Hats Off to the Dead - TV Tropes (2024)

Watching someone you know dying is hardly a pleasant experience. Having to bear news of a loved one's passing is also difficult. Just knowing that a close friend is dead carries with it incomparable pain.

And if those people sport a hat, there's a healthy chance that it's going to be on their chest rather than their head.

Taking off one's hat in response to someone dying is one of the most widely recognized means of paying respect to the deceased. It tends to convey the message that the hat wearer is truly shaken by the dead no longer being among the living. That the mourner is truly offering their sympathies to the deceased.

The hat usually comes off after the mournee is dead (or is believed to be dead), but there are cases of hats being doffed if it's believed that death is inevitable and fast approaching or because the mournee-to-be is undertaking a seemingly suicidal action.

Subtrope of Due to the Dead.

Not to be confused with Dead Hat Shot, where a lone hat is used to convey the demise of the wearer.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

In the anime of Tomorrow's Joe, the male audience members do this in the final scene as the crew and judges start flocking around Joe, with the strong implication this means he's truly dead.

Film - Animated

In Alice in Wonderland, Tweedledum and Tweedledee stir up Alice's interest in the story of "The Walrus and the Carpenter" by alluding to "what happened to the oysters," then removing their hats and sobbing "Poor things!" As it turns out, the oysters were all eaten by the Walrus.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire: The team hold a brief memorial service for the lives lost to the Leviathan, during which Commander Rourke takes off his hat. Subverted when it turns out that he cares nothing about lives lost beyond his own.
Cinderella: The mice draw straws (actually, their own tails) to see who has to distract Lucifer while the others get breakfast. Jaq gets picked, and the others take off their hats to show they think it's a guaranteed death sentence.
As the climax of Coco nears its conclusion, the hat-wearers in the family doff their headwear as Hector starts to die. He gets better, though.
In The Great Mouse Detective, one of Professor Ratigan's mooks pushes his Berserk Button by drunkenly calling him a rat, and Ratigan feeds him to his pet cat Felicia as punishment. After the impromptu execution, one of Ratigan's other mooks is shown holding his hat across his chest.
The Iron Giant: General Rogard removes his helmet after the Giant intercepts the missile targeted at Rockwell and is blown to smithereens.
Melody Time:
- Johnny Appleseed's spirit removes his cooking-pot hat when he realizes that the old man "sleeping" under the tree is actually his own dead body.
- At Pecos Bill and Slue-Foot Sue's doomed wedding, all the cowboys remove their hats and shed Manly Tears when Sue is launched into the sky and it becomes clear that she can't be rescued.
Peter Pan: After the Time Bomb he laid to kill Peter goes off, Captain Hook takes off his hat to "a worthy opponent", as does Mr. Smee. (Pan, of course, survives.)
In Pinocchio as Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket, and the pets weep over Pinocchio's death at the end, Jiminy has his hat removed.
Zigzagged and Played for Laughs in Shrek the Third. As King Harold drifts in and out of consciousness, Puss' hat repeatedly goes off his head and back on again. Ultimately played straight when Harold finally croaks.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The dwarfs all remove their caps when mourning Snow White's Disney Death, as does the Prince when he arrives, before he administers the True Love's Kiss that wakes her.
Song of the South: After tossing Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch (just like he wanted), Br'er Fox takes off his hat out of respect. He then notices that Br'er Bear hasn't taken off his, so he swipes it off his head and forces it onto Bear's chest.
Combined with Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas in Rankin/Bass Productions Willy McBean and his Magic Machine (1965). The Kid Hero is posing a tough outlaw, but arouses the suspicion of the villainous Von Rotton because he won't drink hard liquor. 'Willy the Kid' claims it was a promise he made to his mother, whereupon Von Rotton gets all misty-eyed as they remove their hats (even demanding The Bartender remove his hat too) as they drink a toast to their dear departed mothers, giving the kid the opportunity to surreptitiously swap his hat with Von Rotton's Weaponized Headgear.

Film - Live Action

In The Blues Brothers, the new Bluesmobile lasts just long enough to get the boys to where they need to go before literally falling to pieces on the sidewalk. (It's one of the hints that they really are on a Mission from God.) Elwood honors the car with a moment of silence, holding his hat over his heart.
In A Christmas Carol (1984), as Jacob Marley's funeral procession makes its way down the street in the opening scene, several men in the crowd remove their hats as a sign of respect. This is just the casual respect of strangers, though: no one but Scrooge is actually mourning Marley's death.
In the final scene of the 1933 film of Don Quixote, after Quixote's Death by Despair when he sees his books of chivalry publicly burned, all the men in the once-jeering, now-pitying crowd remove their hats.
Near the end of The Hunt for Red October, when the rescued crew of the eponymous submarine think it was destroyed (and their Captain and officers with it), they remove their caps and bow their heads.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indiana Jones is on top of a tank as it topples over the edge of a cliff. After it falls, Sallah, Indy's father and Marcus Brody rush over to the edge of the cliff and look down. Since it appears that Indy has fallen to his death, Sallah takes off his fez.
Moulin Rouge!: Chocolat removes his turban after Satine dies.
In Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow's Establishing Character Moment has him notice the skeletons of those who have been hanged for piracy, and (being a pirate himself) he holds his hat to his chest as a sign of respect.
- Sparrow does it again at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales after Barbossa sacrifices himself to take down Salazar with him.
  Jack: Pirate's life, Hector.
Done somewhat mockingly in Sisu by the Nazi villains Helldorf, Wolf, and the tank driver to Aatami after they (unsuccessfully) hang him, although there might be some genuine respect involved.
In Skyfall, Kincade does this after M takes her last breath in Bond's arms.
In Star Trek: Generations, the Enterprise-D crew is holding a nautical-themed celebration in the holodeck for Worf's promotion, so everyone is in full period costume. Partway into the festivities, Picard receives a personal message from Earth. We later learn his brother and nephew have died in a fire, but we immediately know the message is serious when a devastated Picard steps away from the console and removes his hat.
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as Judge Doom prepares to dip Roger, a bar patron removes his hat in anticipation of what's to come.