Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

Wherein Our Heroine is Facile and Shallow.

Occasionally, the grand void of our great national attention span spews up some meaningless either/or contest that will be endlessly debated. Chicken v. Egg, Tastes Great v. Less Filling, Red Sox v. Yankees, or my personal favorite: Blonde v. Brunette.

You see, I'm blonde. I would venture to guess that the number of blonde jokes currently roaming the internet, eagerly proclaiming the mental deficiency of the follically pale are about equal to the number of lawyer jokes currently roaming the internet, eagerly proclaiming the moral questionability of those who possess a J.D. Lucky me - I fall into both categories.

Here are some of the casual truisms that culture spews up regarding a woman's hair color: blondes are party girls, brunettes are serious; blondes are trashy, brunettes are sultry; blondes are stupid, brunettes are intelligent. Lastly, blondes are proclaimed to "have more fun."

Balderdash. I'll tell you who has more fun.

Redheads.

I went red for a few years in my twenties. I netted a single negative reaction from that decision, and that person was one of the few that actually noticed that red was not my natural hair color. I tried everything from strawberry blonde through Julianne Moore red to deep auburn. It was great. Where a blonde will be seen as "easy," a redhead will be approached with some deference, due to another truism: the legendary redheaded temper. So, where as a blonde plenty of people assumed I was dim, as a redhead I got many initial reactions that combined flattering interest with wary watchfulness. I can tell you which one I prefer.

It was fun for a time, but eventually I returned to the color that just comes out of my head. After all, I couldn't be bothered to color it forever. Now grey hairs are starting to come in. That's perhaps the one nice thing about being blonde - the grey won't really show for a while.

Posted: Thursday - June 03, 2004 at 07:40 AM | |