History Main / RealMenHaveShortHair

* In ''Film/RememberTheTitans'', long-haired Ronnie "Sunshine" Bass shows up to try out for the football team. After seeing how far he can throw the ball, Coach Yoast lets him join -- on one condition. Cut to Sunshine in front of a mirror, slightly annoyed at his shorter (barely shoulder-length) hair.

* Despite its perception as being an OlderThanDirt trope with many [[CommonKnowledge claiming that it has to do with biology]] [[LittleKnownFacts dating back to prehistoric times]] when in reality it's very much NewerThanTheyThink, only dating back 200 years in any form. Men doing away with long hair had nothing to with their masculinity but for practical reasons in UsefulNotes/TheIndustrialRevolution. Long hair would be far more often caught in the machinery and so men would cut their hair for safety reasons. Up through the early 19th century, long hair had associations with wild, untamed men, and was seen as more of a status symbol of belonging to a lower social class.

Hair style and length have been gender markers since time immemorial. With certain exceptions, short hair has traditionally been seen as masculine and [[LongHairIsFeminine long hair as feminine]] in the West. By TheFifties, a clean, professional haircut was the expected 'do for a put-together man. However, this is on its way to becoming a DiscreditedTrope, as the 21st century has been more accepting of long-haired men. And of course, the LongHairedPrettyBoy has always scoffed at the notion that long hair is unmanly.

* Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians about hair length: in [[Literature/BookOfCorinthians 1 Corinthians]] 11:14 "Doth not even nature itself teach you that, if a man hath long hair, it is a shame unto him?" This is followed by 1 Corinthians 11:15 "But if a woman hath long hair, it is a glory to her?" (However, some believe that by using the Greek word "KOME" for the ("long") hair rather than the more generic word for hair "THRIX", he is not primarily referring to the length of the hair but to the idea of long, ornately ''styled'' hair (the verb "KOMAO" means "I style the hair". If he really is referring to the long/short male/female hair dichotomy, Saint Paul is in fact contradicting his own holy books, for in the Old Testament story of Sampson, the titular hero derived superhuman strength from his hair. Then again, this is advice from the NEW Testament, not the Old.)

* The 1965 Barbarians' song "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl" features a call and response between the lead and backup singers where men with long hair and tight pants are compared to girls and a jab is taken at Music/TheBeatles and Music/TheRollingStones. It's hard to say whether any of the criticism is sincerely meant, or whether the song simply mimics society's naysayers in the way that ''Yakety Yak'' mimics a parent telling a teenager what to do.

This is a sister trope to FacialScruff, where someone dislikes the idea of a man sporting facial hair. Compare BaldOfAwesome, where an impressive man sports a bald head; BaldHeadOfToughness, which can be considered a more extreme version of this trope; BoyishShortHair, where a female character's haircut marks her out as mannish or tomboyish, and LongHairIsFeminine, where long hair is considered a hallmark of womanhood. Likewise, this is a SubTrope of MenAreTough, as short hair is usually more practical and less "delicate" than long hair. Contrast BarbarianLongHair, where long hair is a marker of a member of a primeval warrior society.

This is a sister trope to FacialScruff, where someone dislikes the idea of a man sporting facial hair. Compare BaldOfAwesome, where an impressive man sports a bald head; BoyishShortHair, where a female character's haircut marks her out as mannish or tomboyish, and LongHairIsFeminine, where long hair is considered a hallmark of womanhood. Likewise, this is a SubTrope of MenAreTough, as short hair is usually more practical and less "delicate" than long hair. Contrast BarbarianLongHair, where long hair is a marker of a member of a primeval warrior society.

* In ''Franchise/YuGiOh'', a gym coach sees Bakura and pulls his hair while saying it's against the rules for a boy to have hair that long. He then tells Bakura to get a crew cut by the next day; this leads to the coach being Yami Bakura's first onscreen victim.

* In the 1964 comedy ''Film/GoodNeighborSam'', there is a scene where the titular character is talking contemptuously of Howard, his neighbor's estranged husband. Howard's hair is well-groomed and full, but still within the bounds of what would be considered short. Sam, however, voices a suspicion that he wears a toupee; when told that it's his own hair, he retorts: "Well, then he must go to a hair stylist or something. He wouldn't go to a regular barber. Anybody with a head of hair like that's gotta go to a hair stylist. He's just vain, huh?"
* In ''Film/AlicesRestaurant'', the protagonist gets assaulted in a restaurant and pushed out through the window pane due to his long hair. The police arrest him instead of the perpetrators. He keeps his hair under his hat when hitching a ride in a truck. On entering, he lets his hair out, and the driver gives him a look of surprise and possibly also of regret that he had picked him up.
* In ''Film/ComingToAmerica'', Akeem already has short hair, but also sports a braid at the back of his head that he has been growing for years. On coming to America, it crosses his mind that he could get rid of it. He eventually goes to the barbershop, where he only tells the barber to just make his hair look nice and neat; the barber cuts the braid off and asks for $8 for the job. Likewise, Akeem's long-lost son Lavelle in ''Film/Coming2America'' only begins maturing after he first gets a hairstyle proper for his Zamundan heritage, and then getting the resulting braid cut off when he decides to do things in his own way rather than Akeem's way.

-->''It was a macho barber shop. Hair dryers were mounted on a rifle rack. [[VanityIsFeminine There were no mirrors.]] The barber chair was a Peterbilt...Barber walked in; he was huge, seven feet tall, three hundred pounds of spring steel and rawhide wearin' a hard hat, [[CigarChomper chewin' a cigar]], had a t-shirt on said, "I hate musicians". Threw me in the chair, sneered and said, "What'll it be pal?" Now a lot of people would be intimidated in a situation like this...I was not. I am what I am, play my piano, and sing my little songs. I looked him right in the eye and I said, "I'm a logger - just up from Coos Bay, Oregon. Been toppin' trees - quite possibly the tough...(cough) toughest man in the entire world". He said, "All right!" he gave me a haircut and I walked out of there friends, my hair was gone! Made Series/{{Kojak}} look like William Lee Golden. Yeah, had a tremendous craving to operate heavy equipment.''

* ''Webcomic/EnnuiGo'': Invoked when Max [[http://ennuigo.thecomicseries.com/comics/1442 goes to the music club]], dropping into a Literature/HeartOfDarkness-esque monologue.

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': In "Son of Stan", Stan and Francine challenge each other to see who's the better parent by cloning Steve. Stan believes Steve should be raised with discipline while Francine believes Steve only needs love and support. To tell the two apart, the clone is named "Steve-arino" and his head is shaved into a flat top hairstyle. At the end of the challenge, Steve-arino is shown to be clean, athletic and intelligent, while Steve is [[BasementDweller shown to be an overweight, greasy slob with messy, overgrown hair]]. Comparing the two, Stan calls himself the victor until it's revealed that Stan's role as disciplinarian drove Steve-arino away and made him a psychopath out of envy towards Steve's freedom to do what he pleases.

* As stated above, in the Anglosphere and much of the rest of the world, long hair was pretty much socially unacceptable on men from somewhere during the first half of the 20th century through much of TheSixties, only becoming sufficiently mainstream in TheSeventies. During the heyday of short hair in the 1950s, no "normal" man would have worn his hair over his ears or touching his collar. The trope was finally challenged in the [[TheSixties 1960s]], apparently first by a certain young English men who called themselves [[{{Beatnik}} beatniks]], but were really a subculture of nomadic [[HippieIndex proto-hippies]]. Then came [[Music/TheBeatles the Beatles]] with their mop-top hairstyles, which appears to have done a lot to popularize longer styles among those men who had ''not'' dropped out of mainstream society. By the end of the decade, long hair, while still controversial, was not a rare sight, becoming more common especially on teenagers and pop musicians. By the [[TheSeventies mid-1970s]], longer styles for men were very much in fashion and very short hair was outmoded. Since that time, long hair on men has been in and out of fashion at different times.

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* In the 1964 comedy ''Good Neighbor Sam'', there is a scene where the titular character is talking contemptuously of Howard, his neighbor's estranged husband. Howard's hair is well-groomed and full, but still within the bounds of what would be considered short. Sam, however, voices a suspicion that he wears a toupee; when told that it's his own hair, he retorts: "Well, then he must go to a hair stylist or something. He wouldn't go to a regular barber. Anybody with a head of hair like that's gotta go to a hair stylist. He's just vain, huh?"

* In the ''WesternAimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Who's Brian Now?'', Peter's barber dies and Peter responds by immaturely refusing to cut his hair. It gradually becomes shoulder-length, greasy, and unkempt as it emphasises his immaturity and he eventually becomes a redneck who makes moonshine. When Peter's hair is eventually cut after being caught in a garage door, Lois is relieved.

* Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians about hair length: in [[Literature/BookOfCorinthians 1 Corinthians]] 11:14 "Doth not even nature itself teach you that, if a man hath long hair, it is a shame unto him?" This is followed by 1 Corinthians 11:15 "But if a woman hath long hair, it is a glory to her?" (However, some believe that by using the Greek word "KOME" for the ("long") hair rather than the more generic word for hair "THRIS", he is not primarily referring to the length of the hair but to the idea of long, ''styled'' hair (the verb "KOMAO" means "I style the hair". If he really is referring to the long/short male/female hair dichotomy, Saint Paul is in fact contradicting his own holy books, for in the Old Testament story of Sampson, the titular hero derived superhuman strength from his hair. Then again, this is advice from the NEW Testament, not the Old.)

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': In "Son of Stan", Stan and Francine challenge each other to see who's the better parent by cloning Steve. Stan believes Steve should be raised with discipline while Francine believes Steve only needs love and support. To tell the two apart, the clone is named "Steve-arino" and his head is shaved into a crew cut. At the end of the challenge, Steve-arino is clean, athletic and intelligent, while Steve is an overweight, greasy slob with messy, overgrown hair. The result allows Stan to briefly win the competition because he and Francine see Steve as a failure for his lack of personal grooming and lack of motivation.

* In ''Film/ComingToAmerica'', Akeem already has short hair, but also sports a braid at the back of his head that he has been growing for years. On coming to America, it crosses his mind that he could get rid of it. He eventually goes to the barbershop, where he only tells the barber to just make his hair look nice and neat; the barber cuts the braid off and asks for $8 for the job. Likewise, Akeem's long-lost son Laurent in ''Film/Coming2America'' only begins maturing after he first gets a hairstyle proper for his heritage, and then getting the resulting braid cut off when he decides to do things in his own way rather than Akeem's way.

* In ''Film/ComingToAmerica'', Akeem already has short hair, but also sports a braid at the back of his head that he has been growing for years. On coming to America, it crosses his mind that he could get rid of it. He eventually goes to the barbershop, where he only tells the barber to just make his hair look nice and neat; the barber cuts the braid off and asks for $8 for the job.