Educational Media Reviews Online

The classic stereotype of blond women as fun-loving and glamorous but lacking substance is the topic of this clever documentary narrated and directed by the New Zealand born Sally Aitken. This engaging film, framed by colorful comic-strip images, brings to the screen a playful exploration on what it means to be blond. Two brunettes, actresses Angela Case and Karen Holness, and one blond actress, Aubrey Arnason, are shown in different settings interviewing and interacting with people to capture their conception, or misconception, of the essence of the blonde, as well as to depict how they are perceived by others.

As the three actresses interview men and women about their perception of blond women, the answers confirm the myth of younger looking, seductive, attractive, not very intelligent but preferred company for fun. To determine if gentlemen do indeed prefer blonds, each woman poses “in distress” on a busy road with a broken down car in order to determine if the hair color affects people’s offers to help. Interestingly, only two cars stop for the brunettes Angela and Karen, but blond Aubrey attracts seven offers. To test the hypothesis, Angela and Karen become blonds and Aubrey becomes a brunette. Karen observes that “people want to explain things more thoroughly to me” while Aubrey is now taken more seriously. Also remarkably, the average guesses of their ages drop to 26 from 33 for newly blond Karen and to 24 from 28 for Angela. The documentary illustrates the fact that as a society we subscribe and perpetuate the blond mythology and other stereotypes. These values, as unconscious as they may be, are deeply embedded in our cultural values, continuously reproduced and reinforced by the media for our consumption.

This entertaining but serious documentary also presents clips of interviews with different academics and Hugh Hefner, editor in chief of Playboy. A colorful collage of vintage hair care ads, pop culture icons, archival film footage, and fairy tale heroines Goldilocks, Rapunzel, and Cinderella provide humor and visual interest. Highly recommended for classes and discussions on and media and image of women, cultural stereotypes, and gender and consumption.