History Main / CoolShades

** Another shades, far more over-the-top sunglasses, have undergone MemeticMutation; instantly rendering any character they are shopped onto incredibly manly. Said MemeticMutation becomes an AscendedMeme in ''VideoGame/{{Super Robot Wars Z}}2'', as Kamina's shades are an equippable item that adds 20 Will to the character they're equipped to at the start of a battle. (Will, for those unfamiliar, is [[CallAHitPointASmeerp basically SRW's mana system]], of which, a considerate amount is needed to pull of a pilot's special attacks)

** Boomerang Shades that can cut holes in the fabric of the universe? Definitely CoolShades. This anime ''is'' all about [[BeyondTheImpossible doing the impossible]].

* Noriaki Kakyoin from the ''Stardust Crusaders'' arc of ''JoJosBizarreAdventure'' takes to wearing sunglasses to conceal facial scars during his fight against Dio.

** Another shades, far more over-the-top sunglasses, have undergone MemeticMutation; instantly rendering any character they are shopped onto incredibly manly. Said MemeticMutation becomes an AscendedMeme in [[SuperRobotWarsZ Super Robot Wars Z2]], as Kamina's shades are an equippable item that adds 20 Will to the character they're equipped to at the start of a battle. (Will, for those unfamiliar, is [[CallAHitPointASmeerp basically SRW's mana system]], of which, a considerate amount is needed to pull of a pilot's special attacks)

* ''AlphaFlight'':

* Cassidy from ''{{Preacher}}'' always wears them to hide his eyes, which seem to be the only part of him that changed substantially when he became a vampire.
* In ''{{Transmetropolitan}}'' Spider Jerusalem has distinct "live shades" with circular red lens and rectangular green lens. The item maker that created them was on hallucinogenic drugs. Now how cool is that. Cool enough that when he finally needed another pair, ''they had the same mismatched lenses''.
* ComicBook/TheSandman: The Corinthian wears shades to hide his nature. While his taking them off is a threatening move, his leaving them on isn't so reassuring either. It's ''also'' up in the air what he did before the invention of sunglasses. Wear a blindfold? [[PeekABangs Fringey hair]]? While not normal, sunglasses may have already been invented when Dream created him. He was wearing them that time when he ate the orang-outang's eyeballs, which seemed to be the eighteenth century. Before he had sunglasses, he presumably didn't go out in public. He only [=AWOLed=] after Dream went MIA. Before that, when not being a footman or whatever he was supposed to be on that occasion, he was a full-time nightmare. Turning around was a sufficient [[TheReveal Reveal]].
* [[CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]] once tried to convince his mom to buy him a pair of shades that bore a remarkable similarity to Kamina's [[HilariousinHindsight (despite predating them by a good 15 years or so).]] [[MakingASpectacleOfYourself He couldn't really pull the look off, though.]]

* John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd wore shades when performing as Jake and Elwood Blues. The Blues Brothers act originated on ''SaturdayNightLive'' and got made into a blockbuster movie in 1980. Neither one of the Blues Brothers removed their sunglasses in the film... well, Jake removed his in the scene where he was apologising to the Mystery Woman (Carrie Fisher).

* The Ray Bans in ''MiamiVice''.
* "Hawk" on ''SpencerForHire'' played by Avery Brooks. Brooks was on the Arsenio Hall Show actually defined a hero as someone who could get into a fight with a bunch of people and '''never''' lose his sunglasses!

* {{ZZ Top}}:

* {{Shadowrun}} allows characters to purchase Cool Shades. The real fun comes when you start putting visual enhancements on them.

* Azel, the MirrorBoss in ''GodHand''. Weirdly, they manage to stay on even when he does all sorts of impossible fighting moves, except [[spoiler: in the final stage where he takes them off deliberately. From the cutscene you can tell that now ''ItsPersonal'', and he's really quite pissed.]]

* All ten members of the ''EliteBeatAgents'' from newbie Spin to veteran team leader Chieftain, not counting [[PaperThinDisguise Mr.]] [[MaskPower X]]. The Divas and Khan have some pretty nice shades too, although the Divas' are transparent.

* Developer team ''The Bitmap Brothers'' had cool shades as their schtick. On photographs in game magazines of the day,they often wore sunglasses, and in at least some of their games, cool shades were included as a hidden item or easter egg. One example is ''Xenon II Megablast'', where the player can buy "Bitmap Shades" as an extremely expensive item. All it does is change the graphics to pure black and white.

* Shadehawk's shades in ''AntiheroForHire''. He ([[GogglesDoSomethingUnusual almost]]) only wears them for Cool, since he operates at night.

** Horatio Caine of ''CSIMiami'' punctuates almost every QuipToBlack by putting on his CoolShades if he's not already wearing them. (If he's already wearing them, he'll take them off and put them back on again.) So you could say that he... (''puts on sunglasses'') has it made in the shades. '''''YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH!!'''''

** Boomerang Shades that can cut holes in the fabric of the universe? Definitely CoolShades. Then again, this anime ''is'' all about [[BeyondTheImpossible doing the impossible]].

** CoolShades is what differentiates characters from extras. Virtually everyone that matters wears them. The technical reason they have them in ''Film/TheMatrix'' is so you can't see actors blink in gunfight scenes. It's also a visual cue that Neo is reaching his potential when he breaks Smith's shades. Smith takes them off and says, "I'm going to enjoy watching you die, Mr. Anderson." Sunglasses seem to be symbolic armor for ''everyone''. Nearly every time someone gets beaten up, they aren't unquestionably defeated until after their shades are gone. One exception is Morpheus, who takes his off before Agent Johnson fights him on the truck, perhaps symbolizing the fight's ultimate futility. The final fight between Neo and Smith has them knocking each others' shades off early on, because armor is irrelevant with the level of control they both exert over the world.

-->--'''''Film/TheBluesBrothers'''''

* ''ReservoirDogs'', in the intro sequence.

* "[[MeaningfulName Sunglasses]]" (or "Other Girl") from the ''{{Creamsicle}}'' meme.

\\ Later, upon learning that Wallsten was legally blind and the glasses were medical, a red-faced President Bush called him to apologize. Wallsten shook off the incident, saying it was a funny exchange that didn't offend him at all. He is currently a national policy reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

* In Pen and Teller's unreleased game ''Smoke and Mirrors'', a minigame has a slider for the amount one wears sunglasses ranging from "hate them, never wear them" to "I'm Lou Reed, I never take them off". On Impossible in the main game, Lou Reed shows up wearing the shades, and kills the player characters with his laser eyes. Without removing the shades.

* All of the members of XJapan, except for [[TomoakiIshizuka Pata]].
* TomWaits has an incredibly badass instrumental piece simply called "In Shades."

* ZZTop, who even have the song "Cheap Sunglasses".
* KanyeWest wears those neat 'Shutter Shade' sunglasses to many of his concerts, regardless of lighting.

* Music/OzzyOsbourne and [[{{Rush}} Geddy Lee]] perform wearing round framed sunglasses.
* JoeSatriani's black sunglasses and BaldOfAwesome make up his look.
* [[{{U2}} Bono]] alternates between Cool Shades and [[MakingASpectacleOfYourself Scandalous Shades]], often really bright. He explains it happens because his eyes are sensitive to light, and thus it's hard to see him without any glasses (and many of those times, [[http://salu2podcast.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/u2-rolling-stone-spain-09.jpg he looks weird]]).

* The only guy who wore glasses as much as Bono and Slash was [[{{Ramones}} Joey Ramone]].

* The late MitchHedberg.
* HunterSThompson

* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] with the lead singer of Steppenwolf, John Kay , his eyes are severely sensitive to light.
* {{ABBA}} singer Agnetha Falskog wore tinted prescription glasses to read the lyrics while [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBy9mXMEhYo recording the vocals for "Dancing Queen".]]

* ''MortalKombat'': Johnny Cage is rarely seen without his trademark shades.

* Likely future hall of fame baseball manager, Tony [=LaRussa=], always wore a pair of sunglasses when managing, even during night games. This was part of the mind games he played against opposing teams in the dugout, to prevent their manager from attempting to read his facial expressions and gain an insight into his strategy.

* The CoolShades in the film ''TheyLive!'' [[JustifiedTrope actually]] [[GogglesDoSomethingUnusual Do Something Unusual]] ; they allow the wearer to see the aliens in human guise, who are apparently responsible for the widening wealth gap, economic inflation, and [[ChewBubblegum a bubblegum shortage]]. That doesn't stop them from being used for {{Badass}} effect, though.

* ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}''
** Katsuya and Baofu, both from [[{{Persona2}} Persona 2: Eternal Punishment]], sport some rockin' shades.
** In the [[UpdatedRerelease PSP remake]], [[spoiler:Hitler/Nyarlathotep]] also looks pretty damn good sporting a pair, to the point where one wonders whether Atlus's censorship will backfire by simply making him look too cool.
** In ''Persona4'', Cool Shades not only can be worn by some of the characters (Kanji especially), they even are gameplay relevant.

* HulkHogan, of [[NewWorldOrder the nWo]] wore a pair f shades and looked absolutely badass while wearing them.

* Cool Shades + cool shirt + FascinatingEyebrow = DwayneJohnson The Rock.

** Kamina is constantly wearing cool shades (which [[BellisariosMaxim stay on without any visible means of attachment]] and he wore despite living underground ''never seeing the sun'' for most of his life), and after he [[GrandTheftPrototype hijacks his own Gunmen]], he melts down the pair of swords it had into a pair of shades too. Later on, those same shades (combined with the mecha's wings) are used to hold the enemy down for a final blow. Then the shades reattach themselves. RuleOfCool indeed.
** Another shades, far more ridiculous and over-the-top sunglasses, have undergone MemeticMutation, instantly rendering any character they are shopped onto incredibly manly. Said MemeticMutation becomes an AscendedMeme in [[SuperRobotWarsZ Super Robot Wars Z2]], as Kamina's shades are an equippable item that adds 20 Will to the character they're equipped to at the start of a battle. (Will, for those unfamiliar, is [[CallAHitPointASmeerp basically SRW's mana system]], of which, a considerate amount is needed to pull of a pilot's special attacks)

** Kamina may well have [[FridgeBrilliance a legit reason]] for [[SunglassesAtNight wearing the shades in a sunless cave.]] His shades are brightly colored, which may have [[GogglesDoSomethingUnusual helped him see detail and texture]] [[NightVisionGoggles in dim light.]] Bikers in the [[RealLife real world]] do this with yellow lenses. Plus, his shades are ''red''. As in, the color that helps human eyes adjust to transitioning to darkness, like the lights on a submarine. [[FridgeBrilliance He went up to the surface with his father as a kid and wanted to be ready next time.]]

** Kamina is constantly wearing cool shades (which [[BellisariosMaxim stay on without any visible means of attachment]] and he wore despite living underground ''never seeing the sun'' for most of his life), and after he hijacks his own HumongousMecha, Gurren, he melts down the pair of swords it had on it to give the mech a pair of shades too. Later on, those same shades (combined with the mecha's wings) are used to hold the enemy down for a final blow. Then the shades reattach themselves. RuleOfCool indeed.

** After finding out that Chouginga Gurren-Lagann's design was based on [[GetterRobo Shin Dragon]], you can no longer see its face as anything other than a pair of ''[[http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/9467/shindragonfrontnn3.jpg six-pointed shades]]''.
** Boota is wearing a set of round-lensed shades; at first they ''could'' just be his eyes, but when you see him sleeping with them on his forehead in episode 8, or scrabbling for them earlier, it becomes clear that in this show even the [[MixAndMatchCritters pig mole]] is wearing shades.

** Boomerang Shades that can cut holes in the fabric of the universe? Definitely CoolShades. Then again, at that point, nothing is impossible.

* ''VideoGame/StarFox'' has [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest James McCloud]].