I was rewatching “Sleeping With the Enemy” recently - it's a thriller from back in the early 90's. It's got Julia Roberts JUST before she became a superstar, a tense scene involving bath towels, an iconic use of the song ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ - and a moustache of evil.
Julia Roberts controlling, psychotic husband is out to get her after she escapes his clutches. He's made out to be evil by his behaviour and dialogue, obviously, and a great performance by the actor Patrick Bergin, and also by his moustache. People in that era of movies, if they had moustaches, they were evil!
Just look at his on-screen peers from the time - 
Julia's new love interest rocked a BEARD. Solid, trustworthy, and calm (the beard. Not necessarily the character).
The beard is good. Not always, but often.
Mr. Keaton from Family Ties became the iconic nice dad when he grew the beard in season 2.
Riker on Star Trek the Next Generation seemed to come into his own when he bearded up, again in season 2.
If you go just a couple years forward, moustaches (and many beards) kind of go away in big movies. Most characters in general, especially in mainstream movies, are clean shaven.
some facial hair can definitely mark a tough anti-hero, though!
There's surely a movie and TV history that could be mapped out with the iconic clean shaven/moustache/beard trends that come and go (or is that ‘come and grow’) throughout the years.
The “Good Moustache” variation is fairly rare, but at a certain time (late 70's, early 80's I'd say), there were some very notable examples!
skip ahead some years and we see the occasional good guy moustache.
Most, if not practically ALL, of my own characters go clean shaven. It wasn't a conscious choice (except for with my main character Oscar: he had a beard in some early sketches. I looked for opinions from some friends when planning the series and the unanimous call was for “no beard!”
Oh, man, there's tons to say about the moustache and/or beard in media. A huge topic, so I guess I'll leave it here for now.
See you next time, later on down the trail…
__________
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The Moustache of Evil
Banes at 12:00AM, July 25, 2024
4 likes!
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PaulEberhardt at 5:53AM, July 27, 2024
And I forgot Mr Spock's evil twin from the parallel universe, who sports a rather un-Vulcanian full beard. That's possibly supposed to be connected to that masculinity thing. Then again, evil Spock turns out not to be totally evil, after all, while, for example, evil Kirk is clean-shaven like good Kirk and definitely as mad, bad, and dangerous to know as they come. Goes to show what a big difference these five extra minutes can make. 😉
bravo1102 at 10:10AM, July 26, 2024
Silly me, in the movie Highway to Hell I actually had it backwards. As the kindly Beezle, Patrick Bergin has the mustache when revealed to be the devil is when he is clean shaven and remains so through the climactic race between the hero and hell cop. Definitely worth a watch for seeing Ben Stiller with his parents as well as an attempt at the largest collection of VW bugs. Seems Highway 13 in hell is all VW bugs.
marcorossi at 9:37AM, July 25, 2024
@Charlie-Chaplin-toothbrush-style mustache, also worn by the less entertaining Adolph: I read somewhere that during WW1 it was common for German and Austrian soldiers to wear very big mustaches, but, since during WW1 lethal gas was used in the trenches, soldiers had to trim their mustaches to fit them under gas masks. So basically Hitler wore that kind of mustache to stress that he was a WW1 veteran.
J_Scarbrough at 8:37AM, July 25, 2024
When B.J. Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H grew a mustache for the show's seventh season, he went from being a mellow, easygoing, nice guy to being a bitter, angry, manic depressive. I've really been meaning to look into SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY for quite some time. My mom used to tape episodes of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW off (W)TBS back in the early 90s, and I see trailers for the movie during commercial breaks; I'm not usually one for heavy drama or thrillers, but it looks like a really good movie I've been interested in.
PaulEberhardt at 8:02AM, July 25, 2024
The 80s mustache is also known as the "pornstache", which I think is unfair, but it's what those with a newly-grown mustache will have to put up with until it's long enough at the tips to qualify for an evil mustache. With some wax it might become a Kaiser-Wilhelm-mustache, though, and while its original wearer was admittedly a little too fond of warmongering, its modern wearers are generally quite the opposite. The other extreme, the Charlie-Chaplin-toothbrush-style mustache, is evil, too, but too obviously so for everyday use or any use at all. And I'll second bravo: beware the perfectly clean-shaven type! They have to rise five minutes earlier every day and that can't possibly be good for anyone's temperament...
PaulEberhardt at 7:50AM, July 25, 2024
I read somewhere that wearing a full beard has been a way of projecting strength and capability since the stone age, because it makes your jaw look more massive, so you're telling the world you've got more bite. There's also this classic association with wisdom: look no further than photos of Charles Darwin, or Alfred Tennyson, or Robert Browning and ignore all those famous Victorians who settled for huge sideburns instead, which essentially are meant to send the same bite signal as described above... All of this is rubbish! I've worn a full beard all my adult life, and what it really means is I get to sleep those five minutes longer every morning that others need to shave. 😁
JohnCelestri at 4:57AM, July 25, 2024
I'll add the category: "Mustache of Creativity". (see my avatar ;-))
bravo1102 at 3:53AM, July 25, 2024
Best cast against type villains are Roman Emperors like Caligula, Nero or Commodus. Clean shaven, young even boyish looking but that's another evil trope: the mischievous boy.
bravo1102 at 3:50AM, July 25, 2024
@Ming the Merciless? He's in my comic Interstellar Battle Girls. The Emperor Liao figure is a Alex Raymond Flash Gordon Ming the Merciless figure.
marcorossi at 12:46AM, July 25, 2024
Also where is Ming the Terrible? Best couple of evil mustaches and goatee ever, and it comes from a comic.
marcorossi at 12:44AM, July 25, 2024
IMHO there is a link between facial hair and masculinity, and a link between masculinity and a certain kind of evilness (namely attempted dominance). So at times exceedingly curated, but still visible, facial hair imply a thinly disguised aggressivity (curated look is more a femminine trait, so this creates the impression of hidden menace).
bravo1102 at 12:30AM, July 25, 2024
Got to go back to the silent serial villains who would twirl their mustache. That's where we got the mustche of evil. Usually a thin mustache and oiled to points that can be twirled while the villain snickers. The hero will have a proper full mustache like Sam Elliot and later the clean cut guy who would be clean shaven. All these character tropes go back over a century. Men with long faces or off center heads need a mustache to try to tie the face all together. I've had one my entire adult life.