Bad men and black beards.
Rarely, if ever, do we come across bearded bad guys in the real world. Unfortunately, cinema seems to enjoy twisting the truth and loading our screens with the baddest of the bearded.
It probably stems from Plays that have always needed ways to make their characters visually distinct. After all, the audience had to recognise them from the back of the theatre, and the same actors had to recreate themselves as different characters (often in the same play). So any kind of distinctive hairstyle or clothing could be turned into a visual shorthand for who this was, and then to what kind of person they were.
Bad men and black beards.
Rarely, if ever, do we come across bearded bad guys in the real world. Unfortunately, cinema seems to enjoy twisting the truth and loading our screens with the baddest of the bearded.
It probably stems from Plays that have always needed ways to make their characters visually distinct. After all, the audience had to recognise them from the back of the theatre, and the same actors had to recreate themselves as different characters (often in the same play). So any kind of distinctive hairstyle or clothing could be turned into a visual shorthand for who this was, and then to what kind of person they were.