Dumb blonde

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The dumb blonde is a popular-culture stereotype typically applied to people with blonde hair colour, most frequently women. The archetypical "dumb blonde", while attractive and popular, lacks both common street-sense and academic intelligence, often to a comedic level.

Numerous actresses have played characters labelled as "dumb blondes", famously including Marilyn Monroe, Suzanne Somers (primarily for her role as Chrissy Snow on Three's Company), and Goldie Hawn (for her persona on the variety show Laugh-In.) Country music chaunteuse Dolly Parton, aware of this occasional characterization of her, has used it to her own benefit, performing songs such as Dumb Blonde. More recently, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton, have both been characterized as dumb blondes due to their public personas, which are portrayed by popular culture as promiscuous and self-absorbed.

There is a common category of jokes that employ the dumb-blonde stereotype for their effect. They usually involve a situation in which a blonde performs a random or dangerous act because she misconstrued the meaning of the words describing the act, to comedic results. Another variation employs two blondes, one as the recipient of the other's stupid question, only to give an even more ridiculous answer herself.

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Like many popular-culture stereotypes, the origins of this concept are murky. The 1925 Anita Loos novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady (later used as source for a film by the same name starring Marilyn Monroe) featured the character Lorelei Lee, a beautiful but empty-headed singer. While some look to this as the source for the concept, in fact, it might be far older.

Some have suggested that, because Caucasian babies are often born with at least a touch of blonde hair, an association has arisen tying those having fair hair with childhood and youth (and the accompanying proclivities toward naïvité and/or innocence). Also, as blonde hair is often associated with physical attractiveness and youth, some argue that those around blondes may have a tendency to admire or fawn over them, encouraging some to behave in a child-like manner (consciously or not) in order to gain attention and affection. On the other hand, some have postulated that the association is far older, having 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. In Medieval Europe, the upper classes tended to be darker haired than the peasantry, likely due to the period tendency to marry within one's own class and the fact that lower class people were far more exposed to sunlight. Blonde hair was, at this time, often associated with commoners, who were ostensibly deemed less intelligent. Puritans, associating makeup and dyeing of hair with prostitution, forbade the dyeing or bleaching of hair, creating an imprint on dyeing 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]. Or, the idea might stem from the idea amongst Romans and Greeks that Northern Europeans were barbarians and thus less advanced than Southern Europeans.

There have been efforts to subvert the stereotype with blonde female fictional characters who are intelligent and appropriately serious in demeanour.

Character Fiction Piece
Capt./Maj./Lt. Col. Samantha Carter Stargate SG-1
Jennifer Marlowe WKRP in Cincinnati
Veronica Mars Veronica Mars
Peyton Sawyer One Tree Hill
Chloe Sullivan Smallville
Maddie Fitzpatrick The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
Claire Bennet Heroes
Urumi Kanzaki Great Teacher Onizuka
Mandy Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
Penny Inspector Gadget
Seven of Nine Star Trek: Voyager
Buffy Summers* Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Although the Buffy Summers from the TV Series may not be characterized as a dumb blonde, the film Buffy may be.

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 stereotypical 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 improvised.

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