it's... hair.
Whether it's good or evil, a person's hair comes to symbolize honor, social station, and otherwise serves as a human peacock tail, representing a life rather than a fashion statement. Thusly, having it forcibly cut off isn't just a minor fashion faux pas, but akin to rape; and is likened to having your life stolen from you. From another view, a forced haircut serves as the symbolic initiation of worse things to come.
A minor subtrope involves hair being the source of a hero's powers (or in modern tales, an emotional anchor) that when cut off renders a hero vulnerable and powerless.
Compare Important Haircut, where it is often self-induced to indicate a change in values or goals, and Expository Hairstyle Change for when there's any hairstyle change that also indicates a change in character. See also Scars Are Forever and Beauty to Beast for the grisly body part version, as well as the milder and more comedic version, Nobody Touches The Hair. If this gets Played for Laughs then it's a Gag Haircut though it does overlap with this since it can still be traumatic for the character.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- In the Peach Girl manga Momo is bullied by a trio of Kairi's fangirls. They tell her that she doesn't deserve Kairi and force her to the ground while holding a lighter to her hair, telling her unless she signs a treaty (saying that she'll stay away from Kairi) then they'll burn all her hair off. Thankfully, Kairi rescues her, but not before the girls manage to singe a bit of Momo's hair.
- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo: The evil Empire's plot was to shave everyone's head bald, though this is played for laughs.
- Naruto:
- While Sakura does cut her own hair to escape an enemy at one point she is considerably annoyed that she had to. Still, she keeps it short afterwards.
- Ino cuts her hair as well afterwards, but this becomes a component in one of her jutsus... ironically, in the fight against Sakura. She lets it grow back.
- A female villain in a Filler arc of Shippuden was very sensitive about damage to her hair. It turns out that she is actually a Body Snatching head of hair.
- In the manga version of Fruits Basket, Akito cuts Isuzu/Rin's Rapunzel Hair while attempting to kill her slowly and painfully by starving/isolating her in a private room in the Sohma estate. It's all but stated that she did so because Isuzu's long hair reminded Akito of her abusive mother, Ren, who wears her hair exactly that way ("Long black hair... like 'that woman'... it makes me so sick!"). It doesn't help that Ren herself is partially to blame, since she asked Isuzu to do something for her with the fake promise of telling her how to break the Sohma curse — and that is when Akito caught and captured her.
- Tsukushi is in the receiving end of this in the second half of Hana Yori Dango.
- Happens to Jessie in an episode of Pokémon where a Scyther chops it off and she spends the rest of the episode trying to get revenge. The end of the episode has a Scyther give her and James involuntary mohawks. Arceus help you if you damage Jessie's hair. She's been known to attack snakes larger than herself with her bare hands for this offense — and not only win, but make the snake her personal bitch for the next six seasons.
- Ranma ˝:
- Akane's accidental haircut courtesy of both Ranma and Ryoga. Both Ranma and Ryoga start apologizing profusely, expecting a Megaton Punch or the like, but Akane was remarkably calm about it. Turns out she only had long hair to begin with to impress Dr. Tofu. Now, if her hair had been cut before she gave up the crush on the older man, heads would've rolled. Not that it stopped her from giving both Ranma and Ryoga an Armor-Piercing Slap before she left, though both of them told her to hit them in between the apology round. Since Ranma isn't aware of Akane's reasons to keep her hair long, after it gets hacked off he blurts out "B-but it's just hair, why would she be THAT angry?". Then one of Akane's school friends harshly rebukes him, saying that "a woman's hair is her life". Only then Ranma and Ryoga realize that it was a bigger deal than they thought and start to apologize. Akane herself explains her reasons to Ranma a little later.
- We're introduced to principal Kuno, the father of Tatewaki, whose weapon of choice is a pair of hair clippers. We learn that in previous times, his favorite obsession was shaving his son bald (an obsession still burning, and one that now affects all the students in the school), and this is something that has left deep scars in Tatewaki's heart. Traumatic haircut indeed.
- Bleach:
- During junior high (and before her brother's death) Orihime used to be tormented by other girls, who cut her long reddish brown hair since they didn't like it. After Tatsuki saved her, Orihime vowed never to cut her hair again as a symbol of their friendship.
- Ayasegawa Yumichika's attack on Charlotte Cuulhuorne's hair is enough to make Charlotte go to his released form, despite already dominating the fight. It's implied Yumichika did it deliberately in an attempt to make Charlotte release sooner rather than later. It worked.
- In the manga version of Flame of Recca, Mikagami cuts Yanagi's hair after telling her about his dead sister (who she looks very much like, and apparently looks even more like with her hair short). Recca gets royally pissed, and brings up the hair=life comparison during the fight that ensues.
- Both played straight and parodied in the Rose of Versailles manga; first parodied with Andre's reluctance to cut his hair for a disguise (and Oscar's mockery of him for this), later played much more tragically with the imprisoned and condemned to death row former Queen Marie Antoinette.
- Subverted in the Arlong arc of One Piece: Hachi receives a Close-Call Haircut in a swordfight, and howls with rage...for two seconds until he shrugs, saying it's just hair and it'll grow back. But later played straight with Brook in the Thriller Bark arc: a zombie powered by his shadow threatens to cut his Funny Afro, and Brook panics, since it can't grow back, and he needs it for Laboon to recognize him.
- A similar subversion occurs in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple during a Master Class fight between Shigure and Kii Kagerou. Shigure manages to cut Kagerou's hair
 with her katana; at first Kagerou looks genuinely pissed by the feat, only to reveal moments later that he was in fact kidding and that he doesn't mind his loss at all.
- In Basilisk, Yashamaru gets his long hair cut off during a battle. The same one where he actually dies.
- D.Gray-man:
- Lenalee's long, beautiful hair is destroyed (leaving it boyishly short) after her battle with the Level 3 Akuma. She does begin to regrow it, and at the current point in the manga it is now shoulder length. However, she was never shown being distressed by the fact her hair was cut.
- A funny example is the fact that Allen and Kanda threaten to shave the other's head. During a sparring practice they wagered their hair on the outcome.
- In Deadman Wonderland, Scar Chain manages to rig the slot machines so that Minatsuki doesn't have to lose any body organs, but just cut her hair short.
- After spending club funds with which he had been entrusted, Eguchi Yousuke of Shonan Bakusouzoku swears he will shave off his pompadour if he can't pay the money back. Eguchi's pompadour is very Serious Business.
- Maya Natsume in Tenjho Tenge while fighting against Emi Isuzu.
- In Claymore, Clare and Teresa were both originally proud of their long, black hair. The process used to give them their powers turns their hair platinum blonde. Clare also is forced to cut her hair during training. Also, Clare accidentally cuts off a lock of Galataea's hair while rescuing her from Agatha, who's holding Galataea hostage. Much indignation ensues.
- The manga version of Chrono Crusade shows that Chrono's hair was worn long as a child up until a battle right after what would have been his coming-of-age ceremony. During the battle his Rapunzel Hair is burned off to the shorter, jagged cut that he wears the rest of the time (in his true form). It seems pretty symbolic of Chrono losing his innocence, particularly since the battle marks the start of the trauma that eventually leads to him becoming a Failure Knight, if not downright developing PTSD (it's also worth noting that when he meets Rosette and Joshua in his Sleep Mode Size, his previously short hair has grown long again, possibly hinting that he regains some of his innocence by spending time with the children).
- Katsura from Gintama has his hair cut off to be used as a trophy after apparently being killed by an assassin in the Benizakura arc. It eventually grows back.
- In chapter 43 of Desire Climax Hayato does this to Mio after kidnapping her, cutting her long hair shorter.
- In Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Muska shot off each of Sheeta's braids as a threat.
- Eureka indirectly suffers this in episode 19 of Eureka Seven by the Scab Coral.
- A very young (read: no older than 10) Sylia Stingray gets her head shaved fully bald in the flashbacks of Bubblegum Crisis 2040, per her Mad Scientist father's orders; it's to subject her to brain surgery, which provided Dr. Stingray with the material and data that would ultimately create the future Big Bad of the series, Galatea. Later, little!Sylia has a pixie-like cut and a bandage on her head, and when seen as an adult she's let it grow past her shoulders.
- In episode 6 of the anime adaptation of Chuunibyou Demo Koi Ga Shitai, despite claiming it as the only way to apologize Isshiki actually doesn't want to go bald. However, Nibutani demands he goes through with it. Isshiki does, but isn't happy at all. Especially considering he had to deal with being bald for the past three years, and fears he will end up Prematurely Bald like his father.
- A Cruel God Reigns: Jeremy's hair is partially cut off by some of the other students at an alternative school he attempts to attend while he is working as a prostitute with Cass after returning to Boston. This is particularly traumatizing because the other students cut it off while attempting to sexually assault him, which Jeremy does NOT handle well, considering his Rape As Back Story and understandable Hates Being Touched.
Comic Books
- Shows up in V for Vendetta
- Lex Luthor. Jup, Pre-Crisis Lex Luthor's original reason for turning evil was that, whilst he and Superboy were friends, one accident causes Lex Luthor... To lose all of his hair prematurely! "Oh no, my life is ruined! I'll get you for this, Superboy!" It's not nearly that simple. Lex had just created living matter in the lab, and with it he was preparing a treatment to immunize his friend Superboy to Kryptonite. A lab fire and Superboy's precipitate action to extinguish it destroyed the matter, and the fumes rendered Luthor bald. He resented both, but the destruction of his artificial life and the kryptonite cure were what really unbalanced Lex (and maybe all those weird fumes had something to do with it...).
- And... A modern Superman comic had Joker show up with a chemical which causes mass hysteria because... It makes them bald.
- The Mighty Thor:
- Karnilla the Norn Queen, sometimes foe and sometimes the helpful lover of his half-brother Balder, was abducted by giants to lure the Balder into a death trap, and as part of her imprisonment her Rapunzel Hair was hacked off to little longer than a buzz cut (along with her being forced into rags as a scullery maid). Oddly for this trope, the cutting isn't shown beyond a panel of a lock of her long hair being held up to a knife, it's already done by the next panel. Odder still is the fact that she clearly hates her circumstances but seems to give no thought to her haircut, to the point of it never being mentioned by her or Balder when they're reunited- perhaps to emphasize the tenderness of the once famously handsome, now white-haired and paunchy Balder and his ragged, shorn, formerly glamorous lady-love not caring that they're both a sorry sight compared to their old selves and just being happy to see each other again.
- Thor's own girlfriend Sif cared a lot when Loki shaved her head in a deliberate ploy to make her less attractive to Thor. Sif had the last laugh, though- Thor liked her new hair, which turned black after Loki backed out on paying the dwarves who made it out of gold, better than he'd ever liked her old blonde locks, and found her even more strikingly beautiful than before.
Fan Fiction
- Dungeon Keeper Ami : When captured by the Unraveller of Mysteries, Ami gets her head forcibly shaved in preparation for what ammounts to a lobotomy. The haircut itself was not traumatic, but what was happening around it was very much so. Ami only escapes because the Unraveller of Mysteries was detained by Crowned Death when he realized that Ami had be captured. A close shave indeed.
- The pro wrestling fic, A Ring of Their Own, has several instances of this in the FWF, in the form of hair-vs.-hair matches. Throughout the story, Molly Holly is depicted as still traumatized from the head shaving she got at WrestleMania 20 even though it was six years ago!
- The first one involved Michelle Mc Cool, after losing to her former Lay-Cool sidekick, Layla. To atone for her behavior while she was with Michelle, Layla lets Beth Phoenix and Mickie James shave Michelle's head. Afterwards, Michelle quits the company - but returns later.
- The second involved Trish Stratus. Trish and Victoria were slated to headline the FWF's first pay-per-view, but Victoria felt defeating Trish in the ring wasn't enough - she had to be humbled and humiliated, so asked for a hair vs. hair match. After losing the match, Trish cried while her hair was shaved off, but the fans cheered for her anyway.
- Inverted in the third and last head shaving, after Victoria lost an epic match to Molly Holly. Victoria, having finally been taken to the limit in the ring and having nothing left to prove to herself or anyone else, considered the head shaving a rebirth, as she announced her retirement as an active wrestler shortly afterwards, to become Commissioner of the FWF.
Film
- Used in Lockout when Snow cuts and dyes Emilie's hair to disguise her as a male. Particularly notable is that he tells her that "it's going to be fun" and the audience gets to watch him (but not her) during the actual event as she screams and objects. Ick.
- Pictured above: Evie has her head shaved for her interrogation in V for Vendetta. Upon finding out that it was V who actually put her through the whole ordeal, her first accusation was that "you cut my hair!" Even before mentioning that he tortured her. Notably, Natalie Portman really had her head shaved for that scene. She stated that it's something she had wanted to do for a while.
- In the Afghan film OSAMA, the main female lead does this in order to pose as a boy. Her braid is put in a flowerpot and watered for symbolism. Tragically, it didn't work and she got caught and married off anyway before she could escape Afghanistan. The last scene implies that her new husband had just had sex with her, despite her being only a child.
- Prime example being the Break the Haughty climax of Beauty Shop. Comes complete with Screams Like a Little Girl.
- Nobutada's topknot cutting scene in The Last Samurai. Like some of his other work, Koyamada kinda overdid it when it came to emotion and rendered the scene inorganic. Moving on.
- In Seven Samurai, where the wise leader shaves his head to disguise himself as a monk. Yeah, he has a reason to be bald, opposed to Yul Brynner in the remake. The farmer who wants to hide his daughter from the incoming samurais cuts her long hair, much to her disapproval.
- Played on the shame side as an important thing in Seppuku, where Tsugomo hunts down his cowardly enemies and defeats them only to cut off their topknots and later show them to their feudal lord. It works. The scene is also meant to mirror the discussion of scalping earlier in the film, so the message becomes rather anvilicious. Somewhat justified as in feudal Japan only monks, who made a vow of poverty, shaved their hair. To be bald was therefore to display a lack of status and wealth.
- Shanghai Noon has Jackie Chan's character lose his long pony tail when Chon (Jackie) and Roy (Owen Wilson) are captured by the princess's kidnapper, Lo Fong; he cuts Chon's hair off, knowing exactly what this means for him if he should try to return (see below under Real Life for how significant this would be).
- The lead heroine in the French film Frontier(s) has her hair cut by a little girl, who belongs to a ritualistic, depraved family of Nazis... and it only gets worse from there.
- Happens to Garth in Wayne's World, audibly traumatizing him.
- The "Creepy Thin Guy" in the latest Charlie's Angels movie does this, often ripping out the hair with his bare hands
- Waterworld: The Mariner (Kevin Costner's character) to Helen.
- US Marine recruits are forcibly shaved when they arrive at basic training. This was depicted in Full Metal Jacket.
- Pauly Shore screams after seeing his Army-issue haircut in In The Army Now.
- Spoofed in Police Academy, where Blanks and Copeland get buzz cuts at the Academy barber—only to learn moments later that it isn't required, because it's just police training, not boot camp.
- In Mommie Dearest, Joan forcibly cuts Christina's hair (while screaming at her) after catching her preening in Joan's mirror. "I spoiled it, just like I spoiled you." Granted, part of this was because Christina had put face lotion in her hair.
- Spaceballs uses this trope, when Princess Vespa's hair gets shot and she transforms from a Damsel in Distress to a ruthless killing machine.
- Porky's 2 has it happen to their Magical Native American friend.
- In Vamos a matar, compaĂąeros, Vasco cuts Lola's hair as punishment for allegedly sleeping with a foreigner. Later in the movie, we find out he kept the lock of hair, and gives it back to Lola to apologize and declare his love to her.
- Used in Play Misty for Me.
- In Star Wars: Episode I, the last scene shows Anakin as a young Padawan. His hair was cut into a mullet. He seems rather unhappy about it.
- During the Extended Flashback that takes up most of the length of Hiroshima Mon Amour, the female protagonist (who is French) describes how her head was forcibly shaved as punishment for an affair with a German soldier during WW 2.
- Similarly, the Irish lead character of Ryan's Daughter has her head shaved after an affair with a British soldier.
- In the Japanese classic Hara Kiri, the protagonist defeats several other samurai and shaves off their topknots.
- Una and, later, Bernadette in The Magdalene Sisters. Might also have happened to Crispina, who has an uneven haircut and is unstable enough that she might have tried to escape like the others.
- Sarah Michelle Gellar's character in I Know What You Did Last Summer.
- In Amy & Isabelle the mother Isabelle discovers that her daughter Amy had slept with her teacher and suffers a momentary breakdown because she had also slept with an older man as a teenager and that man got her pregnant with Amy. In a fit of rage she hacks off Amy's beautiful long curly hair. Later near the end of the movie she takes her to the hairdressers to have it tidied up.
- Happens in the Lifetime Movie of the Week She Fought Alone. After reporting the Jerk Jock who raped her, the heroine becomes the school outcast and one night a group of her classmates surround her in an alley and cut off chunks of her hair. It's barely noticeable once the heroine slaps a baseball cap on top of it.
- In Hitcher in the Dark, Daniela (Josie Bisset) is drugged by the man she's getting a lift from and wakes up to find he has cut off all of her beautiful long blonde hair and also dyed it brown so that she now looks more like his mother.
- Happens to the protagonist's little sister in Remember Me. the Alpha Bitch invites her to a supervised birthday party, and the girl thinks the bully wants to be friends now, so she goes. Then while the adults are busy, the bully and her Girl Posse gang up on her, hold her down, and chop off her pigtails. Her brother, father, and the brother's roommate are not happy.
- Tangled naturally features this, being an adaptation of "Rapunzel", but there's a twist: at the end of the movie, it's Flynn who cuts Rapunzel's hair. Her hair has magic properties that heal the wounded and make the old young again (why Gothel kidnapped her in the first place), but it loses its power if it's cut. When the villain stabs him, Rapunzel vows to stay with her forever if she'll be allowed to heal Flynn, who has been mortally wounded. By taking the option of cutting her hair before she does so, Flynn frees Rapunzel from the oppressive mother figure she's been with for 18 years, knowing full well that he'll die as a result.
- George Sanderson from Monsters Inc. He is always known for his tendency to get certain objects that originally belonged to human children (such as socks) onto his fur, and since all the other monsters think that making contact with children's belongings is considered deadly to them, poor George actually had to have all of his fur shaved off just for his safety (and he's not very happy about it). Fortunately, his fur grew back at the end of the film.
- In The Brady Bunch Movie, jealous Jan dreamt about cutting Marcia's hair in her sleep. Unfortunately for Jan, Marcia still looked nice afterward, so her ego didn't get damaged at all.
- In Bent, as is custom for the prisoners in concentration camps, Max has his stylish hair shaved off.
- The protagonist of Ma Vie En Rose has a haircut forced upon him when his parents become fed up with his femininity.
- The Crying Game. Dil. The last thing she wants to be is a boy again. The only way Dil agrees is that Fergus insists that he's doing it for love; she still cries as her hair is cut.
Fergus: Do anything for me?
Dil: Anything... (Fergus starts to cut her hair) NO WAY!
Fergus: You said anything.
Dil: Girl has to draw the line somewhere.
- Mouth To Mouth: Seemingly averted as most members of the group seem quite willing to have their hair shaved off in order to be fully accepted into SPARK, but played straight when Sherry lets out a small sob, which she rapidly covers up with a smile.
- Used twice as a punishment in The Magdalene Sisters. One girl, Una, who escapes but is brought back by her father is seen having her hair shaved later. Bernadette, who also tries to escape, gets a painful reprise of the first haircut. Instead of using the clippers, they use scissors while she struggles the whole time leading the nuns to draw blood.
- In Drumline. The talented but arrogant freshman Devon fails to memorize the band's rulebook, which requires shaving his head as punishment. Devon nearly quits the band rather than give up his cornrows, but he shows up at a party later that night with his hair combed out and electric trimmer in hand, as the first sign of character growth.
- Used particularly brutally in Les Miserables (2012): While Fantine undergoes one of these by choice in order to sell her hair to feed her little daughter Cosette in the original book, and thus in most adaptations too. However, in the book, she at least goes to a professional barber, who presumably showed some care and restraint, and even in the stage version she's left with a long pixie. In the movie, however, Anne Hathaway's hair is cut in an alley with a razor blade, leaving her with less than an inch of uneven stubble.
- In Malena, as the women of the town gather to beat the crap out of the titular character as punishment for her "crimes" , one of many things that they do is take a pair of scissors and cut off her hair. Sadly, she's already done this to herself, cutting her long locks into a bob in preparation to become a prostitute because she has no other means to support herself.
Literature
Live Action TV
- Smallville's Lionel Luthor, unlike his spawn, had a lot of hair that he probably did not appreciate having shaved off for admission to general-population prison in the season 3 finale. He DID say "thank you" - also they were playing Mozart's Requiem in a sort of death montage - as the BACKGROUND to the haircutting scene. Most epic haircut ever. It's intercut with shots of his son being poisoned, the key witness in his murder trial walking into a safe house and then having it explode spectacularly, Martha Kent finding a huge Kryptonian symbol burning in the field AND Jonathon Kent collapsed and possibly dying. Yeah, that's epic.
- In an episode of Stargate SG-1 with an Inferred Holocaust example, Daniel Jackson lost his long floppy hair with no explanation (and kept it that way for the rest of the series' run)... coinciding with waking up the prisoner of someone who actually had raped him once before.
- In the first arc of the third season of Veronica Mars, there was a subplot about rapists cutting the hair off the girls they raped.
- A Dutch girl guilty of sleeping with a Nazi, as referenced below under Truth in Television, gets her hair shaved by force in Band Of Brothers.
- Two episodes of The X-Files featured a necrophiliac serial killer obsessed with women's hair, which he would cut from his victims' bodies.
- In the 2006 BBC Robin Hood series, Marian's hair is forcibly cut in front of the townspeople as punishment for defying the Sheriff. This overlaps somewhat with Important Haircut, since her tough "Night Watchman" persona comes more into focus afterwards.
- British soap opera Hollyoaks had a storyline in which Amy Barnes was abused by her boyfriend, including him hacking off her Rapunzel Hair because he thought it made her look childish.
- Subverted in 3rd Rock from the Sun when an upset girlfriend cuts off Tommy's ponytail and hands it to him before storming away. Tommy, an alien crammed into human form, reacts with something to the effect of "Wow, if I'd known I could get rid of that damn thing so easily I would have done it a long time ago!"
- In Rome, Servilia of the Junii is knocked from her litter and is beaten, stripped naked, and has her hair cut with a dagger as an act of revenge from another character. The entire experience is clearly very traumatizing to her, and she spends several days recovering.
- Agatha Christie's Poirot. In "Murder on the Links" the Belgian detective gets into a bet with an equally arrogant French detective; if Poirot fails to solve the case first he has to cut off his moustache (the French detective would have to give up his trademark pipe). David Suchett is shown with a pair of scissors quivering at his upper lip at one point, but he rallies himself and wins the bet (magnanimously allowing to the loser to keep his pipe. "Because when you light it, you will think of Poirot.")
- In the book The Big Four, he actually shaves his mustaches, when impersonating his imaginary brother Archille. Some fans theorize that because his mustache would not have been able to grow back afterward, the shaven man must really have been Archille...
- In Salute Your Shorts, Budnick is briefly persuaded to let his love interest shorten his hair. But as he is led to the barber chair, he imagines it as an electric chair. After a few dramatized snips, he can't take it anymore.
- Every season of America's Next Top Model has a "makeover" episode which involves every (surviving) contestant getting new hairstyles. At least one girl with long hair will have a crying fit when she finds out it's getting cut short. As the seasons go on, and the haircuts seem designed to neither make the model look better nor be more acceptable to the world of fashion, the line between "necessary sacrifice" and "traumatic hazing ritual" gets thinner and thinner.
- There was one girl who defined herself by her long hair. Guess what they did? Cut it off. All of it. Because that was how she defined herself. The poor girl performed badly for the rest of the time she was on the show because she was so traumatized.
- Season 5's Cassandra, whose hair was cut short (and never stopped complaining about it), quit the show when Tyra wanted to cut it even shorter.
- Season 16 had the opposite case in Molly. The Diana Ross weave in the makeover episode irritated her scalp so much she was actually euphoric when she got her cut.
- In Sherlock Holmes And The Leading Lady, Holmes cuts off part of Watson's mustache (over Watson's protests) so that he can impersonate Holmes' valet.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- One episode deals with a frat house being haunted by ghosts of traumatized children. One of the things they were traumatized by was their caretaker chopping off the hair of girls she caught "preening."
- In "Gone", Buffy does this to herself due to her frustration with her life including her shame at her affair with Spike, Willow's magic addiction, and Dawn being angry with her.
- In the Seinfeld episode "The Barber", Jerry shaves the head of his Sitcom Archnemesis Newman as a form of revenge.
- The reality series That'll Teach Em saw modern teenagers go to a 1950s style boarding school and on the first day, the boys had their hair cut into a short back and sides. The most memorable transformation was Brennon Gunston, a rocker with long blond hair who looked like a different person after getting it cut off. He ended up never finishing the series and left early on. Also the girls had to wear their hair in pigtails at the school but none of it was cut off.
- The Spanish Game Show El Gran Juego De La Oca (The Great Game of the Goose) was a giant board game with each space on the board corresponding to a challenge of some sort. However one of the spaces was home to a demented barber. Whether you were male or female, getting one of three questions wrong (the third of which was always impossible to answer) resulted in your receiving an extreme haircut.
- The Amazing Race used this as a Fast Forward challenge (a chance to get a big jump on other teams) twice; the first team to discover it was a pair of professional models, and, rather than seriously damage a part of their professional image, skipped back to the regular race. Second time around, the guy in the couple was already bald, so it fell on his wife to bite the bullet. She went for it, and karma rewarded the team - they won the big million-dollar prize.
- Played for laughs in Scrubs. Throughout the series, there are flashbacks to the two male leads' stay in college, all of which feature Chris Turk with an afro. In the last one, frustration over lost tickets to a basketball game causes Turk to start tearing his hair out in handfuls. At the end of the flashback, JD mentions that this is the reason Turk keeps his head shaved in the present.
- In another, just as JD starts dating a girl who's in love with his hair, he starts challenging Dr Cox to "go the extra mile" for his patients. His attractive patient is about to lose her hair from chemo, and JD brings in her entire family, who all shave in solidarity. Because it's a sitcom, they expect JD to bald up as well. Which he eventually does.
- An episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman had Robert E. and Grace being terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan. In one attack, a group of Klansmen surround Grace and hold her down while they cut her hair off.
- Spartacus: Blood and Sand:
- The protagonist gets all his long shaggy hair hacked off down to the scalp at the start of episode two when he is purchased as a gladiator to make him look more presentable. Overlaps somewhat with Important Haircut as it is the first part of his induction as a gladiator as well as one of the steps the Romans use to Break the Haughty.
- Pops up as part of a Bait and Switch in the second last episode of season 1. When it is revealed Naevia and Crixus have been sleeping together, Lucretia is seen attacking Naevia savagely in her chambers and asks for a servant to bring her a knife. Naevia is not seen for the rest of the episode implying she has been killed but she appears at the end scalped before being sent away from the ludus. Crixus gets his revenge in the next episode.
- Conan O'Brien. Will Ferrell. "Beardpocalypse."
- Played for laughs on Glee. In the first season, Puck shows up at school without hair. Turns out his mom found a spot on his head while washing his hair and forced him to go see a doctor. The doctor had to shave off Puck's beloved mohawk to be able to examine the spot, which turned out to be a harmless freckle. At first it's just a minor annoyance, until Puck gets to school and very quickly realizes that his badass reputation is in danger, as people seem to have lost their respect for him now that he no longer has badass hair.
- In the third season of Beverly Hills 90210, Brenda imagines doing this to Kelly after having found out that Dylan cheated with her all summer while Brenda was in Paris.
- On One Life to Live, a crazed Blair believed that the only reason her husband Todd had fallen in love with her was because of her resemblance to Marty—the woman he raped several years prior. To that end, she grabbed a pair of scissors and began cutting away at her hair. Several years later, in order to get revenge on Blair (who had earlier shoved her head into a toilet), her husband's mistress Skye drugged her, then hacked off all her hair once she passed out, giving Blair a very nasty surprise when she woke up the next morning. The funny thing is, in both cases, the actress wanted to cut her hair in Real Life and the show's producers decided to incorporate her decision into the storyline.
- On General Hospital, during an argument with boyfriend Sonny, a hysterical Brenda grabbed a pair of scissors and began hacking away at her hair. Repairing the damage done, sure enough, Brenda's friend Lois was able to give her a snazzy new short haircut. This was again, the actress' Real Life decision being incorporated into the show's storyline.
- Played for laughs in Friends. Monica asks Phoebe to give her a haircut like Demi Moore. Phoebe thinks she wants a haircut like Dudley Moore. Monica is horrified with the result.
- The mini-series adaptation The Scarlet Pimpernel:
- Minette Roland, a young actress, is revealed to have very short hair. It's implied that it was cut because she was sentenced to be guillotined.
- Marguerite Blakeney's gorgeous dark curly hair got cut when she's about to be executed.
Music
- In the music video for Paramore's "Misery Business", a girl with a long, blonde plait has her braid cut off and presented to her by the bad girl. The blonde is horrified. The bad girls gets what's coming to her, though.
- A military haircut underscores a young man's troubled relationship with his girlfriend in Green Day's music video for "Wake Me Up When September Ends."
- A couple have this inflicted on them by a mysterious masked gang in the video for Black Moth Super Rainbow's "Windshield Smasher" - the male half also gets a traumatic beard shave.
Myth And Legend
- One elaborate Norse myth cycle is touched off by Loki, god of being a dick, cutting off all of Sif's hair. This is part of Loki's eternal nettling of Thor, Sif's husband. The act has greater meaning because Norse societies punished unfaithful women by cutting their hair short. In some stories, it's implied that Loki raped Sif and then cut off all of her hair. Some time after the entire dispute is resolved and Thor is paid off, Loki gets really drunk and tells everyone that Sif seduced him. No other trickster god is near the Magnificent Bastard Loki is. Long story short: now we get earthquakes.
- In Classical Mythology King Nisus of the Megarians had a red/purple lock of hair, which made him invincible. His daughter Scylla (not the one from The Odyssey) fell in love with the invading king, Minos, and cut it off to give to him. Unfortunately for her, Minos was utterly horrified at her lack of filial loyalty and ditched her. She and Nisus got turned into birds, forever predator and prey. That's the Greek version; there may be others. In some versions, it turns out yes, it is 'that Scylla'. You do not murder your father, dearie, there are consequences!
- "Rapunzel". This was a deliberate attempt by the evil old crone to rob Rapunzel of the ability to snag herself a man... jealous old bitch.
- In The Bible, after losing his precious locks to Delilah (and his godlike strength), Samson is captured by the Phillistines, has both eyes gouged out, and chained between two pillars to serve as entertainment at a party, making this trope Older Than Feudalism. In this case, it wasn't the hair itself that was the source of power — God had decreed He would empower Samson so long as he followed the restrictions of a Nazarite. Samson broke every single one of them — getting his hair cut was the last straw, at which point God withdrew His blessing until Samson asked forgiveness and God gave him his strength back, allowing Samson to die honorably through Taking You with Me.
- In Celtic Mythology, Cuchulainn cuts off Findabair's hair in the Cattle Raid of Cooley due to her being a pawn of Maeve, the queen who orchestrated the raid on Ulster.
- An incident of forced shaving happened in the Bible to envoys sent by King David to the Ammonites (2 Samuel 10). In that case, the envoys only lost half of their beards... but they also lost the bottom half of their garments. The Ammonites came to regret their decision.
Professional Wrestling
- The entire point of the Hair vs. Hair match, in which both participants put their hair, and thus the entirety of their dignity, on the line. Look for the loser to behave as if he's been through an exceptionally traumatic event, and attempt to cover up his shame with wigs, bandannas, and the like.
- Paul Wight, wrestling under the name The Big Show, was shot with a tranquilizer dart and had his head shaved in the ring by Kurt Angle. Most disturbing was that Angle was making noises like he was getting off on it, though nothing explicitly sexual, while announcer Michael Cole went on and on about how Angle was "raping Big Show of his dignity". Repeatedly. For several weeks afterwards when referencing the event.
- Before that, the Heenan Family "raped Andre the Giant of his dignity" when Big John Studd and Ken Patera cut off Andre's long hair. Not the only example, but maybe the most disturbing. There's also Edge (to a smaller degree) in WWE, Seth Skyfire/Chet the Jet in OVW and Erick Stevens in ROH.
- Angle himself is a victim of this, having lost a Hair vs. Hair match to Edge. However, after a few weeks of embarrassing toupees, Angle has kept the look since. Supposedly, the whole reason they did that was because Angle was losing his hair anyway.
- One especially disturbing example was Roddy Piper shaving a struggling dwarf to resemble Mr. T, who he was feuding with at the time.
- Roddy Piper was also involved in the incident which gave Brutus Beefcake the nickname "The Barber". Short version: Adrian Adonis cut Brutus's hair, essentially to be a dick. Piper (by this point a face) has his "retirement" match at Wrestlemania III with Adonis (Piper's retirement lasted less than two years). Piper beats Adonis with a sleeper hold, knocking him out, at which point Beefcake returns and shaves Adonis bald. During the lead-up to WrestleMania 3, Adonis teamed with Beefcake and Greg Valentine against Rick Martel, Tom Zenk and Lanny Poffo in a 6-man tag team match. By this time, the match between Piper and Adonis was already slated to be hair vs. hair. During the match, Beefcake had Martel backed against his team's corner and Adonis took out a pair of scissors, planning on cutting Martel's hair to show what he'd do to Piper. Martel switched places and put Beefcake in the corner, causing Adonis to cut his hair by accident.
- Molly Holly at WrestleMania 20. After being defeated by Victoria, she was strapped into a barber's chair and had her head shaved, prompting her to wear wigs with a chin strap attached because she was so embarrassed. In reality, the whole thing was her idea, partially because she noticed there wasn't going to be a women's match at all on the roster and decided to take drastic measures, and partly because she had dyed her brown hair blond for so long, it was completely fried and she simply needed to hack it off and start over. She considers it to be her single-favorite moment of her career, and kind of wished that it was more culturally acceptable for a woman to be bald, because she loved it.
- Miss Kitty had one of these done to her by Terri Runnels during a makeover.
- CM Punk, as the leader of the Straight Edge Society, had his "disciples" shave their heads as a sign of faith to the Straight Edge lifestyle, ended up a victim of this courtesy of Rey Mysterio. Punk covered it up with a luchadore-esque mask, but ended up having that forcibly removed by Big Show during an episode of SmackDown. He's kept his hair short since then.note It's grown out quite a bit, but not to the length that he had it during the SES days.
Tabletop RPG
- Warhammer:
- An incident like that started a war between the elves and dwarves. The elves had a dwarven emissary shaved, which became the famous last straw. The war has subsequently been known as the "War of Vengeance" to the dwarves, and the "War of the Beard" to anyone else currently out of dwarven earshot. Not just shaved, but also laughed out of court, beaten, shaved and sent back to the dwarven kingdoms in that state. But the beard was the main reason
- The ritual for becoming a Slayer in dwarven society implies shaving your head except for a huge mohawk and dyeing it orange, so that anyone can see at a glance your disgrace.
Theatre
- Fantine, in Les Misérables willingly sells her hair to raise money to help her daughter Cosette. It is the first step towards her degradation and shame, as her beautiful hair is one of the few things left she has of beauty and sentimental value.
- Played for comedy by Harpo Marx, though he didn't limit himself to hair. A memorable example that made it to the movies appeared in A Night At The Opera.
Video Games
- ''Penny Arcade Adventures:
- Taken in a silly direction in the laserdisc game Badlands. At one point, a scorpion leaps at Buck from atop a cactus. If he doesn't shoot it in time, it lands on his head and cuts his hair into a mohawk. It's hard to decide what's funnier — the face Buck makes afterwards, or the fact that this costs you a life.
- Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn:
- Lucia's Rapunzel Hair is cut off after she is captured by Ludveck; he hacks off a significant amount of the poor girl's hair for punishment and as a threatening message to Queen Elincia, Lucia and her brother Geoffrey's lady-of-liege.
- Played for Laughs in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, where Garcia and Dozla's A support reveal that after sparring, Dozla got Garcia's Badass Beard badly damaged. And Garcia is PISSED OFF.
- This Traumatic Haircut combines with Dangerously Close Shave in Brain Dead 13: In one death scene, Vivi the vampiress gives Lance one of the "Off with His Head!" variety, when she uses the Sinister Scythe to chop off his long red hair and also his head. Truly painful and traumatizing even for children.
- One of the Death Course fights in World Heroes takes place in a fully normal arena. However, the after-fight character portrait of the loser will be shown not just with the usual bruises, but with all of their hair shaved. Admit it, you played the Death Course SOLELY to get that inflicted on your rivals.
- In SNK Gals Fighters, Athena Asamiya has had her long hair cut short, and now she bitterly regrets it.
Webcomics
- In The Order of the Stick, Haley's rival Crystal knocks Haley out, cuts off her ponytail with a dagger, then proceeds to trim off a good deal of the rest of her hair as revenge for a quip Haley had made when they were children about Crystal's short haircut. Subverted in that Haley, while annoyed, refuses to let it distract her from the business at hand. (Interestingly enough, it makes her look like the earlier representative of her personality that wants to (paraphrase) "Stop all the emo stuff and get back to the jokes," who, along with self-reliance and optimism, gets Haley out of her depressed funk.) Gets a lampshading a little later, when she gets her long hair magically restored and Elan says he'd assumed the new do was meant to represent her character development... but nope, it was just a haircut.
- Alien Dice:
- Everytime Lexx rolls up a level, his hair grows out and sometimes changes color. He normally cuts it back to his normal, short, length, but he still sees it as a sign of one more situation he has no control over. Since his lack of personal freedom is a major part of his backstory, he's understandably very controlling about his hair.
- Chel has her waist-length hair cut when she is kidnapped. Soon after, she breaks a mirror to make a knife so that she can cut her hair further (removing a rat-tail that the kidnappers left) and re-assert her independence and control.
- Charlie and Tom in Khaos Komix are attacked by a mob of their schoolmates after Charlie shows up in school in a girls' uniform, and during the beatdown, Charlie is given a choice: either she cuts her hair, or the ringleader's boyfriend vaginally rapes Tom.
- In Lint by Colby Purcell, Al'bert du Fromage (the elvish noble and evil henchman) is obsessed with his long hair (particularly the single white strain) as a running gag. The hero once threatened to cut it off while questioning him, causing him to break immediately. Later, to punish his failure, his boss Lord Fang ordered his men to throw Al'bert in the dungeon and "... cut his hair too, would you?", prompting a "NOOOOOOOO!".
- In a rare male example, Bumper in Dominic Deegan becomes keen to genuinely hurt the eponymous seer after Dominic's actions result in Bumper losing his topknot.
- In Strays, Meela's brother cuts her hair over her objections. She wants to go home. He wants them to pass as brothers instead of a brother and sister, which is how their enemies are looking for them.
- April in College Roomies from Hell!!! has her hair cut after she kills another character.
- In Samurai Princess Jacquline gets one of these.
Web Original
- Behind The Veil: When Kathleen Allan sold her ex-husband to a Mage in exchange for another werewolf, she had little idea that his current lover Roxanne Pavlenco would take it so badly. Less than two hours later she found herself kidnapped by said lover, tied up and forcibly shaved when she wasn't forthcoming with who she sold him too.
Western Animation
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic a sea-serpent, that was in a river, lost part of his moustache.
- In a Madeline movie, Lost In Paris, a child labor ring used haircuts as a threat to keep them in line. Tthe girls have to use their own hair to make lace afterward. Madeline does end up getting a chunk of her hair cut off in the climax, but it's fine again in the ending.
- The deranged barber, Freaky Fred, from Courage the Cowardly Dog is very prone to lock raping when he's feeling particularly... naaauuuughty.
- The Powerpuff Girls:
- In "The Mane Event" Bubbles and Buttercup accidentally pull out a huge chunk of Blossom's hair while playing with it, and their attempts to fix their mistake were less than successfull, making her look like she lost a fight with a lawn mower. She eventually gets revenge on the other two by butchering their hair. It's all back to normal next episode.
- In the World Premier Toons pilot, "Meat Fuzzy Lumkins," Bubbles has one pigtail turned into a drumstick by Fuzzy's Meat Ray. This proves ill for Fuzzy Lumkins.
- The Simpsons:
- Lisa gets a large wad of gum in her hair and people spend the rest of the episode trying homespun recipes to get it out (honey, peanut butter, etc). Finally she gives up and goes to a barber, who tells her he understands how important a girl's hair is. Cue the next shot, where he's just shaved that part of her head. And then next shot, where Lisa has a nice hairstyle. "I look like a real person!". Then Lisa goes outside and immediately Nelson goes "Haw haw!" at her; she sticks a bobble-hat over her head to hide her cool new hairstyle, suddenly and inexplicably ashamed of what she had liked just moments before.
- In a season 4 episode, during a flashback, two-year-old Bart, jealous of all the attention Lisa is getting cuts off all her hair. "Who's cuter now?"
- In the episode "Simpson Tide", Homer tries to avoid getting his head shaven after joining the US Navy Reserve. He isn't successful and is left holding the few strands of hair in his hands.
Homer: Ohh, I'm a freak!
- In Dog of Death, the family must cut costs to afford an operation for a sick Santa's Little Helper; forcing Bart to get a cheap haircut from a student at the local barber college. The results are unfortunate.
- Avatar The Last Airbender:
- At the beginning of the second season when Zuko and Iroh are forced to go on the run from Azula, they are required to cut off their ponytail and top knot to hide the fact that they are Fire Nation from the Earth Kingdom populace they intend to hide amongst. Although they are cutting off their own hair, the gravity with which the act is performed (combined with the obvious cultural relevence of the hairstyle since virtually every Fire Nation person is seen to have it) makes it clear that the act is a symbolic acknowledgement of the fact that they will never be able to return to their homeland.
- Azula gets one in the season finale. Self-inflicted and a sign that she just went way off the deep end.
- Midway through the third season, as Aang readies to lead a raid on the Fire Nation, he shaves his head before setting off; he grew out his hair while incognito (the Fire Nation believing him to be dead) but shaving his head was a pronouncement of taking back up the mantle of the Avatar.
- Averted (and very notable) in Samurai Jack, where normally, as noted below, a samurai would kill himself if he lost his topknot. For Jack it just turns him into a Badass Longhair.
- Rugrats:
- Chuckie had to get his hair cut. Since he's two and a coward, he didn't want one. It didn't help that Angelica terrified him into believing that a hair cut involves having every one of his hairs pulled out by the roots.
- There was an episode in which Tommy and Chucky visit a playground where a bully known as "The Junk Food Kid" terrorizes all the kids who play there. The bully turns out to be a candy-eating toddler, and ends up blowing a huge bubble with her gum and smashing it into the long golden curls of another of the babies, and she has to get all the hair cut off. At the climax of the episode, however, the Junk Food Kid tries the same thing on Tommy, but he pops the bubble, causing the same thing to happen to her.
- An episode of KaBlam!! begins with Henry coming in embarrassed about his new haircut. So someone decides to uh..."fix it". The someone? June.
- King of the Hill:
- Hank and his friends have to get their heads shaved after Bill infests them with head lice.
- In the third season opener Luanne gets her hair burned off in the propane explosion, she actually spends most of the season with short hair until it eventually grows back to it's previous length.
- It appears all the new recruits Bill shaves are often crying when he does so. Ironically the people in line laugh at the one crying, despite the fact the same thing will be happening to them soon.
- Near the end of Total Drama Island, Heather's hair is forcibly shaved off. She is not pleased. Afterwards, she spends the entire second season bald and the third season with her hair only partially grown back. Also in the third season finale Sierra gets her hair burned off in the plane explosion.
- In the time travel episode of Sonic Sat AM, Sonic runs into a younger version of Snively with a full head of hair. He cockily introduces himself and speeds off, blowing Snively's hair away. It's apparently then that he decides he hates Sonic.
- On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Lucius got his horns roughly cut off thanks to Jimmy, resulting in him sobbing for a good deal of the episode. Another episode had this actually happen with his hair...his four tiny, microscopic hairs. It seems to have the same effect on him.
- In The Smurfs episode "Smurfette's Golden Tresses", Hogatha captures Smurfette and forces her to cut off all her hair so that the evil witch could use it to give herself natural blond hair. Papa Smurf has Smurfette hide her hair underneath her hat and then has Barber snip off some fur from a bearskin rug and dye it yellow to make it look like Smurfette cut off all her hair.
Real Life
- Shaving a woman's hair, or cutting it short, used to be a humiliating punishment for a very long time in many cultures, including Europe; in parts of Europe, a woman with short hair was often thought to be scandalous sight even in the early 20th century. It was usually used as punishment for adultery. It was as traumatic as having the word 'whore' tattooed on your forehead.
- World War II collaborators (generally women who had sex with Germans) usually had their heads shaved once the Nazis were kicked out of the town. The reason women were the main target of revenge-minded mobs in newly-liberated areas was because most of the serious collaborators (officials, company heads, officers, local right-wing party members etc.) had already been arrested by their governments for treason, and were awaiting sentence. Or if you want to be cynical, such women were easy targets compared to those in authority, who often kept their positions even after the war.
- The Nazis were fond of doing this to those consigned to concentration and death camps during the Holocaust, though that was mostly a matter of lice control, or, in some cases, to make stuffing, woven fabrics or boot lining. Discarded hair from ordinary barbershops was also collected for the same purposes.
- There was the generally antisemitic practice of cutting off the peyes, or religiously significant side-curls and beards of Orthodox Jewish men.
- According to this article in The Other Wiki, forced/required head shaving is used on prisoners and U.S. Marine Corps recruits, though for the latter it's probably more of an Important Haircut.
- The Important Haircut variant is common to all branches. Army recruits have the "barely there" shave until the end of Basic. Also called 'peeling your scalp'. Drill sergeants intentionally invoke this trope as part of your introductory hazing. The more hair you arrive with, the more malicious glee they, and the barber, take in rubbing your nose in it. Female Officer Candidates in Navy OCS get an Important Haircut upon enrollment. They have their hair shorn down to less than two inches; this is singular in the US military, where most of the time women are required only to wear their hair off their collar and out of their face. Male OCs get the typical "high and tight" described by the Marine above. Females entering the U.S. Naval Academy also receive this haircut.
- In countries with conscription, like Russia (where it is especially hated) army hair cuts are truly traumatic haircuts.
- The Qing Dynasty was ruled by the Manchurians, who forced the Chinese to shave their foreheads and have a ponytail, called a queue, which became the stereotypical hairstyle of the Orient back in those days. Losing the ponytail was not only a loss of honor, but also punishable by death. As such, you can imagine why people were frightened when they heard stories about sorcerers or secret societies traveling about stealing queues. Given that Han Chinese hated the queue requirement across the board it would probably be better to say that having the hair cut (and shaved forehead that went with it) was the real dishonor. Cutting it off became the definitive method of declaring oneself a rebel against the Qing. And again, a declaration that others could make for one. When Han Chinese came to the U.S., they were often worried about cutting off their queues because once they did so, it would be impossible to return to their homeland. Cutting off the hair of a railroad worker often meant they could never escape their lot in life. The richer, western-educated Chinese would often have a wig made with queue, for ease of travel within China.
- Back in the day when the Rastafari were persecuted in Jamaica, cutting off their dreadlocks was a common nasty trick the police would do to them.
- During Genghis Khan's rule of Mongolia, he sent envoys to attempt to open trade with Persia. Even after being rebuked with violence, he tried again and did not retaliate until his envoy had his beard forcibly shaved as a method of humiliation, and was sent back home. Khan then declared war. And proceeded to wipe the country out. The Mongols took the concept of diplomatic immunity very seriously and humiliating or mistreating an ambassador in such a manner was tantamount to a declaration of war.
- In ancient Japan, a woman's hair was considered one of her greatest treasures. Cutting her hair off against her will was considered to be on a level with raping her. So when it happens in anime it is significant by Japanese cultural standards (example: early in YuYu Hakusho, when Keiko enters Yusuke's burning house to save his still dead body. While she succeeds, Koenma states that, in return for saving her life, he had to take something away from her body. That, as it turns out, was her then.long hair - handwaved in which the fire had burned the hair at its tips, so they had to be cut off already. Yusuke gets pretty mad at Koenma when he sees this). It's worth noting that in Japan, if a woman is raped she's considered dishonored and unfit for marriage, and will most likely commit suicide. Or move to another, more lenient country and cut off all contact with her friends and family. At least, that's the way things used to be.
- If a samurai lost his topknot in a fight it was considered far worse than losing his head, and he'd have to commit seppuku to regain his honor. The movie "Hara Kiri" explores this and other samurai rules of honor in depth (and the hypocrisy in which the rules were often applied).
- When a rikishi (sumo wrestler) retires, part of the ceremony involves cutting off their top knot. Crying is not unheard of.
- Wearing one's hair in intricate braids was required among European women of standing, with only children wearing their hair simply. As having all those braids required long hair, cutting a woman's hair functioned to force her into an immature appearance.
- Chinese general Cao Cao once violated his own orders when he carelessly allowed his horse to trample some crops; legend claims that he actually ordered himself beheaded, but his officers protested the order and he merely had his head shaved as a symbolic "beheading."
- Cutting the hair of a Sikh, who for religious reasons do not cut their hair or shave (although they wear turbans, so people in public never actually see their hair), can be considered a hate crime, because of the significance of it. If a Sikh needs to be shaved (anywhere on his body) — for surgery, usually — he may have to perform menial duties around the temple for a while as penance.
- It can happen that people who sport real-life Rapunzel Hair, which naturally requires a great deal of upkeep, may enter a period where they can no longer care for it — for example, falling into a deep depression with accompanying self-neglect that includes the hair — and as a result, the hair becomes unsalvageable and must be cut, sometimes only short, sometimes almost shaved off. Being that someone who puts in the effort to care for Rapunzel Hair is probably very attached to it, no matter how necessary the shearing can be, it is agonizing.
- A law in Wisconsin makes it illegal to cut a woman's hair without her express consent.
- The kings of the Merovingian Dynasty that ruled the medieval Frankish Empire traditionally had long hair. When the last Merovingian king, Childeric III was dethroned by his mayor of the palace, Pepin the Short, he was sent to a monastery and tonsured, thus symbolically deprived of his royal powers.
- Patients about to go through chemotherapy for cancer will often shave their hair before hand, as the treatment is notorious for losing hair. This is often (and understandably) traumatic for the patient (ESPECIALLY if the patient is a woman) and for the family and friends, because it really confirms the patient's illness. It's not uncommon for family and friends to also shave their heads in solidarity with the patient.
- While not an actual hair cut, there was an incident a few years ago when some high school kids held down a girl (who was popular because of her long hair) and spread Nair (hair remover) on her head.
- In Argentina there was a show called El Último Pasajero (The Last Passenger) in which two groups of teenagers in their last high school years competed for a graduation trip for the whole class division, which is a tradition between Argentinian students. One of the games, and the most viewed, consisted in a member of one team selecting someone from the opposite team, normally a pretty girl with long hair, in order to get him/her a horrible haircut. The teen could refuse but their classmates made that choice rather difficult, by insisting and treating the girl as a traitor if she didn't acced to the task. Most of the girls who acceded to cut their hair ended up crying. The show was sold to other TV stations outside of Argentina, and the game was kept in at least the Chilean and Peruvian versions.
- A vital stage of nuclear decontamination is shaving off not just hair on the head, but all hair everywhere on the body, because radioactive particles often cling to hair, and the only way guarantee that it's been removed to prevent further harm is to shave off all hair, as well as removing and burying all clothing and jewelry which is also contaminated, and scrubbing all skin with a rough brush to remove flakes of skin that are also likely contaminated. It should be noted, however, that the hair shaving is not quite as manditory anymore. This is due to shavers cutting holes in the skin of the victim, allowing the particles easy access to the bloodstream.
- Peter the Great of Russia, as one step of modernizing his empire made all state officials shave their beards off. For those who especially resisted, he would pay a personal visit to them and cut their beards off with an axe.
- In Chile, a 14-year-old schoolgirl wearing two very long and noticeable braids is questioned about it by her teacher. She doesn't pay attention, so the teacher forcibly takes her to the teacher's room and cuts them off. The poor girl is traumatised, the parents are understandably pissed off, and the case reaches public attention.
- A 15-year-old boy with hair past his shoulders went through the experience.
- In the 19th century, the American government was dead-set on assimilating Native Americans into white society. One of these steps was sending thousands of American Indian children to boarding schools where they were "assimilated" through a variety of steps that directly interfered with their religious and cultural practices, a common one of which was only cutting one's hair in the event of grief or shame. When the children were subjected to forcible cutting of their braids, they were very traumatized indeed. This continued well into the twentieth century in Canada.
- In the book Siblings Without Rivalry, the authors recount an incident of this that happened to one of the members of their support group for parents trying to improve their parenting techniques. The parent in question had curly hair that she was proud of, but her sister was jealous of. As a result, the parent's mother took her to the barber and had all her hair cut off.
- A couple of years ago, in Portland, Oregon, there was a guy who sat behind women on the bus and cut off their hair or put glue in it.
- Katee Sackhoff cut off her own hair with a knife on-camera in an episode of Battlestar Galactica. Even though the haircut in the story was a way for her character to return to her old self ( in-universe it was a trope inversion - the character had had short hair before, and the long hair was the symbol of trauma and misery for her, therefore the need to cut it) , Katee cried afterwards, especially since she'd been forced to keep her hair short earlier to play Starbuck - by the time the fourth season came around, she flatly refused to cut her hair any shorter for the role and her character stayed long-haired.
- Female murder victims (for example, the Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, teenagers murdered by Canadian serial rapist and murderer Paul Bernardo and his wife Karla Homolka) are sometimes found with their hair cut, as a means of further humiliating them.
- In Utah, there was a case in which a thirteen-year-old and her friend befriended a three-year-old at McDonald's and cut off her long beautiful hair. The judge agreed to reduce the girls' sentence on the condition that the girls have their hair cut—even ordering the mother of the thirteen-year-old to cut off her daughter's ponytail in front of everybody in the court room.
- In Sweden, cutting someone's hair without consent is considered such a huge violation of human dignity it is classified as felony assault and battery.
- A pushy or inexpert hairdresser might sorta give you one of these by accident if you go for a haircut and they end up cutting it much shorter than you tell them. Many a person have been rather... upset after the stylist goes gung-ho on their hair like this.
- Minami Minegishi of AKB 48 was demoted to trainee and had her head shaved after she broke her band's "no dating" rule. The demotion was the band's idea but the head-shaving was Minegishi's.
- In 2011, members of an Amish splinter group forcibly cut the hair of mainstream Amish men and women and were charged with hate crimes. Hilariously, their leader's name is Sam Mullet.
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