Blonde stereotype

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.

The blonde bombshell is one of the most notable and consistently popular female character types in cinema. Many Hollywood celebrities have used it to their advantage, including Jean Harlow, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Brigitte Bardot and Mamie Van Doren.

There are several aspects to the stereotypical perception of blonde-haired women. A persistent stereotype takes men to find them more physically attractive than other women; 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, which extends in Brazil to blonde women's disparagement as sexually licentious.

"Blonde jokes" reinforce the depiction of the "dumb blonde." 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".

Annette Kuhn divides blonde stereotypes in cinema into three categories in The Women's Companion to International Film:

In cognitive linguistics, the stereotype uses expressivity of words to affect an emotional response which determines a gender role of a certain kind. In feminist critique, stereotypes like the "blonde bombshell" or the "dumb blonde" are seen as negative images that undermine the power of women.

The blonde bombshell is a gender stereotype that connotes a very physically attractive woman with blonde hair. 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".