Line #101 Main/BaldnessMeansSickness


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10	->''"Cancer? Oh my God! I am gonna go bald and have to eat macrobiotic food!"''
11	-->-- '''Rhonda''', ''Film/MurielsWedding''
12
13	How do you instantly show that a character is suffering from illness of the potentially deadly kind? Make them bald. The reason this visual shorthand works is because the image of the cancer patient who has lost hair to chemotherapy is very well-known. The disease in question usually ''is'' cancer, but other illnesses or ailments count too.
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15	Because WomenAreDelicate (and are [[LongHairIsFeminine expected to have hair]]) and ChildrenAreInnocent, the DelicateAndSickly or LittlestCancerPatient dressed in hospital clothes and hooked up to machines will very often also be bald to hammer in that their illness isn't likely to go away soon. It can also be used as for an ExpositoryHairstyleChange or a SecretlyDying reveal: where a character introduced with a full head of hair [[FakeHairDrama reveals their hair to be a wig]] or is suddenly seen bald and in a hospital, viewers instantly understand they're being treated for cancer or something just as bad. Conversely, HairTodayGoneTomorrow may be used for presently bald patients who have hair in a flashback.
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17	Variations include the sick person wanting to get ahead of their hair loss by shaving their hair off themselves and someone shaving their head in solidarity with a loved one who is suffering from cancer. This can also be {{exploited\|trope}} by those willing to take advantage of the assumptions people have about sickly-looking bald people. A very common (and seldom lampshaded) phenomenon is for characters with cancer to be bald only on their scalp, although chemotherapy treatment causes ''all'' of the patient's body hair to fall out (in fact, it's the [radioactive] chemo treatment that actually causes the hair loss, not the cancer itself), including the eyebrows, which these characters are often shown to still possess.
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19	Compare OminousHairLoss, where hair loss means something is wrong (this trope could be seen as the follow-up to that), PrematurelyBald, for when a character (usually male) starts losing hair early, BaldnessAngst, for when a character mopes about being bald for whatever reason (sickness included), and DiseaseBleach, when stress/illness manifests in a hair color change rather than hair loss. Contrast BaldHeadOfToughness and BaldMystic, for when a bald head indicates a tough or mystical character rather than one that is frail due to illness. See also TheTopicOfCancer, which treats cancer as one of the worst and most terrifying diseases; the unnaturalness of hair loss may contribute to that fear.
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21	Not to be confused with the dermal disorder alopecia (an autoimmune disorder that causes spontaneous hair loss), which can be resolved and is not life-threatening by itself (though it is a potential side effect of chemotherapy).
22	----
23	!!Examples:
24	[[foldercontrol]]
25
26	[[folder:Advertising]]
27	* The Brazilian cancer charity GRAACC created the ad campaign [[https://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2015/integrated-innovative-media/24262/bald-cartoons/ Bald Cartoons]], showing bald versions of cartoon characters to help children suffering from cancer cope with their hair loss.
28	* One of those "Pass It On" public-service ads shows a trio of young men escorting a sick teenage girl to the senior prom, and one of them --apparently her date-- has shaved his head clean in solidarity with her. Despite the girl presumably being bald from chemo treatment, she clearly has a shaved head and full set of eyebrows, just like he does.
29	[[/folder]]
30
31	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
32	* In ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi Na-i-sho'' a young girl named Nozomi Waku longs to become a witch but suffers from cancer and wears a shamrock green bandanna with teal print over her head due to losing her hair to chemotherapy. [[spoiler: Sadly, she doesn't make it, passing away after becoming an Apprentice Witch for one evening]].
33	[[/folder]]
34
35	[[folder:Comic Books]]
36	* ''ComicBook/AndersonPsiDivision'': Cas is bald after she goes into a virus-induced coma, though she regrows her hair after she's woken up again and returns to duty.
37	* ''ComicBook/{{Deathstroke}}'': A dark variation in ''ComicBook/DeathstrokeRebirth''. Joseph suckerpunched Rose in issue #18, and issue #20 reveals he hit her hard enough that her head had to be stitched closed. Since her hair needed to be shaved for that, Rose now wears a wig to cover her stitches. Later issues reveal that her hair is growing back.
38	* ''ComicBook/TheHillsHaveEyesTheBeginning'': Karen is shown bald shortly before her death, due to the effects of radiation poisoning.
39	* ''ComicBook/KillingAndDying'': It becomes apparent that Jesse's mother is ill when she shows up to the recital with a cloth cap over her bald head. It immediately recontextualizes her support of Jesse. By the next part of the story, she's dead.
40	* ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'': In ''ComicBook/Thor2014'', Mjolnir's mysterious new wielder is a buff, masked woman with flowing blonde hair. Her identity is later revealed to be Jane Foster, who's dying of cancer -- and to emphasize this, Jane is much gaunter and completely bald when she detransforms.
41	* ''Film/PacificRim'': In the film, we learn that Stacker's partner blacked out from radiation poisoning during the battle with Onibaba and later died of cancer. The tie-in comics expand on this, first introducing said partner Tamsin with shockingly red hair. When Mako visits her in the hospital later, however, she's very thin and bald save for a few strands of hair.
42	* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
43	** ''ComicBook/SupermanAndBatmanGenerations'' has an elderly Lois Lane losing her hair to chemo treatments due to her suffering from cancer.
44	** In ''ComicBook/TheStrangeRevengeOfLenaLuthor'', ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'s friend Lena loses her hair after undergoing brain surgery.
45	[[/folder]]
46
47	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
48	* In ''ComicStrip/{{Zits}}'', Jeremy and Hector assume this has happened to the mother of their friend and bandmate Tim, who reveals that she's been receiving chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. In response, Jeremy and Hector decide to shave their heads in solidarity. However, it's ultimately subverted, as it turns out Tim's mom didn't lose her hair after all. Regardless, she is genuinely touched by Jeremy and Hector's gesture [[ActuallyPrettyFunny and gets a good laugh out of it]].
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Fan Works]]
52	* Lampshaded in ''Fanfic/BuckyBarnesGetsHisGrooveBackAndOtherInternationalIncidents''. When Natasha gets a buzzcut, Fury compares her to a fifteen-year-old cancer patient.
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder:Films -- Live Action]]
56	* ''Film/{{Arrival}}'': The protagonist's teenage daughter is briefly shown with a bald head as she dies of cancer.
57	* ''Film/{{Babyteeth}}'': Protagonist Meredith is dying of cancer and has the bald head to prove it.
58	* In ''Film/TheBestMan Holiday'', Mia looks very good for a terminal cancer patient until she takes off her wig to reveal that she's bald.
59	* ''Film/BlueBayou'': It was previously hinted that Parker was ill because Antonio meets her at a hospital, but it becomes starkly clear after she takes off her wig to reveal patchy baldness. She is later confirmed to be dying of cancer.
60	* ''Film/FlorenceFosterJenkins'': Florence wears a wig, false eyelashes, and cosmetics to hide that she's lost her hair to syphilis and to her [[HarmfulHealing mercury- and arsenic-based medications]]. By the end of the film, [[spoiler:she's on her deathbed.]]
61	* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'': Quill's mother is introduced (and promptly killed off) on her deathbed. She's bald-headed and lacks eyebrows, and the sequel outright confirms she was dying of a tumor [[spoiler:that Ego the Living Planet planted in her head to kill her]].
62	* ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'': Immortan Joe's War Boys all have shaved heads and most, if not all, of them are terminally ill due to radiation exposure, malnutrition and birth defects from living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
63	* ''Film/MySistersKeeper'': Chronically ill leukemia patient Kate is most often in a hospital gown and a cap to hide her baldness. Later in the film, her mother Sara shaves her head in solidarity.
64	* ''Film/RepoTheGeneticOpera'': Early on we see Shilo is completely bald, showing her as suffering from a mysterious blood disease that killed her mother; she spends most of the movie wearing a long wig. Subverted when [[spoiler:her mother is revealed to have been murdered and her father has been faking her illness to protect her from the CrapsackWorld outside]].
65	[[/folder]]
66
67	[[folder:Jokes]]
68	* A misconception resulting from [[WrongGenreSavvy wrong genre-savviness]] about this trope forms the premise of this joke:
69	-> An elderly lady was riding a tram when she noticed a skinhead had just embarked. "Sit down, son," she says as rises from her seat. "I see you're on chemotherapy and you've got orthopedic shoes."
70	[[/folder]]
71
72	[[folder:Literature]]
73	* ''Literature/{{Elantris}}'': One of the first signs of turning into an [[RevenantZombie Elantrian]] is the loss of all the victim's hair. Elantrians are all damned to slowly decay and fall into madness due to their [[ImmortalityHurts immortality]] and [[WoundThatWillNotHeal inability to heal]].
74	* ''Literature/MagicShop'': In ''The Skull of Truth'', Gilbert Dawkins returns from being in the hospital, and is completely bald as a result of his treatment. He later confesses to Charlie that he had cancer, and the treatment to make sure it won't come back made all his hair fall out. At the end of the book, one of the signs that he's recovering and has a hopeful future is that his hair is growing back.
75	* ''Literature/TheMidnightGang'': Sally is struck with [[SoapOperaDisease a serious illness]] that's implied to be cancer and [[UncertainDoom it's unclear whether she'll live]]. She's bald, which is said to be from the treatment.
76	[[/folder]]
77
78	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
79	* ''Series/TheAct'': Just like in RealLife (see below), Dee Dee Blanchard tries to invoke this by shaving Gypsy Rose's head. This is just one of the things she does (like making Gypsy use a wheelchair in public and force her to submit to medical procedures she does not need) to keep up the pretense that Gypsy has multiple disabilities.
80	* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': Laura Roslin eventually loses her hair due to cancer treatments. She usually wears a wig while in public and a scarf while in private or while exercising.
81	* ''Series/TheBoys2019'': A mental/psychological version happens with Ashley in season 3, who starts suffering from trichotillomania due to the stress of dealing with Homelander, the show's resident CorruptedCharacterCopy of {{Superman\|Substitute}}. [[spoiler:By the season finale, she's wearing a wig to cover up the fact that she's nearly bald from literally tearing her hair out.]]
82	* ''Series/BreakingBad'': Invoked and zig-zagged with BaldHeadOfToughness. When Walt begins losing his hair from chemotherapy, he shaves his head and invokes the typical image of a bald cancer patient. However, in the criminal circles he enters, his baldness comes off as more intimidating and his shaving his head coincides with him [[TakeALevelInBadass Taking A Level In Badass]] by adopting the drug kingpin persona, Heisenberg. Even once he goes into remission, he keeps his head shaved more out of habit and as a sign his Heisenberg persona is [[BecomingTheMask becoming his main personality]]. [[spoiler: Ironically, after his remission ends later in the show, he has fully regrown his hair and keeps it that way until he finally dies (and not from the cancer)]].
83	* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'': Exploited when people assume one of Lynette's sons has cancer after her twins put bubblegum in his hair, forcing her to shave it all off. Lynette uses her son to play on their sympathies.
84	* ''Series/{{Grimm}}'': Marie's bald head marks her as someone dying of cancer.
85	* The gang on ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' tries to pass off Mac as a cancer patient by slapping a fake bald cap on his head. In a major win for realism, the person they were hoping to fool rightly points out that chemotherapy would leave Mac without any body hair at all, and he still clearly has eyebrows and a ''beard''.
86	** In a later episode, Charlie's mom gets cancer and, to raise money for her treatment from a strange medicine man, the gang makes her put on a bald cap and read out an over-the-top sob story so she can get more donations. [[spoiler:The sheer level of exaggeration she has to put up with makes her confess to faking her cancer.]]
87	* ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'': Rosa's baldness stands out in a [[GirlsBehindBars cast primarily comprised of female inmates]] and marks her as the one who has ovarian cancer.
88	* Infinity Jackson, a teenage girl with cancer from ''Series/ThePolitician'' is bald. It turns out that she has MunchausensByProxy -- years after this comes to light and she is freed from her oppressive guardian, she has a normal haircut.
89	* ''Series/ReplacingChefChico'': Tessa, the first guest shown, takes off her hat to reveal a completely bald head, hinting that she's ill. It is later revealed that she has metastatic cancer and she has three or so months to live.
90	* Invoked by Sasha Velour, who won ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'' season 10, and has said that the reason she does drag bald is to honor her late mother, who lost her hair to and eventually died of cancer.
91	* ''Series/{{Scandal}}'': Supreme Court Judge Verna Thorton is revealed to be suffering from cancer when Olivia walks into her hospital room and she is lying in bed, hooked up to an [=IV=], and bald, having removed her wig. [[spoiler:This is an issue as she was aware of her [[SecretlyDying bad prognosis]] when she was nominated and intentionally hid that from the President and the Senate.]]
92	* ''Series/TheUmbrellaAcademy2019'': Sissy has distinctive blonde curls, so when we see her in 1989 at a hospital with a bald head, it's easy to guess that she isn't long for this world.
93	[[/folder]]
94
95	[[folder:Video Games]]
96
97	* The main character of ''VideoGame/InBetween'' is a terminal cancer patient, and states that he has gone through chemotherapy, which has led to the loss of his hair.
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99	[[/folder]]
100
101
102	[[folder: Web Comic]]
103
104	* ''WebComic/MarryMyHusband'' has Jinwon dying of cancer in the first timeline and she was wearing a small cap to cover her bald head.
105	[[/folder]]
106
107	[[folder: Web Original]]
108	* ''Blog/HamstersParadise'': The Severe Infectious Harmster Transmissible Tumor ([[FunWithAcronyms SIHTT]]) is a form of contagious cancer that afflicts the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Harmsters]]. One of it's symptoms is that it causes the victim to lose all their fur. This combined with the rot inducing bacteria now inhabiting their bodies, this makes them [[TechnicallyLivingZombie resemble walking corpses]].
109	[[/folder]]
110
111	[[folder:Western Animation]]
112	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'': In "The Great [=MacGrady=]", Mrs. [=MacGrady=] loses her hair because of the chemotherapy she's been receiving ([[FurryBaldness though she still has her brown "fur"]]), so she wears a pink bandanna with white spots to cover it up. Her hair grows back in later episodes.
113	* ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'': Herb Kazazz is a bald man with cancer. Flashbacks reveal him to have had a full beard and a full head of hair.
114	* ''WesternAnimation/DocMcStuffins'': Audrey (who is heavily implied to have cancer) is said to be going through chemotherapy, and at one point, she takes her hat off to reveal that she's bald.
115	* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
116	** Jess from "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS17E1MarriedWithCancer Married With Cancer]]" lost her hair to chemotherapy, but after her cancer went into remission, it slowly began to grow back. As Brian is creeped out by her appearance, describing her as looking like a baby doll found in hurricane rubble, Jess takes it [[InsultBackfire as meaning he's calling her his "baby doll".]]
117	** In "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS9E7RoadToTheNorthPole Road to the North Pole]]", Brian goes to the mall with Stewie and sees [[SitcomArchNemesis Quagmire]] with what looks like his nephew. Then Brian talks to them and finds out that it's his ''niece'', and she's bald because of chemotherapy. This causes her to cry, which angers Quagmire.
118	* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': A variant happens in "Society of the Blind Eye". [[spoiler: Old Man [=McGucket=]]] discovers he was once a brilliant scientist who began frequently using a Memory Gun on himself to erase disturbing memories. The side effects of the gun, along with taking his sanity, caused him to go bald. It's difficult to say, however, whether this was because of the gun or because he pulled his hair out and forgot.
119	* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
120	** Parodied in "[[Recap/SouthParkS9E14BloodyMary Bloody Mary]]" where Randy shaves his head after being told that his alcoholism is a disease. It grows back after he's sprayed with the blood erupting from the statue of the Virgin Mary which supposedly gives him the ability to give up drinking.
121	** Nelson Brown from "[[Recap/SouthParkS10E14StanleysCup Stanley's Cup]]" has CharlieBrownBaldness as a sign of his cancer.
122	* ''WesternAnimation/WhyCharlieBrownWhy'': Janice Emmons, the LittlestCancerPatient, ends up going bald due to chemotherapy and a boy laughs at her for her hair loss until Linus [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech sets him straight]]. At the end of the special, her hair grows back after her leukemia is in remission.
123	[[/folder]]
124
125	[[folder:Real Life]]
126	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Dee_Dee_Blanchard Dee Dee Blanchard]] who, among other things, shaved her daughter Gypsy Rose's hair to maintain an appearance of illness in a well-documented case of MunchausensByProxy.
127	* Almost every woman who goes bald, whether by choice or due to a condition like Alopecia that causes hair loss, has to deal with awkward conversations and assumptions of illness when they are really perfectly healthy, often enough that many [[BerserkButton get annoyed when they are asked]] about it.
128	[[/folder]]

Context Main / BaldnessMeansSickness