Fascinating Eyebrow

Hmm... Interesting...

"Let's say that I want to portray that I've just done something evil. Well that would be your standard, 'I've got a fish-hook in my eyebrow and I like it'."

— Joey Tribbiani, Friends

To portray amused superiority or superior amusement, the arched eyebrow is the best way. It is a prime weapon in the expression arsenal for The Chessmaster, Manipulative Bastard, or (in possibly the most famous modern example) The Spock. It's often raised just as the heroes comprehend what the Evil Plan was all about. For instance, when they find out that by foiling one objective they helped their enemy achieve a second, the planner will arch an eyebrow as if to say, "Suckers!"

Another common and less malicious use of this trope is to depict a character's discomfort or burgeoning confusion; characters tend to raise an eyebrow at something that bemuses or otherwise unsettles them, as if they're halfway towards opening both eyes wide in shock.

This may accompany an Eye Take: the raised brows make room for the widened eyes. And as Expressive Mask shows, even glasses and masks don't get in the way of the eyebrow.

Like rolling one's tongue or performing Spock's other trademark, this is not a talent everyone has. With enough dedication and some practice in a mirror, however, would-be Chess Masters can usually develop the skill.

Combine this with Twinkle Smile and Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes, and you get the Dreamworks Face.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In "Scouts Dishonor," Mandy cocks an eyebrow at Billy in his Extreme Scouts uniform while Grim is laughing his head off. (The script originally had Mandy laughing as well, but since she doesn't smile much less laugh, it was changed to an eyebrow cock.)
• Robin: When Tim is trying to track down a group of Arkham escapees on his own and going through a tough time personally, Commissioner Gordon notices something's off with Robin and asks him if everything's alright. He raises a disbelieving eyebrow to Robin's curt "everything's fine" response.
• Superboy: Kal-El/Conner Kent is prone to raising an eyebrow while mocking his supervillians, and tipping down his glasses to raise an eyebrow at his friends when he thinks that they're saying something ridiculous or wants to show that he's paying attention. Heck, he can be seen with this expression in at least two places on this very wiki.
• Usagi Yojimbo: Subverted with Usagi's seemingly-permanent arched left eyebrow. It's actually a scar from a duel, but it really helps with his Death Glare.

Fanfiction

• In the Game of Thrones fanfic A Ballad of the Dragon and She-Wolf, Daenerys is described as having a highly expressive face with many dramatic eyebrow gestures, which the author says was modeled after her actress Emilia Clarke.
• Child of the Storm has this regularly, adopting from The Dresden Files the habit of referring to it as "spocking" an eyebrow.
• In the Parody Fic Farce Contact, upon discovering that Captain Archer can suddenly speak Vulcan, T'Pol raises her eyebrow so much it tears under the strain.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: If you tried to count the number of times the author used "quirked a brow" in the story while playing a Drinking Game, you would black out.
• The Killer Dame, a Star Trek: Voyager parody by Odon. Tuvok and Seven of Nine, both skilled practitioners of the Fascinating Eyebrow, use this as a means of communication when they're tied up by Hirogen captors.
  The young Borg realised that Tuvok was inquiring if she was all right. Seven quirked her ocular implant in reply, conveying that such a question was irrelevant and she was currently trying to free her bonds. Tuvok raised his other eyebrow, conveying his disapproval at the emotion of arrogance that might distract one from the task at hand. Seven answered with a scowl, conveying that she was experiencing some difficulty with the knots but she was Borg and would adapt, and that she would be as arrogant as she wished thank you! Tuvok took a deep breath, dropped his eyebrows to normal level, then raised first the right brow, then the left brow, then both brows together, then the left, then the right brow, two raises of the left again, then a wiggle of his pointed ears, then a slight twitch of his right brow again, and last of all a final poetic dance of supercilious motion by the two hairy arches.
• A few times in Kyon: Big Damn Hero, like Haruhi when Mikuru says that her going to see a movie with Kyon wasn't a date before countering that she saw both of them kissing.
• A running joke in Mad World is Zack trying, and failing, to copy Sephiroth's automatic eyebrow raise. Turns out to be a family trait — Vincent and Yazoo can do it too.
• Much Ado About Shakespeare: Love's Labours Won: Archie often acts with his eyebrows, according to the script and the narrator (the fic is in part written like a theatre script and in part in a regular narrative form). Archie and Horatio bet that Archie must only speak in Shakespeare's quotations. In case Horatio doesn't quite catch his meaning, Archie uses significant looks. Archie raises an eyebrow at the hat shop when he wants to signal that one hat is a no-no, or he "waggles" his eyebrows when he's drunk at the inn. When they really talk in their shared room, he raises his eyebrow inquisitively, then skeptically, and finally he cocks his eyebrow at his friend, too.
• The Night Unfurls:
  • Since Hugh is mute, raising an eyebrow is his way of saying "huh?" or "hmm..."
  • Olga has a habit of raising an eyebrow when teasing Celestine for her feelings towards Kyril, causing the latter much embarrassment.
  • Kyril raises a brow when he catches Sanakan and Hugh making out.
  • Lily raises an eyebrow to show her amusement regarding Grace being worried about Kyril potentially getting hurt.
  • Kyril raises a brow upon hearing Celestine admit how old she is.
• Oversaturated World: Oversaturation: When using magic harms universal stability, Discord is surprised at someone who should know the risks doing so:
  Mr. Discord raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't that be rather counterproductive?"
• Paradise Thwarted: "Gabriel gave Michael the highest raised eyebrow the latter had ever seen, much less received. He vaguely wondered if it had its own gravitational pull."
• Comes up a lot in The Twilight Child.
  • Princess Celestia does it to her sister at one point, earning a rebuke.
  • A paper-pusher Rainbow Dash is hassling does it, with the narration mentioning that most Equestrian bureaucrats learn this sooner or later.
  • At one point Rainbow Dash herself does it, which shuts the main character up mid-rant. As she notes to herself, when Rainbow Dash is raising an eyebrow, it's time to stop what you're doing.

Film — Animation

• Rather common in many CGI-animated promotional pictures, to show that computer-made characters can also pull off humanlike expressions. Elsa is one good example. The trope is particularly common for Dreamworks Animation's promotional material, to the point where a raised eyebrow and smirk is typically dubbed "the Dreamworks Face" online.
• The Sorcerer Yensid does this at the end of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in Fantasia. The expression was based on Walt Disney himself.
• At the end of A Goofy Movie, Roxanne pulls this on Max when she becomes suspicious that he's lying to her again.
• In Megamind and the Button of Doom, Megamind does this to his gigantic robot double (the Mega-Megamind) in conjunction with I Shall Taunt You.
  Megamind: Do you feel the taunting power of my eyebrow?
  MMM: [firing an explosive] How dare you brow me!
• Maui from Moana sports one. No surprise given he's voiced by Dwayne Johnson.
• My Little Pony: The Movie (2017): Tempest Shadow does this when she finds a hair from Pinkie Pie's mane in Klugetown.
• In Superman Unbound, Brainiac wanders over to the bottle containing the miniaturized Metropolis as he pontificates to Superman about how unimpressive Earth is. He leans over and notices Lois Lane flipping both birds at him. Brainiac arches an eyebrow before turning away, but at least Lois made him shut up for a second.
• In Turning Red, a streetcar driver gives Mei this look when she claims her transit pass validates that she's an adult.

Film — Live-Action

• Ace Ventura: Pet Detective: Ace Ventura can do it with both eyebrows in rhythm to tribal music.
• John Belushi was a master of this, such as just before the Food Fight in Animal House.
• The Blues Brothers: Jake Blues' right eyebrow seems fixed in this position.
• George C. Scott during the seance scene in The Changeling tries to repress his skepticism but cannot relax his Fascinating Eyebrow.
• Hugo Weaving, especially in The Lord of the Rings. There is a reason Elrond is famous for his eyebrows.
• The Matrix Reloaded: The Merovingian, when Neo blocks a sword with his bare hand during the chateau fight.
• Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who played villains in most of Fritz Lang's films (including Metropolis), is the master.
• Phantasm: The Tall Man does this a lot. It's such an iconic look for him that he's shown doing that on several posters.
• Pirates of the Caribbean:
  • In The Curse of the Black Pearl, Elizabeth does this slightly in the early scene when she tells Will to call her Elizabeth instead of "Miss Swann". Lampshaded by Keira Knightley during her audio commentary: "Why does my eyebrow do that?"
  • Davy Jones does this in At World's End when facing off against Jack, Barbossa, and Elizabeth on the sandbar.
• When Brad asks to use the phone in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Frank does an Aside Glance with a raised eyebrow and says "Well you got caught with a flat Well, how 'bout that". Implying he already knew about or even caused the flat tyre.
• Expect Billy Zane to do this a lot if he's playing a villain, most notably in Titanic (1997).

Literature

• The protagonist of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., Margaret, can raise one eyebrow and does it occasionally to get adults to stop asking her questions. She doesn't know why it has that effect, but it does.
• In Chrome Circle by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon, Tannim's mentor, a dragon currently wearing human form, arrived (magically) in response to a call for aid and "raised one long eyebrow at Tannim in a gesture that Tannim knew perfectly well had been copied after long study of Leonard Nimoy."
• Colin Fischer spent hours practicing his eyebrow quirk in front of the mirror so he could look like Spock.
• Vetinari of Discworld fame often uses the Fascinating Eyebrow along with a finishing blow in a verbal power struggle to make sure the opponent knows he's been defeated. This is highlighted in Making Money, wherein Cosmo Lavish, one of the antagonists, actually practices raising one eyebrow in front of a mirror in an attempt to emulate the Patrician. What's worse, Cosmo can't actually raise his eyebrow on his own. He has to rely on a small mechanical device to raise his eyebrow for him. There is a small asylum dedicated to people who think they are Vetinari. They have eyebrow-raising competitions.
• In The Dresden Files, Harry Dresden sometimes does this, referring to it as "Spocking an eyebrow".
• Family Skeleton Mysteries: Despite lacking eyebrows (or flesh), Sid the skeleton is somehow able to give off the impression that he's doing this, as seen in book 2.
• During Galaxy of Fear, a rather absurd suggestion is made, and Hoole raises an eyebrow. Tash thinks that "it was as close as her stone-faced uncle would ever get to looking surprised."
• Snape from Harry Potter, in both the books and films.
• Vampires in The Hollows either gain this ability upon infection, or they all practice it because it looks so cool. Either way, Rachel is jealous.
• This expression is very common whenever a historical figure does something odd in Horrible Histories, where another figure in the illustrations cocks an eyebrow up in the classic fascinating eyebrow style.
• In The Mortal Instruments, Clary is annoyed when Jace does this at her, because it is an ability she has always envied. She gets even more annoyed when Magnus Bane turns out to be able to do it too.
• "Two-Bit" Matthews is a frequent user of the Fascinating Eyebrow in the novel The Outsiders. Ponyboy, the main character, tries to imitate this trick without success.
• Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice has a fascinating eyebrow that has a tendency to rise when she comes across things that she finds particularly ridiculous or wryly amusing. It's one of the many pride things going on.
• The Queen's Thief loves this trope. Not only is the main character a master of this art, so is his love interest.
• A Rising Thunder: One Beowulfan politician is noted to have spent years teaching himself how to do this. His wife claims that he didn't have anything useful to learn while he was in the military and fell back on the eyebrow, but as a politician it's become a handy expression.
• In Royal Flash, Flashman has to impersonate a royal who has this Character Tic, and is driven to strange facial twitching while trying to rehearse it. Eventually the conspirators give up and just hope no-one notices his eyebrows go up in unison.
• Timothy Zahn likes reminding people that Grand Admiral Thrawn in The Thrawn Trilogy can cock his eyebrows. It's an Author Catchphrase.
• In the Trainspotting novel, Mark Renton envies Sick Boy's ability to raise one eyebrow, going so far as to wonder if that is the true secret behind being The Pornomancer.
• The bread and butter of all female characters in The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Along with sniffing and (if they're Siuan Sanche) snorting.

Live-Action TV

• The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan does this all the time, usually in the midst of a Dramatic Pause.
• Angel: In "That Vision Thing", Angel has to free someone from a prison dimension, which turns out to be guarded by a ferocious-looking yet amiable demon called Skip. Before they start giving each other the Nothing Personal speech followed by a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, the two share some amusing eyebrow movements as they wordlessly assess each other.
• In an episode of Babylon 5, Ivonova pulls one off when she inadvertently walks in (via holographic projection) on the Political Officer trying to seduce Sheridan.
  Ivanova: Congratulations. You're about to go where every man has gone before.
• Doctor Who:
  • David Tennant's Doctor tends to do this a lot, to the point where someone made a parody tribute about his left eyebrow. "Smith and Jones" has him use it as a wordless response when Martha asks him why he's trying to avoid being scanned by the Judoon, in this instance indicating to her that he's not human, although she doesn't immediately buy it.
  • The very first glimpse the world got of the Twelfth Doctor was an extreme closeup dominated by his eyebrows. Later, the Doctor referred to them as "attack eyebrows". In "World Enough and Time", Bill Potts says that the Twelfth Doctor does this when he's in Sarcasm Mode. Thanks to Time Dilation, she has to wait a whole week before the brow lowers again.
• Drop the Dead Donkey: News reporter Damien Day does this when he's forced to say, "It was then that the fickle finger of fate flicking through his London A to Z picked out this sleepy little post office in Dalston" for Gus Hedge's new Crimewatch program.
• The Flash (2014): It's sometimes not that noticeable due to being partially hidden by his glasses, but Dr Harrison Wells is prone to raising one eyebrow when amused, skeptical, or curious. He does it with both, but can raise one much higher than the other. Whenever he takes his glasses off (particularly after his true identity as the Reverse Flash is revealed and he stops wearing them altogether), his fondness for this particular expression becomes much more obvious.
• Discussed by Joey in Friends, as shown in the page quote, to demonstrate an Evil Plan having just been executed or is about to be, as when he does it for real immediately after that scene.
• Game of Thrones: At times, Daenerys's eyebrows express what she really feels.
• Glee:
  • Puck has a habit of this.
  • Finn does the same thing, albeit more out of confusion than anything.
  • As does Quinn.
• Angus Deayton's eyebrow soon gained a fan following in its own right on Have I Got News for You. Paul Merton mocked it a lot.
• Heroes: Sylar, especially since Zachary Quinto's eyebrows are so prominent. In the episode "Five Years Gone", when Sylar is using an illusion to disguise himself as Nathan Petrelli, who is president, Zach recorded Nathan's lines so that Adrian Pasdar would know how to say them, but the episode got to a point where Sylar!Nathan cocks his head to the side and stares at Mohinder, which didn't look right because this trope was missing, since Adrian Pasdar can't cock his eyebrow like that.
• iCarly: Freddie can do this. Using it more often on Carly probably would've helped him seduce her.
• Jeeves and Wooster: Jeeves does this quite frequently. Of course, he is played by Stephen Fry.
• Marcus from Lab Rats does this a lot, most likely hinting his sneaky nature.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Halbrand is prone to raise his eyebrow when he witnesses someone doing something foolish or impressive from his point of view.
• My Left Nut: When Mick's swollen testicle is being examined by the medical students, the attractive intern has this reaction followed by a teasing Meaningful Look upon noticing Mick's shrinkage, much to his horror.
• Earl from My Name Is Earl usually does this when going into thoughts, usually followed by him narrating what he did next in that episode. It is actually referred to by characters on the show some times.
• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: Moze can do this.
• In the second series of Red Dwarf, Rimmer does an amazing variant on this when he bites into the Triple-fried-egg-chilli-chutney-sandwich.
• When Lucius Vorenus of Rome does this, you know something is about to go down.
• SCTV has Joe Flaherty rocking the eyebrow with some particularly weaselly characters.
• Stargate SG-1: Teal'c and the eyebrow are virtually legendary, typically whenever he learns about a new bit of Tau'ri oddity, often accompanied by him saying "Indeed." "Wormhole X-Treme!" features a Show Within a Show version of Teal'c, whose actor (or rather, the fake actor playing the fake Teal'c on Wormhole X-Treme and being played by a real actor on SG-1) apparently can't pull off the Eyebrow. There's a shot of him being assisted by a piece of string taped to his face.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series:
    • Spock (the Trope Namer) popularized the Fascinating Eyebrow amongst fans, though it rarely denoted amusement. Such an emotional response would be... illogical. According to Kirk, it "usually connoted some combination of surprise, disbelief, and/or annoyance".
      Spock Fascinating. [cue eyebrow... though sometimes he arches them before saying it]

      This is helped somewhat by makeup. Probably to help give him an "alien" look, Spock's eyebrows are arched more than is typical (where the eyebrows follow the supraorbital ridge). Depending on the episode/movie, they can be anywhere from "rather highly arched" to "the peak practically disappears into his hairline even when he's not raising them." Since the forehead is more mobile than the brow ridge itself, this amplifies the effect.

      Uhura's Song, an Expanded Universe novel, has other crewmembers commenting on this tendency. "Eyebrow on stun, Mr. Spock!" Another novel, Vulcan's Forge, has a now-Captain Spock noting his awareness that some of his crew use this phrase amongst themselves. And another Expanded Universe novel involves Sulu, Chekov, and a random engineer doing an impression of a typical Kirk/Spock/McCoy interaction, complete with Chekov attempting and failing to raise one eyebrow. The Expanded Universe novel Crossover has Spock give McCoy the eyebrow, with McCoy Lampshading the event:

      McCoy: Don't you give me that eyebrow!

    • McCoy does it on occasion as well, more often in the reboot films since Karl Urban is fully able to pull it off.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • Data, despite being an emotionless android, has his share of Fascinating Eyebrow moments.
    • Captain Picard also does this a few times. In his Nitpicker's Guide, series author Phil Farrand jokes that this is a result of his mind-meld with Spock's father Sarek. Vulcans all over Trek are masters at the Fascinating Eyebrow.
  • Star Trek: Voyager:
    • Seven of Nine will arc her ocular implant when the occasion requires. Of course, said implant is always in this position, so it'd be hard not to. She even fights Dwayne Johnson in a Forced Prize Fight episode, with The Rock doing his famous eyebrow flick to the audience, though we don't witness any eyebrow-to-eyebrow combat with Seven.
    • The Doctor is a master of it.
  • T'pol from Star Trek: Enterprise, being Vulcan, does this a fair bit.
  • In the novel Well of Souls, Talma Pren (a Human) can't do it, but Vaavek (a Vulcan) can. Talma muses that all Vulcans seem capable of doing so.
• Supernatural has the Trickster/archangel Gabriel do this a lot just before he dumps the Winchesters into something particularly nasty (possibly because Richard Speight Jr., who plays him, has the amazing habit of doing it).
• The X-Files:
  • Fascinating Eyebrow is one of Agent Scully's trademarks. She would usually eye down Mulder for his crazy theories. It was known among fans simply as "the look".
  • The Stupendous Yappi, who appears most prominently in "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose", is a Phony Psychic or Not-So-Phony Psychic; which one depends really on your interpretation. His eyebrow raise might be considered an Exaggerated version. Interestingly, his look is intended to Agent Mulder, who for once does not buy his seer routine and thinks him a fake.

Music

• Huey Lewis pulls one on the album covers for Greatest Hits◊ and The Heart of Rock & Roll◊, paired with his signature "lowering the shades" gesture.
• Weird Al very often poses for pictures◊ like this.

Pro Wrestling

• Bobby Fish utilizes it in many promo shots◊, and frequently his ring entrance as well.
• The Rock brought the eyebrow to the people. Parodied twice by Triple H (during his days as leader of D-Generation X) when he dressed up like The Rock in order to mock him: first was when the former was leading The Nation, by painting on an exaggerated eyebrow in pencil; then later during the feud with The Corporation, by slapping what looks like a strip of black tape.

Video Games

• Deadly Premonition opens with Francis York Morgan being in the Red Room, surrounded by its odd atmosphere and creepy music, items that have more significance than one thinks, and the twins Issac and Isaiah as angels talking to each other. He quirks his eyebrow to this odd scene.
• In Disco Elysium, the Player Character's Consummate Professional partner, Kim Kitsuragi, is a master of this. Any time he is faced with someone doing something that annoys him, he tends to flash this expression, and it's usually enough to make anyone back down. Upon being faced with this, the player's Authority skill makes a note of how Kim's own Authority skill must be off the charts.
• Mr. House of Fallout: New Vegas is doing this on the picture displayed on his monitor. Since said picture is static, that means he's constantly making this expression.
• Jerome from Kindergarten has this as his default expression to denote him as the cool kid in school. In Kindergarten 2 it's replaced with crying due to him grieving the death of his father (the principal) at the end of the first game, though he'll go back to this expression if you give him a tissue to dry his tears.
• Mass Effect:
  • Shepard seems to do this a lot.
  • Legion also does this during his introductory cutscene. He explains that the Geth designed his platform specifically to interact with organic lifeforms, so his eye-flaps move to simulate facial expressions. He also does this when you tell the customs officer that the two asari are not Geth because they don't have flashlights in their heads.
• Mega Man (Classic): Dr. Wily has turned this taunt into a running gag, though he also combines it with a weird sort of eyebrow-wiggle. So much so that it's generally accepted by the fanbase that the absolute worst aspect of the otherwise well-received Mega Man 11 is that Dr. Wily throws his head back and cackles instead of wiggling his eyebrows at you during his obligatory flying saucer fly-by.
• The Sims from The Sims 2 do this when dancing. There's a bug that they can have this face even when they're not dancing.
• World of Warcraft has a predefined emote for this (/eyebrow), although it is not animated.

Webcomics

• The titular character of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja likes this one. In a world where a ninja doctor is sometimes the Only Sane Man, this (and Eye Take) is gonna come up a lot.
• In Charby the Vampirate, King Samrick displays a smug raised eyebrow when revealing that he knows who Sadick really is.
• According to Cyanide and Happiness, it's infectious, judging by two characters immediately copying it when they see others pulling it.
• El Goonish Shive: Susan is a hardcore Trekkie, and has clearly appropriated this from Spock. Though not every use of it is quite as deadpan as her inspiration.
• In Girl Genius, Vanamonde von Mekkahn displays a rather wicked incarnation when saying that he knows where a hammer required to get a treasure is.
• How to be a Werewolf: Vincent raises his right brow and dips his left in confusion when Ella half collapses in front of him, before turning to a shocked Elias and stating that they obviously don't have all the information.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Princess Voluptua does this a lot, since she's got a royal sense of superiority, and she's got ginormous eyebrows that almost double as antennae.
• Lackadaisy's Tracy J. Butler has seen quite enough of this face (dubbed the smarm brow)... and so has Aunt Nina.
• In Looking for Group, this seems to be Tavor's default facial expression. Unless he's scheming or angry, one eyebrow or the other is almost always raised.
• In the Photo Comic Romantically Apocalyptic, Mr. Snippy, or just Sniper, wears a pair of goggles that allow him to pull this off.

Web Original

• Quite a few people of Channel Awesome are capable of pulling this off. Examples:
  • The Nostalgia Critic adds one to his "scheming face" at the end of Suburban Knights.
  • Phelous pulls quite the dangerous-looking one in Kickassia.
  • Linkara's "I am not amused by this" face comes with it as well.
• Michael from Vsauce often raises an eyebrow in his videos. His YouTube avatar also has him raise an eyebrow.

Western Animation

• In The Amazing World of Gumball, every character does this when they are confused.
• The Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise:
  • Used many times in Avatar: The Last Airbender, mainly by Katara.
  • The Legend of Korra: It must run in the family since her granddaughter Jinora has one when she sees Asami putting her hand on Korra. Evidently, she saw the subtext that was brewing between the two.
• Bob's Burgers: In "The Last Gingerbread House on the Left", one of the competitors in Mr. Fischoeder's gingerbread house-building contest is "Downtown" Randolph Brackenbrow. He apparently has a "medical thing" where his right eyebrow raises itself involuntarily when he's in "fierce competition mode".
• In Fireman Sam, Station Master Steele's face appears to be stuck this way.
• Used by a car dealer on Futurama upon Amy mentioning how rich her parents are. He has to physically restrain it.
• Reducto in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (voiced by Stephen Colbert) does this in an early episode, complete with inner monologue lampshading that he's doing it.
  Reducto: I'm scheming. This is my scheming face. First I raise this eyebrow, and then — BACK OFF!
• Johnny Bravo uses it when scoping out babes, or whenever the events around him confuse him. Considering the likelihood of either one, it's a wonder his eyebrows are ever down at all.
• In Mary Shelley's Frankenhole, Jim Belushi desperately tries to imitate John's trademark arched eyebrow to the point of tying a balloon to it.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Octavia, one of the many fan-favorite background characters, pulls this expression in "The Best Night Ever" when Pinkie makes a request.
  • Princess Celestia does this near the end of "Lesson Zero", as Twilight's friends are taking the blame for her casting a spell that makes the entire town fight over a doll so that she could learn some sort of lesson about friendship to send her for that week.
  • The Great and Powerful Trixie raises an eyebrow often, most commonly in her debut episode.
  • Applejack has a pretty good one in the episode "Three's a Crowd", showing her suspicions at Discord's antics. She pulls it again on Rarity two more times in "Trade Ya!" and "Made in Manehattan".
  • Owlowiscious's design doesn't really allow for much of one, but in "Inspiration Manifestation", he's definitely giving the same spirit in his look at Spike when Rarity starts going off the deep end.
  • Fluttershy gives a good one in "Dungeons & Discords" when Discord tries to keep her from leaving by having the train tracks going into an active volcano he created. And it works like a charm. Discord undoes his spell immediately afterwards.
• In Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Lex Luthor does quite an impressive version of this when Power Girl walks into his office with "something to talk about." Given that Power Girl, is, erm, powerful even by DC's standards, one can't help but be suspicious of his intentions.
• Raven does this in Teen Titans when in response to wondering why her teammates, sans Robin, were pretending to be Robin, Beast Boy retorts, "You know you wanna try it."
• Several character use this on Total Drama, the most prominent example being Noah, who has this as his default expression. Even while asleep.
• Transformers:
  • Beast Wars has Optimus Primal does this when he sees Waspinator charge forward by his lonesome... and ending the charge with predictable results.
  • Part and parcel with the more dynamic and emotive designs of Transformers: Animated, and not just the humans, either. Ratchet has some excellent ones when trying to understand the younger members of the team, and even Prowl with his highway patrol shades gets in one or two Fascinating Optic Ridge moments, to humorous effect.
  • In Transformers: Prime, with the somewhat more emotive movie-based altmodes, Optimus Prime does this when Miko and Raf lie to him about Bots being involved in street racing.
• In The Penguins of Madagascar, Skipper and Kowalski do this a lot, particularly when annoyed or unimpressed.

Real Life

• Walt Disney, especially when looking over the work of his animators.
• Jeremy Irons' eyebrows will often outact him (the same way as he outacts the rest of the cast).
• Comedian Andy Hamilton complains that he can't get his eyebrow not to do this, so everyone always thinks he's being sarcastic.
• Much of the appeal of British newsreader Fiona Bruce is her perpetually cocked eyebrow.
• British newsreader George Aligiah likewise seems to have his eyebrow fixed into this position.
• Football manager Carlo Ancelotti does this whenever interviewed, to hilarious effect.
• Hugh Dennis. It appears that one of his eyebrows just naturally sits about a centimetre above the other.
• Kylie Minogue. Her right eyebrow is naturally higher than the other, but it became more obvious with time due to her admission to using Botox.
• Gary Barlow. Not only is his right eyebrow higher than the other, it sometimes seems to have a life of its own.
• Elton John has animated eyebrows when singing.
• J. R. Martinez's left eyebrow has been frozen in this position ever since his hummer blew up while serving in the Middle East.
• Makeup is sometimes employed to give eyebrows a rather more pronounced arch than is natural. Done well, this puts the peak of the eyebrow on the (more mobile and therefore more expressive) forehead instead of along the supraorbital ridge without being too noticeable. Done poorly, the person appears as if they are in a constant state of open-eyed wonderment. As far as glamour makeup goes, it's more common on women who learned their makeup techniques at a time when the very thin extremely high arch was "in". Women who started using makeup in the late 1960s or later tend to go for a more "natural" look. On stage it's used to allow subtle changes of expression to be seen easily even in the "cheap seats".
• Alan Wilder of Depeche Mode frequently does this during interviews. So often that lead singer Dave Gahan mentioned that he raises his left eyebrow when he's excited and his right when depressed.
• Emma Watson does it so often, one would not be blamed for believing it was a facial tic...and it may very well be.
• Pedro Pascal often does this at photoshoots and interviews.
• MasakoX, co-creator of Naruto: The Abridged Series and anime reviewer at Channel Awesome, does this very often. Observe.
• Orlando Bloom employs this liberally, in both The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. By the time of The Hobbit trilogy he has it down to an art form.
• Spanish TV presenter Carlos Sobera became memetically famous for doing this when presenting the Spanish version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
• When Sela Ward joined the cast of CSI: NY, "TV Guide" ran a promo with the caption "The four most expressive eyebrows in Hollywood join forces to fight crime." Here's an example of what they meant.
• Dwayne Johnson, who got his turned into a reaction meme.

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