Looking for glasses

February 26, 2009 11:59 AM

Looking for interesting, famous or otherwise significant examples of glasses (eye glasses OR sunglasses) in film, literature, TV, photography or other media (not necessarily fictional). Examples inside.

For instance, there is the obvious Hollywood makeover scene where frumpy girl loses glasses in the process of becoming gorgeous (and of course Clark Kent's transformation into Superman). But also, Dorothy Parker's (short) poem: "Men don't often make passes at girls who wear glasses." And in literature, for example, J.M. Coetzee begins Waiting for the Barbarians with a description of the sunglasses worn by an official of the empire.

posted by scribbler to media & arts (39 comments total)

There's the famous Twilight Zone episode 'Time Enough at Last' in which eyeglasses plays a pivotal role.
posted by ericb at 12:03 PM on February 26

They Live
posted by arcanecrowbar at 12:04 PM on February 26

- the dude from Cool Han Luke
- mormons.
posted by jeb at 12:04 PM on February 26

Zaphod Beeblebrox's two pair of Joo Janta 200 Peril Sensitive Sunglasses, from Douglas Adams' "Restaurant at the End of the Universe".
posted by FatherDagon at 12:07 PM on February 26

The student in Battleship Potemkin. After the massacre his glasses break.
posted by world b free at 12:08 PM on February 26

I love to make fun of David Caruso and his sunglasses behavior in CSI Miami.
posted by Silvertree at 12:09 PM on February 26

Jackie O and her glasses, Elton John and his.
posted by shadowfelldown at 12:13 PM on February 26

Also, this is a general thing, but a lot of times glasses in TV and movies represent a character's holding something back, or putting up a barrier. Like, when a character's in a discussion with another one, when he/she is ready to level with someone else, the glasses come off. It happens on The Wire a lot, and particularly in the Dark Knight when the accountant character confronts Morgan Freeman about Bruce Wayne. It's a shorthand, I think.
posted by world b free at 12:14 PM on February 26

Piggy's glasses in Lord of the Flies are of great importantance, both literally and figuratively.
posted by owtytrof at 12:14 PM on February 26

Groucho Marx
Harry Potter
Piggy's in Lord of the Flies
posted by Midnight Rambler at 12:14 PM on February 26

In the Rock Hudson/Tony Randall/Doris Day movie Lover Come Back there's a takeoff on the unattractive woman removing her glasses in which she's still found to be unattractive without them.
posted by ShooBoo at 12:16 PM on February 26

Glasses play a symbolic role in Charlotte Yonge's The Daisy Chain. (Yonge seems to have been under the impression that nearsightedness was caused by poor willpower.)

More symbolic glasses in George Eliot's Middlemarch, thanks to Dorothea Brooke's near-sightedness.

And on a non-Victorian note: Happy Days! The Fonz needed to wear glasses & was extremely embarrassed about the whole thing.
posted by thomas j wise at 12:18 PM on February 26

Lolita's famous heart-shaped sunglasses in the Stanley Kubrick film.
posted by ejazen at 12:20 PM on February 26

Here's a hilarious compilation of the sunglasses-action that Silvertree is referring to, and an explanation of how terrible an actor David Caruso is.
posted by FatherDagon at 12:29 PM on February 26

Dr. T. J. Eckleburg's billboard overlooking the valley of ashes is a prominent symbol in Great Gatsby.
posted by Hwaet at 12:29 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

- Woody Harrelson's red sunglasses from "Natural Born Killers" were fairly iconic.
- Tom Cruise's sunglasses from the "Risky Business" posters.
- In "Time After Time", Jack The Ripper removes H.G. Wells' glasses before assaulting him.
- In Star Trek II, McCoy gives Kirk an antique pair of glasses, which become a small symbol of Kirk's advancing age.
- Terminator 2, when Arnold puts on the shades as George Thorogood's "Bad To The Bone" starts.
- In "The Godfather, Part II, Moe Green is shot in the eye through the lens of his eyeglasses.
- In "The Godfather, Part III, Don Lucchesi is stabbed in the throat with his own pair of glasses.
- In "The Matrix", the sunglasses were part of a larger costume used to visually differentiate "redpills" from "bluepills". Agent Smith's sunglasses were so a part of his persona that they were even visible to Neo after Smith "uploaded" to Bane in the real world (The Matrix:Revolutions).
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posted by DWRoelands at 12:31 PM on February 26

In The Big Sleep, shortly before Bogart (as Philip Marlowe) "spends some time" with the Acme Bookstore proprietress (that's what IMDB calls her), he encourages her to remove her glasses.

It's on YouTube.
posted by Xalf at 12:31 PM on February 26

Elvis sunglasses are pretty iconic. They can't be worn without conjuring the King.
posted by kimdog at 12:37 PM on February 26

The great 1930's comedy Bringing Up Baby has a running joke involving Katharine Hepburn telling Cary Grant (who looks very un-Cary-Grant-like wearing glasses throughout the movie), "You look better without your glasses."
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:40 PM on February 26

TV Tropes has an entire index page listing tropes about glasses.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:41 PM on February 26

Glasses were a marker of genetic imperfection (and class inferiority) in Gattaca
posted by cowbellemoo at 12:43 PM on February 26

In the Woody Allen film Take the Money and Run, there's a running gag where, whenever he gets arrested, they take his glasses off and stomp on them.
posted by bondcliff at 12:54 PM on February 26

Oh, and in The Name of the Rose, glasses were literal and figurative symbols of progressive scientific/scholastic thought.
posted by cowbellemoo at 12:57 PM on February 26

The glasses worn by Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain. A rare example of the time of a leading man wearing them.

Later appropriated by Mike Myers for Austin Powers.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:14 PM on February 26

Lots of songs.

Sunglasses at Night - Corey Hart
Cheap Sunglasses - ZZ Top

and so on.
posted by iconomy at 1:19 PM on February 26

When the Blues Brothers are caught, and about to be killed, by Carrie Fisher, Jake charms her by taking off his sunglasses, the only time in the film either of them does so.
posted by dirtdirt at 1:21 PM on February 26

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's is a classic example of sunglasses being quite significant.

The Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas glasses were quite a statement as well.
posted by fearnothing at 1:23 PM on February 26

The events of "Time Enough at Last," a great "Twlight Zone" episode, hinge on a pair of glasses.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:24 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Philip Roth's "Goodbye Columbus" begins with “The first time I saw Brenda she asked me to hold her glasses."
posted by backwards guitar at 1:38 PM on February 26

The "moocow" passage of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist begins with an account of a father looking at the infant Stephen through a glass. Stephen Daedalus' father is later said to wear spectacles, but this passage is important in the sense that the glasses represent the first division Stephen feels between himself and his Irish family, as well as the surreal, inexplicable lens through which children view the world.

Also, I swear to god Family Guy made a reference to this passage in its first or second (pre-cancellation) season, when baby Stewie knocks off Meg's glasses and calls her a "moo cow."
posted by zoomorphic at 2:08 PM on February 26

As mentioned above in "The Blues Brother", but in a different part of the film "it's 106 miles to Chicago, we gotta full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses" "Hit it".

Also in the Spiderman movies, they serve as a visual signal of his powers, or lack thereof. When he first gains his powers he finds that he can see fine without his glasses, then later after losing, and then re-gaining his powers they serve to, again, show us that he is a superhero again.
posted by alchemist at 2:15 PM on February 26

In Kill Bill, the sheriff has ~5 pairs of sunglasses on the dashboard of his car. As far as I know, they serve as one of the ways to give what would otherwise be a bland 2-dimensional character some quirks/depth.
posted by cali59 at 2:25 PM on February 26

John Lennon's distinctive glasses became an icon.

William Gibson's "Neuromancer" was very influential in science fiction, in (among other things) the way people used technology, where exhibit A was a character with surgically implanted mirror-shades, and re-routed tear-ducts.
posted by -harlequin- at 2:29 PM on February 26

The sunglasses worn by Tom Cruise in Top Gun inspired a whole line of "Top Gun Aviator glasses", still on shelves today.
posted by robhuddles at 3:43 PM on February 26

According to Joseph Smith the Biblical priestly prophecy stones named the Urim & Thummim were really a pair of mystic eye glasses that were delivered to him by the angel Moroni along with the golden tablets, which he used to translate them into the Book of Mormon and also used to write the prophecies found in the Doctrine & Covenants.
posted by scalefree at 4:49 PM on February 26

The shades worn in 'Men In Black' were the only thing that prevented memory loss when Tommy Lee Jones used the flashy-thing.
posted by 8dot3 at 5:04 PM on February 26

Fictional Characters:
-Noah Bennett in Heroes, aka HRG (Horn Rimmed Glasses), whose real name wasn't mentioned in the series until I think the penultimate episode in Season 1. (Maybe even the last one?)
-Ralphie in A Christmas Story, "You'll shoot your eye out!" breaks his glasses when he finally gets his rifle.
-The taped glasses in Revenge of the Nerds
-Wonder Woman, or her "real" name which I can't remember.
-Costume lady in The Incredibles (based on Edith Head?)
-Dame Edna (always has fantastical glasses)
-Wesley on Angel
-Velma in Scooby Doo
-Sawyer on Lost (Lost: Deus Ex Machina Season 1 episode 19)

Nonfictional People:
Sarah Palin
Tina Fey
David Letterman
Coco Chanel
Sally Jesse Raphael
Phil Donahue
George Burns
Edith Head
Buddy Holly
Whoopi Goldberg
Martin Scorcese
Woody Allen
Ozzy Osbourne (although that's been covered mostly with the John Lennon mention)
George Harrison (square/rectangle wireframes!)
Paul McCartney (thick black frames in the 60's)
Ringo Starr (sunglasses these days)
Ray Charles

Songs:
-You're Blind, Run DMC
-Little Magic Glasses, June Carter Cash

Video Game Characters:
-Gordan in Half Life
-Julia in Tekken 3
-JC Denton in Deus Ex
-Charlie in Street Fighter
-Roberto in Onimusha
-Daniel Lamb, Judy, Michael, and Dr. Pickman in Manhunt2
-Duke Nukem in Duke Nukem 3d
-Jacob in GTA:IV

And what about beer colored glasses?
posted by kirstk at 5:32 PM on February 26

Glasses (and eyes!) are prominent in the plot and atmosphere of the film Chinatown.
posted by juniper at 9:33 PM on February 28

Joe 90 "These are Joe 90's special glasses. Without them, he's a boy; wearing them, he's an expert."
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:13 AM on March 1