Dumb blonde
Dumb blonde is a
stereotype, typically applied to women (but often men as well) with
blonde
hair color, which achieved a degree of prominence in popular usage. Several notable actresses have been labelled "dumb blondes",
Marilyn Monroe and
Suzanne Somers (due to her role as
Chrissy Snow on
Three's Company) being perhaps two of the most notable examples.
Dolly Parton is an example of a singer who used this image to her own benefit, singing songs such as "Dumb Blonde".
Goldie Hawn is best known for playing a dumb blonde in several roles, including the stage persona she used on
Laugh-In.
Jessica Simpson is famous for her 'real life' dumb blonde persona, though opinion differs as to whether this is entirely affected, partially affected or simply her genuine personality.
Paris Hilton is also considered a prominent dumb blonde judging on her many escapades that leak into the tabloids and the media. The
bimbo is a similar stereotype, though a bimbo can have any hair color.
There is a common category of
jokes that employ the dumb-blonde stereotype for their effect. They usually have a blonde asking the other person in the joke a very stupid question, only to give an even more stupid answer herself.
There have been conscious efforts to subvert the stereotype with blond female
fictional characters who are intelligent and appropriately serious in demeanor, such as the character
Betty Cooper from
Archie Comics,
Buffy Summers (the title character of
Buffy The Vampire Slayer),
Usagi Tsukino (the main heroine of
Sailor Moon),
Cpt./
Maj./
Lt. Col. Samantha Carter (
astrophysics genius and
United States Air Force officer in
Stargate SG-1), and Jennifer Marlowe, the secretary from
WKRP in Cincinnati (played by
Loni Anderson).
It is not known clearly how this stereotype came to be, but seeing that
Caucasian babies are often born with at least a touch of fair hair, and sometimes blond hair darkens as a person grows into an adult, blond hair could have come from that association of fair hair with childhood and youth, and therefore the person was seen as naïve and/or innocent and lacking the intelligence of an adult. Also, as blonde hair implies childishness, it can instill a desire to nurture among non-blondes and cause blondes to be the target of admiration. This may cause some blondes to behave in a childish manner, either unconciously or conciously, in order to gain attention and affection. Thus some blondes may be partly responsible for perpetuating the myth.
A possible origin is that
dark hair and
red hair have much more copper because of their coloring; copper was associated with intellect, and since fair hair has less copper due to its lightness, blondes were seen as less intelligent.
The stereotype could have its roots in ancient times; the ancient Greeks and Romans were fascinated by the fair hair of the Celts and the Nordic peoples and wished to emulate their red and flaxen tresses. People in the Mediterranean area often
bleached their hair or bought wigs made from the hair of enslaved Germanic and Celtic peoples, and most notably the highest-ranking
courtesans. Due to this association of red and fair hair with harlots, light hair earned a degree of contempt from the high-ranking ladies of society.
Puritans, associating makeup and dyeing of hair with prostitution, forbade the dying or bleaching of hair, creating an imprint on dying hair that lasted until the 1920s. The "dumb" side could have been a way for wives of adulterous men to reassure themselves about the infidelity of their husbands; to think that their husband's blonde mistress was sleazy, worthless, ditzy, and not very intelligent[
1].
Another possibility: the bleach used to lighten the hair in earlier times was powerful stuff. If this bleach killed off
brain cells it might have produced some genuinely "dumb blondes".
Yet again, the myth might stem from the idea amongst Romans and Greeks that Northern Europeans were barbarians and thus less advanced than Southern Europeans.
Or the "dumb blonde" stereotype could simply have come from modern potrayals, beginning very likely with
Anita Loos's popular 1925 book
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The story's central character, Lorelei Lee, is a beautiful but empty-headed singer. The roles that
Marilyn Monroe,
Judy Holliday,
Jayne Mansfield, and
Betty Hutton played certainly helped to spread the stereotype; all of these women played the "ditzy blonde bombshell" at some point, even though they were known privately as intelligent women. (Monroe even played the Lorelei Lee role in a musical version of Loos's book.)
Main article: Essex girl
Local variants of the dumb-blonde stereotype (involving the same jokes and much the same use in popular culture) include the
United Kingdom's
Essex girl — a young,
working class woman with an unsophisticated attitude to life. The sterotypical Essex girl wears a short
skirt and high heels, and has bleached blonde hair, often pulled back in a severe style sometimes called an
Essex facelift. She drinks
Diamond White, a very strong cider, which makes her loud and vulgar. Nobody laughs harder at an Essex girl joke than she does. She wears white
slingbacks and drives a white
Ford Fiesta. Essex girl is the female counterpart of
Essex man; both came into currency during the
1980s property boom, when sectors of British society enjoyed an affluence hitherto reserved for the
middle classes. Latterly the Essex girl image has waned, to be replaced in part by
chavette.
Main article: Valley girl
Alicia Silverstone and
Stacey Dash in
Amy Heckerling's
Clueless, played the part of two
valley girls. Valley girls are stereotypically spoiled brats, usually with wealthy parents and an active but superficial social life. They live in the
San Fernando Valley area of
Los Angeles, use distinctive words and expressions (such as "grody to the max"), and make excessive use of "totally" and "
like"; their dialect became known as
Valspeak.
Frank Zappa sang about these girls in his song "Valley Girl"; his daughter
Moon Unit Zappa performed the Valspeak during the song, some of it ad-libbed.
* The
evil albino, a possibly related stock character
*
Chav*
Bimbo*
Best Blonde Jokes - a collection of blonde jokes
*
Dumb Blonde Jokes - a wide repository of blonde jokes
*
"Valley Girl" lyrics - Lyrics to the song that popularised the valley girl phenomenon.
