Blonde stereotypes are stereotypes of blonde-haired people, especially women, generally treating them as pretty but sillier and less clever than other people and often comparing them unfavorably to brunettes. Examples of this stereotype are the "blonde bombshell" and the "dumb blonde." Despite popular blonde jokes on these premises, research has shown that blonde women are not less intelligent than women with other hair colors.Jay L. Zagorsky, "Are Blondes Really Dumb?", Economics Bulletin 36(1):401-410 · March 2016"Are blondes actually dumb?" by Jay L. Zagorsky
The blonde bombshell is one of the most consistently popular female character types in cinema.Ed Sikov, Film Studies: An Introduction, page 134, Columbia University Press, 2009, Many Hollywood celebrities have used it to their advantage, including Jean Harlow, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Brigitte Bardot and Mamie Van Doren.Stephanie Ann Smith, Household Words, page 76, University of Minnesota Press, 2006,
Background There are several aspects to the stereotypical perception of blonde-haired women.Hornaday, Ann (4 May 2014) "In Praise of the Dumb Blonde" The Washington Post, page E14. Retrieved 4 May 2014 A persistent stereotype takes men to find them more physically attractive than other women;Victoria Sherrow. Encyclopedia of hair: a cultural history. Page 149 Anita Loos popularized this idea in her 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Some women have also reported that they feel other people expect them to be more fun-loving after they have lightened their hair, as an ad for Clairol hair colorant implies: "Is it true blondes have more fun?" Such stereotypes engender a view of blonde women as less serious or intelligent than others, reliant on their looks to succeed,Encyclopedia of Hair, p. 255 which extends in Brazil to blonde women's disparagement as sexually licentious.Revista Anagrama, Universidade de São Paulo, Stereotypes of women in blonde jokes pp. 6-8, version 1, edition 2, 2007
"Blonde jokes" reinforce the depiction of the "dumb blonde."Encyclopedia of Hair pp. 149-151 Its origin may be traced to Europe, where a French courtesan named Rosalie Duthé was satirised in the 1775 play Les Curiosités de la Foire for her habit of pausing a long time before speaking, appearing not only stupid but literally dumb (mute). This stereotype has become so ingrained that it has spawned counter-narratives, as in the 2001 film Legally Blonde, in which a beautiful blonde woman overcomes prejudice aroused by her looks to succeed in Harvard Law School. However, an analysis of IQ data carried out by the National Longitudinal Surveys on a survey database of American "baby boomers" (NLSY79 data) found the natural blonde women in this demographic (which excluded the African American and Hispanic) to have a slightly higher mean IQ than brunette, black-, and red-haired women.
Alfred Hitchcock preferred to cast blonde women for major roles in his films, as he believed that the audience would suspect them the least, comparing them to "virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints", hence the term "Hitchcock blonde".
Typology
Annette Kuhn divides blonde stereotypes in cinema into three categories in The Women's Companion to International Film:Annette Kuhn, The Women's Companion to International Film, page 47, University of California Press, 1994, The "ice-cold blonde": Kuhn defined it as "a blonde who hides a fire beneath an exterior of coldness". She provided Grace Kelly as an example. English actress Madeleine Carroll originated the role in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935), with Kelly among those who would follow her. The "blonde bombshell": Kuhn defined it as "a blonde with explosive sexuality [who] is available to men at a price". She provided Brigitte Bardot, Lana Turner, Jean Harlow, Joan Blondell, Mae West, Barbara Eden, Marilyn Monroe, and Diana Dors as examples. The "dumb blonde": Kuhn defined it as "a blonde with an overt and natural sexuality and a profound manifestation of ignorance". She provided Jayne Mansfield, Marion Davies, Alice White, Marie Wilson, and Mamie Van Doren as examples.
In cognitive linguistics, the stereotype uses expressivity of words to affect an emotional response which determines a gender role of a certain kind.Vyvyan Evans and Melanie Green, Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction, page 11, Routledge, 2006, In feminist critique, stereotypes like the "blonde bombshell" or the "dumb blonde" are seen as negative images that undermine the power of women.Gladys L. Knight, Female Action Heroes, page 17, ABC-CLIO, 2010,
Blonde bombshell
The blonde bombshell is a gender stereotype that connotes a very physically attractive woman with blonde hair.Myra Marx Ferree, Judith Lorber and Beth B. Hess, Revisioning Gender, page 226, Rowman Altamira, 1999, A review of English language tabloids from the United Kingdom has shown it to be a recurring blonde stereotype, along with "busty blonde" and "blonde babe".Martin Conboy, Tabloid Britain: Constructing a Community Through Language, page 127, Routledge, 2006,
Jean Harlow started the stereotype with her film Bombshell of 1933. Following her, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren helped establish the stereotype typified by a combination of curvaceous physique, very light-colored hair and a perceived lack of intelligence. During the 1950s, the blonde bombshell started to replace the Femme fatale as the mainstream media stereotype.Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin, America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies, page 214, John Wiley & Sons, 2011, Marjorie Rosen, a historian of women in films, says of the two top blonde bombshells of the time that "Mae West, firing off vocal salvos with imperious self-assurance, and Jean Harlow, merchandising her physical allure for the masses, transformed the idea of passive female sexuality into an aggressive statement of fact".Deirdre Beddoe, Discovering women's history: a practical guide to researching the lives of women since 1800, page 38, Longman, 1998,
Dumb blonde
The notion of "dumb blonde" has been a topic of academic research reported in scholarly articles and university symposia, which tend to confirm that many people hold to the perception that light-haired women are less intelligent than women with dark hair. It is believed the first recorded "dumb blonde" was an 18th-century blonde French courtesan named Rosalie Duthé whose reputation of being beautiful and dumb, even in the literal sense of not talking much, inspired a play about her called Les Curiosités de la Foire (Paris 1775).
While there is no evidence that suggests that blondes are less intelligent than other people, it has been suggested earlier that the state of being blonde probably creates opportunities that do not require investing in education and training. A possible earlier hypothetical explanation is that physically attractive women have less pressing incentives to cultivate and demonstrate their intellect to ensure their future, since physical attractiveness is an asset, or correlatively that intelligent women have less pressing incentives to dye their hair to a presumed attractive color. The purported validity of this explanation is purely hypothetical and has been corroborated earlier by its applicability to a similar pervasiveness of the "dumb athlete" stereotype. At the same time, newer data have shown that natural blondes have the highest IQ among white women, which is already explained by the scientists as possible greater incentive to intellectual activity in the place where the blonde grew up, which directly refutes the earlier suggestion that blondes have less intellectual incentives. The dumb blonde stereotype (and the associated cognitive bias) may have some negative consequences and it can also damage a blonde person's career prospects.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) by Anita Loos originated as a comic novel and explores the appeal of blonde women. It spawned a musical on Broadway, and two films released in 1928 and 1953. The Encyclopedia of Hair describes Marilyn Monroe's blonde role in the second film as that of "a fragile woman who relied on her looks rather than on intelligence—what some people refer to as 'dumb blonde'". At the same time, in the film she demonstrates a certain amount of wit regarding her life position expressed in the song"Decade by Decade 1940s: Ten Years of Popular Hits", , p. 32 "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend". Madonna emulated that screen-persona of Monroe in her music video Material Girl.
Many blonde actresses have played stereotypical "dumb blondes", including Monroe (dyed blonde),Parker, Dana T. Building Victory: Aircraft Manufacturing in the Los Angeles Area in World War II, p. 130, Cypress, CA, 2013. . Judy Holliday, Jayne Mansfield (dyed blonde), Carol Wayne and Goldie Hawn. Goldie Hawn is best known as the giggling "dumb blonde", stumbling over her lines, especially when she introduced Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In "News of the Future". In the American sitcom Three's Company the blonde girl (originally Chrissy, played by Suzanne Somers, and later Cindy and Terri) is sweet and naïve, while the brunette (Janet, played by Joyce DeWitt) is smart.
Entertainment magazines have leveraged the dumb blonde stereotype as part of their cover articles. Rona Barrett's Hollywood magazine used the phrase "Blondes vs Brunettes" on a 1978 cover addressing Hollywood's typecasting of blondes as dumb and brunettes as smart. Us Magazine's October 26, 1982 edition featured a cover story titled "Brains Vs. Blondes: Goodbye, T&A! Hello IQ! The 'boob tube' cleans up with a bevy of smart but sexy brunettes". Stefanie Powers, Veronica Hamel, Michele Lee, Debbie Allen, Erin Gray. and Stephanie Zimbalist were among the brunettes interviewed for the article. Shelley Long, one of two blondes interviewed for the article, said "I'm capable of playing dumb blondes who sometimes know more about life than women who are all locked into their heads." Susan Sullivan, also blonde, said "if a man doesn't seem to take me seriously because I'm a blonde, I just show him my roots."
Blonde jokes
There is a category of jokes called "blonde jokes" that employs the dumb blonde stereotype. It overlaps at times with other jokes that portray the subject of the joke as promiscuous and/or stupid. Some blonde jokes rely on sexual humour to portray or stereotype their subjects as promiscuous.Karen Ross, The Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media, chapter 6, John Wiley & Sons, 2011, Many of these are rephrased sorority girl or Essex girl jokes, much as other jokes about dumb blondes are based on long-running ethnic jokes. Many of these jokes are mere variants on traditional ethnic jokes or jests about other identifiable groups (such as Italian jokes involving Carabinieri, Sardarji jokes or Pathan jokes). Similar jokes about stereotyped minorities have circulated since the seventeenth century with only the wording and targeted groups changed.Giselinde Kuipers, Good Humor, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke, page 24, Walter de Gruyter, 2006,