Something or someone has her attention!
Alice and Bob are talking about a tough-to-solve problem. She just can't think of a solution when Bob says he has a plan.
Intrigued, Alice then lowers the glasses she's been wearing down half an inch and looks at Bob. She says something like "Oh really?", then Bob elaborates.
Lowering your glasses while looking at someone during a conversation can signify that the other character has said something that caught your attention.
Keep in mind this isn't the same thing as, The Glasses Come Off or Glasses Pull because in this trope the glasses still stay on the face, they're just lowered a bit under the eyes.
Can also be done for a character to look sly or look confused at an interesting sight. Sometimes this can be seen as a Disapproving Look.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Cowboy Bebop: In "Honky Tonk Woman", Faye lowers her glasses while complimenting those of a smoke shop owner.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Maes Hughes has a tendency to look over his glasses at Roy Mustang when he's saying something to suggest that he knows more than he's letting on. Hughes is Mustang's best friend and The Confidant, so he's very much in the loop about what Mustang is really planning most of the time.
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Happens a few times in one scene in episode 23 without hands. Duo complains about a news broadcast he's listening to that praises how OZ has been helping the colonies build up their defenses, and states that OZ was responsible for putting the fear of war in the colonies in the first place. When Hilde (who doesn't know him yet) appears in front of him and tells him that's not true, he lets his shades fall and looks up over them at her. The next face shot has then back up as their discussion continues considering he's trying to keep a low profile, then they fall down in surprise when she hands him a paper and suggests he apply to the next OZ military exam. Once she's gone, he pushes them back up in amusement, saying he'll be there.
Comic Books
- In Tomb Raider Issue 1, Lara Croft
lowers her glasses when talking to her butler, Compton, regarding a meeting on her yacht with some potentially dangerous visitors.
Films — Animation
- The Incredibles: When Bob pulls up to Edna's home, she loudly pushes away the security guard answering the door and asks who it is. Bob looks into the security camera and lowers his shades, revealing to her it's Mr. Incredible back at his work.
- The LEGO movies do this quite often:
- The LEGO Batman Movie: In Barbara Gordon's introduction video, she slides across the hood of a car while chasing a criminal and the driver lowers his shades to admire her in action.
- The LEGO Movie: When Lord Business's Cube Ship flies over Bricksburg, one of the citizens in the coffee shop lowers his shades and points his phone towards the action.
- The LEGO Ninjago Movie: When Lloyd walks up to the entrance of the high school, one of the students in the background lowers his shades watching him in silent judgement.
- The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: After it's revealed that the Systarians are Good All Along, Lucy asks Unikitty if she, Benny, and MetalBeard are brainwashed. Unikitty says they're not and lowers her shades when she tells her about how much fun they're having.
- In Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars, the President of the United States briefly lowers his glasses when sternly thanking Tom and Jerry for ending the alien invasion.
- In The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, SpongeBob lowers his glasses when looking at Patrick, dressed rather suggestively in the end heroic music sequence.
- In Turning Red, Miriam does this as part of a dance move to look cool.
Films — Live-Action
- The opening scene of Barbie (2023) has Barbie slowly lowering her shades to eye the wasteland of girls playing with baby dolls (in a reference to the Monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey). With her shades lowered, she winks to the girls, who immediately flock to her.
- In Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly lowers her shades when talking at a restaurant to someone.
- In The Sandlot, Squints hatched a plan to kiss Wendy, one of the town pool's lifeguards. It works, but gets the entire group banned from the pool forever. Afterwards, narrator Scotty recalls that every time they passed the pool after that, Wendy would lower her sunglasses to look at Squints suspiciously... and smile. Considering she goes on to marry Squints in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, his gambit to get her attention certainly worked!
- Iron Man 2: Tony, pigging out on donuts in full Iron Man armor sans helmet, gives Nick Fury the Flat "What" version of this look when told to get off the store sign he's reclining on.
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Effie Trinket gets a bigger role than the book and is present in District 13 as Plutarch's assistant and Katniss' stylist. In Part 1 after being introduced to President Coin and while Coin and Plutarch are discussing the speech Coin just gave, Effie lowers her glasses and eyes Coin up and down and once Coin leaves remarks how much Coin could use a stylist.
- Marlowe: Marlowe drops his shades below his eyes in dry disbelief upon stepping out of his car and seeing the dirty Infinite Pad.
- In Matilda, Miss Honey slowly lowers her glasses with intrigue in response to Matilda's advanced math skills.
- They Live!: When Nada sees through his magic sunglasses that some people in the grocery store are aliens in disguise, he lowers them both in disbelief and to confirm the sight without the lens. He also pulls the expression on the poster.
- Captain America: The First Avenger: When Steve finally emerges from the pod that gave him the super-soldier treatment serum, Howard Stark lowers his protective shades with a look of interest to see what the experiment did to him.
Live-Action TV
- Saturday Night Live: The 1991 skit "Schmitt's Gay Beer" has a variation; Chris Farley flips up the lenses on his sunglasses with a dazed expression to gawk at a pool-going man.
Music
- In LMFAO hit song "I'm Sexy and I Know It." a guy lowers his shades while awkwardly looking at the euphonious band making their entrance on the beach.
- In the Educational Song "I Have a Headache", meant to teach a few English phrases, the bespectacled guy looks at the second guy from behind his glasses to try to determine why he seems so out of sorts.
- In The Oak Ridge Boys' song "It's Hard to be Cool in a Minivan," an attractive woman in a shiny convertible pulls up to a middle-aged guy in a minivan to lower her shades in a smug manner and give him a self-satisfied wink, making him feel self-conscious about his dirty vehicle.
Music Videos
- In Huey Lewis and the News' music video for "I Want a New Drug," Lewis gets in his car just as a woman rides by on her bike, and he lowers his sunglasses to gawk at her.
Video Games
- In Tomb Raider Chronicles Lara Croft is shown slyly tilting her sunglasses downward in an official render here.
- On the cover of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Sonny Forelli is lowering his glasses. Seen here.
- In inFAMOUS when "The Voice of Survival" reveals that Cole McGrath held the Ray Sphere which exploded in Empire city and accuses him of doing it on purpose people starting turning on him. Zeke gives Cole a look of suspicion while lowering his glasses but is still on his side.
- In Bayonetta the titular character lowers her glasses in a cutscene shown here [1].
Western Animation
- Family Guy: In the episode "PTV," Osama Bin Laden Lampshades this trope while lowering his own pair of glasses at a meeting with his men.
- Futurama: In "The Cyber House Rules," Leela gets a second eye grafted onto her face, and a montage ensues of her enjoying her newfound "normalcy." During one scene, she struts around in a new pair of sunglasses and flirts with some passing men by pulling the shades down and winking.
- Gravity Falls: In "The Legend of the Gobblewonker", Mabel's Imagine Spot of what she'll do with the photo contest prize money involves her buying a human-sized hamster ball and running past a pair of hot guys, who do this trope to her. Her response: "Hey boys. You can look, but you can't touch."
- Steven Universe: In "We Need to Talk," Garnet gives Greg some helpful advice, then lowers her visor to wink at him. He's simply shocked to see she actually has three eyes.
- Superman: The Animated Series: "The Main Man" sees a gag where — in response to Lois wondering how he's able to get such good news coverage of Superman — Clark confesses to Lois right to her face that he's Superman in disguise, prefaced by him slyly lowering his glasses — those glasses, mind you. Lois doesn't catch it and just assumes that Clark's being a troll.
- In T.U.F.F. Puppy on the episode "Purr-fect Partners" Kitty Katswell lowers her glasses hands-free while driving the Tuff Mobile while pondering over having Dudley Puppy as a new partner.
