Goatee

Abraham Lincoln, who shaved his beard into a goatee at various points during his presidency.

Goatee refers to a style of facial hair incorporating hair on a man’s chin. The exact nature of the style has varied according to time and culture.

Description

Traditionally, the term goatee was used to refer solely to a beard formed by a tuft of hair on the chin—like on the chin of a goat, hence the term 'goatee'. Since the 1990s, "goatee" has become a blanket term to refer to any beard which incorporates the hair of the chin but not the cheeks, such as the style traditionally known as the van dyke Individuals within the style and facial hair communities have debated the linguistic appropriateness of this, with some insisting that the term "goatee" continue to be used in the traditional sense, and others accepting an evolution of the word to refer to any beard style incorporating the hair of the chin but not the cheeks.

History

The style dates back to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, where the god Pan was traditionally depicted with one. When Christianity became the dominant religion and began coopting imagery from pagan myth, Satan was given the likeness of Pan, leading to Satan traditionally being depicted with a goatee in medieval and renaissance art.

The goatee became popular again in the late 19th century, becoming one of the characterizing physical traits of the bohemians in Paris. In America, the style became popular around the time of the United States Civil War. Numerous wartime figures from the era wore variations on the goatee, including Abraham Lincoln, who shaved his beard into a traditional goatee at various points during his presidency.

The goatee would not enjoy widespread popularity again until the 1940s, when it became a defining trait of the beatniks in post-World War II America. The style remained popular amongst the counter culture until the 1960s before falling out of favor again. In the 1990s, goatees with incorporated mustaches became fashionable for men across all socioeconomic classes and professions, and have remained popular into the 2010s.

In popular culture

In the media, goatees have often been used to designate an evil or morally questionable character; the convention has most consistently been applied in media depicting evil twins, with a goatee often being the sole physical difference between the twins. Goatees have also been used to signify a character's transformation from positive or neutral to evil; on the television series Breaking Bad, the character Walter White growing a goatee in addition to his mustache signifies the beginning of his transformation into his drug-dealing alter ego, Heisenberg, with the hair of the goatee growing darker as Walter sinks deeper into the underworld. The use of goatees to designate evil characters has become enough of a trope that researchers from the University of Warwick conducted a study to assess the reasons for its prevalence. The study found that the human brain tends to perceive of downwards-facing triangles as inherently threatening; brains tend to perceive of goatees as making the human face resemble a downwards-facing triangle, causing individuals to subconsciously perceive of those with goatees as inherently sinister or threatening.

In media depicting members of counter cultures, goatees have also been used to differentiate between average characters and those belonging to some subgroup. In The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Bob Denver's goatee served to identify him as a beatnik. Similarly, the character of Shaggy Rogers in Scooby Doo, Where Are You? was, in part, identified as a hippie by his goatee.

Gallery

• 
  A Moai kavakava from Easter Island. Many statues from Easter Island have goatee beards.

See also

• Beard
• Moustache
• Sideburns
• Soul patch
• Vandyke beard