Talk:Blonde stereotype

message: I noticed that the image of Paris Hilton at the top of this page was changed by a user who has been repeatedly banned for making disruptive edits to images on various articles.  Frankly, I feel a little uneasy about pointing her out specifically, but it appears there has been an image of her on this article for a very long time, so I won't try to debate the reasoning for that.  But given the current status of the user who changed the image, I feel we should probably consider whether the change in image was necessary or is beneficial to this article.  Personally, I feel that the current image depicts Hilton more professionally, but since this article is about blonde stereotypes, I think we should revert back to the old image.  I believe the old image more accurately portrays Paris Hilton's portrayal of blonde stereotypes, but my editing experience on here is limited, so I'd rather not make such a major change unless I'm 100% sure it would indeed be helpful.  Pingrobb (talk) 04:51, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Change in Image: Reason?

message: What are more characteristics of a dumb blonde?
:I think being dumb and blonde are the two defining characteristics, any others would be irrelevant.  --fvw<SMALL>*</SMALL> 22:16, 2004 Dec 18 (UTC)
An example of a popular joke about dumb blondes:
Do you know how dies cerebral cells of blonde girls? By loneliness!!!!!!!!!!!
I think the definitive 'dumb blonde' is blonde, dumb and usually young and attractive - but not (neccesarily) sexual. A bimbo on the other hand is sexualised (and indeed may be a non-blonde)
There are virginal/non-sexualised dumb blondes:
*Melody Valentine from Josie and the Pussycats
*Kelly Gaines from Cheers
A bimbo on the other hand is usually sexualised:
*Harmony Kendall from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
*Linda from Becker (a non-blonde bimbo)
--Ross Nolan 11:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Characteristics

message: The Frankish, Norman, and Gothic-descended nobility of Europe tended to be darker-haired than the peasantry--what? 207.68.245.5 (talk) 01:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Medieval Europe

message: I don't know the Betty Cooper character, but in the film, at least, the whole point of the Buffy character was that she was  dumb-blonde type, who triumphed anyway. Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 19:07, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Buffy

message: I don't think Clueless really popularized the Valley Girl stereotype. When the movie Valley Girl came out in 1983, the idea of a Valley Girl was already well-ingrained in pop culture. Frank Zappa's song was released in 1982. Neither of these would have had any success if the Valley Girl stereotype wasn't already well-established. Al 15:59, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, in the case of Zappa, I suspect that not many people bought his records because of their lyrics — and I'm certain that most people outside (and many within) the U.S. didn't know what was being parodied, but enjoyed it anyway.  It's the sort of thing that does become known through parodies rather than in any other way. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 16:45, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Valley Girl

message: I'm not sure if this article is really NPOV. It seems like a matter of opinion if someone is a Bombshell or not. Pelago 13:27, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Opinion

message: Please forgive my ignorance where to put this...and the proverbial but,
Blonde woman lived north of the Roman empire.  There were blonde men also. Both, each, blue eyed.  Romans never called their ships she or their country she.  The Celts did and to this day many countries. Why would a society that praises women would call them dumb if they were light of hair.  Which leads us to Dumnorix.
A Celt/Gual king, crying out as Roman swords pierced him. "I am a Free man in a Free state". (not that I advocate kings but at the time it was better under Dummy than Ceasar. 
At the time there were other Gaulsih chieftains conspiring with Ceasar's troops.  Dumnorix died fighting against the Romans even though the odds were so stacked against him, maybe leaving the people to say don't be a dum(norix)my submit.  But I haven't met a blond who would.
The above remark was added 01:15, 5 May 2006 and originates from IP-address 65.8.31.23
In defence of Dumnorix, Dumnorix was not natural blond according to the museum image.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by PoeticReturn (talk • contribs) 11:15, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roman empire era 

message: I don't quite understand the new heading ".../blondes who are..." Does that not remove the 'interest' from the issue?
:Cameron Diaz natural blond? Recently seen pictures in which the bleaching is gone and a very natural deep black haircolor shows instead. But blue-eyed, which made the former artificial blond so much more look like real. 
:Don't think Miss Middler is natural blond. Seen a picture with black hair and it looked very much like real. She's got to much temperament for a 'temperate'. No Northern-Europide could sing for instance that 'Cuba-song', (what's it's exact title?) in a way, she does, unless eventually a natural orange-blond (which she might be). James Blond 05:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But she most likely isn't. Found this:; picture nr. 10 looks most natural of them all. Like that there's room enough for all those wigs, shown in most of the other pictures. All by all she's a Jewish person, who has been flaunting a lot with other persons feathers. But she can sing all right (unlike  other blackhaired wigwearer Madonna). James Blond 14:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Brunettes/redheads who are naturally blonde

message: Is this section needed? These women, that I know of, aren't really considered "dumb blondes" or at least not all of them. Shouldn't it be edited to either not be there or something like "natural blondes that fit the stereotype" or something? Black Kat 15:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Natural Blondes section

message: The character "Karen Smith" is included under "dumb blonde antitheses," as someone who defies the blonde stereotype and is intelligent or serious in demeanor. There are two problems with this:
1) The fictional Karen Smith is indeed dumb, although she is smart enough to recognize and regret her dumbness.
2) Her link leads to a real-life Karen Smith, a hockey player. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.255.245.109 (talk) 05:34, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Karen Smith 

message: The author(s) of the article mention(s) that the Ancient Greeks were fascinated by the blonde hair of northern barbarians. While this may be partly true, many heroes of the homeric tales had blonde (xanthos) hair: it was not at all something alien to them.
:No, that's true, it most definitely was not alien to them. Blonde hair was present in Greek society in general, both because of Nordic integration, as well as Greek exploration and travel to Nordic lands. The best example would probably be Helen of Troy, who famously had blonde hair, and that blonde hair was likely a primary aspect about her that Greeks found so very attractive.216.185.250.92 (talk) 04:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, indeed, part of the prehistoric ancestors of the Greeks (the part which also brought the language in) came from Eastern Europe. Phenotypically, the ancient Greeks were therefore mixed, especially in the Mycenaean period probably, where blond hair was typical of nobility. But, as with the Romans, this blond component of the population eventually merged in with the Mediterranean-type majority and modern Greeks and Italians now look mostly Southern European. This brings me to a different speculation. Medieval and Renaissance-era Italians, who were overwhelmingly dark-haired, tended to look down on the Germanic-speaking Northern Europeans as barbarians and goths (whence ultimately gothic with its morbid, medieval associations), and thus, in the eyes of Italians, blond hair was associated with primitivity and lack of fine culture. It's easy to see that in Italy, a stereotype of unintelligent blonds could easily arise. (Conversely, legends formed in Central Europe around Venetians, mysterious ore- or gold-seeking foreigners from southern lands, or eventually mountain spirits, dwarfs or trolls, with magical powers, similar to the stereotype of the wizard with a pointed hat with moons and stars on it, which is sometimes speculated to be inspired by contact with medieval Muslim astrologers, alchemists and other scholars, especially in Al-Andalus.) Just a spontaneous idea, though, but maybe somebody would like to look for evidence for this. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:57, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't find any mention of ancient Greeks in the article. Aditya(talk • contribs) 08:27, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you know, this is a wiki. Articles have a tendency to change. ;-) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blonde hair and Ancient Greeks 

message: Is this the Caucasian version of the China Doll stereotype, out of curiosity--69.234.207.238 (talk) 21:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  China Dolls 

message: Anyone wanna mention that incident in the article?
I think that this might have something to do with the "dumb slut" stereotype.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.77.168.209 (talk) 07:08, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Miss South Carolina (2007) answers incident? 

message: I proposed for the merge of Blonde jokes to Dumb blonde. To my opinion, they are too closely related to be in separate articles after all. Also, the section regarding the cultural impact of the blonde jokes, which is the only thing that is keeping the Blonde jokes article from deletion, is similar in content, if not almost identical, to the one in this article. Udonknome (talk) 03:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Support - these articles cover almost identical subjects. Blonde jokes essentially just contains examples of the dumb blonde stereotype - little more than an . It should either be merged into this article or deleted outright. Terraxos (talk) 18:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge proposal

message: I have a few problems with the "Sober theories of origins" section. Foremost, there is already an "Origins" section, so this section is redundant from the outset – why not just integrate the information into the Origins section? A fair amount of the info is already there. Additionally, the name of the section is weird. "Sober theories?" Are the other theories frivolous?
In terms of content, the section isn't particularly clear – it seems to be talking more about blondness itself, rather than the dumb blond stereotype. The sentence that (I guess?) makes the connection – "Therefore many wanted to believe that blond and rich women were stupid and cheap" – is pretty tenuous, uncited, and sounds like POV. Really, overall I think this section is extraneous. I'll probably delete it within a week or so if no one protests.
- DevOhm Talk 01:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Sober theories of origins" section 

message: A great deal of people who have blonde hair turn to darker blonde or brunette in puberty or later, but never the other way aroud.  Thereforem, take the mean age of someone who's blond, take the mean age of someone who's not, and you wind up with blonds being younger, hence associated with youth, including innocence, and naivety.--Loodog (talk) 03:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obvious origin 

message: I heard on the radio about a study in Germany on the effect of dumb blond jokes on blonds. Indeed, blonds do perform worse on mental tasks right after they've heard a dumb blond joke. Has anyone seen a reference on this? If I were an employer, I'd ban such jokes out of a fear of lowering the performance of some employees. (I have very dark brown hair.)Bostoner (talk) 04:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  That German Study 

message: Seems that there is some disagreement on external links.  Before the merge, blonde jokes contained links to good sources of blonde jokes. Since the merge, all links keep getting deleted.  There is interest in blonde jokes, so why not have links? Before deleting links, please discuss.  Other alternatives include unmerging the topics so that blonde jokes can specifically cater to those who are interested in them.  Thoughts?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.117.179.8 (talk) 11:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is not a web directory. Links are sources of references to encyclopedic information on the subject. Joke collections are not. People may easily google to  find hundreds if not thousands of joke websites with blonde jokes, including det]dicated ones. - Altenmann >t 19:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Bombshell (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RM bot 21:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: Marylin Monroe played the roles of dumb blond, in particular in her first movies such as "Gentlemen prefer Blonds" and "How to marry a millionnaire", for which she actually was named "Best actress" of 1953 by Photoplay magazine. Note: Obviously the role she plays (and not herself) is considred as of a Dumb Blond.
: in Victoria Sherrow (2006) Encyclopedia of hair: a cultural history, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 page: 274.
Note: I would apreciate that you assume good fate the next time before removing big chunk of content, and first start by putting tag into the text. Thanks. --Nabeth (talk) 22:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The reference in question says "a fragile woman who relied rather on her looks rather than on intelligence - what some people refer to as "dumb blond". This definition does not exactly match what is written in wikipedia and I would say rather questionable, but whatever. However I don't see why you don't add this reference into the article, which does mention Marylin Monroe among "dumb blondes" and it is already tagged. I am doing this for you. What about other actresses? Twri (talk) 03:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  If this definition does not match exactly, maybe it may mean that we should amend the Wikipedia definition if it is really one of the way people think of as a Dumb blond. One of the problem with using the term 'Dumb' is that it only refer to stupidity. In the french Wikipedia, the name of the article is "Blonde 'stereotype" (:fr:Stéréotype de la blonde) which refers to something slightly broader. Other actresses (or rather roles in cinema)? Sure. Actually, I was just wondering what was the exact impact of Cinema in the perception of this stereotype by the society. Yet, when thinking of dumb blond in cinema, the first character that come to my mind is Marylin Monroe, and it isn't indeed really about studipidy, but rather that what matters is the perception (like if some other part of my brain taking control). To finish, yes it would be good and I would thank you to make the addition, since I had previous contribution on this subject reverted. I would like to avoid playing too much the little game of editor / censor. --Nabeth (talk) 12:22, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Movies of Marylin Monroe in the Cinema 

message: There is no information in the article about when this idea that blondes are dumb emerged. Did it exist before Hollywood started to propagate it?--Victor Chmara (talk) 17:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the dumb blonde stereotype 

message: Could the concept of a blonde moment originate from the Yiddish word Gerblondz (not sure of the spelling), meaning confused?--MartinUK (talk) 16:44, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Gerblondz

message: Why are things repeated over and over on the article? Is it like that so that blondes can get it or what? Seriously.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.27.180.246 (talk) 02:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repetition in the article 

message: This article desperately needs an Etymology section. Just why is an attractive woman a "bombshell"? --NetRolller 3D 20:22, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology? 

message: As the Dumb blonde is a section of this article, so should Blonde stereotype be. No use having a separate article. Aditya(talk • contribs) 08:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge [[Blonde bombshell]] here 

message: The chapter in this book is titled "Marilun Monroe, the Inventor of Blondeness". Now that needs some serious exploration, methinks. Aditya(talk • contribs) 03:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monroe 

message: The first picture shown is very misleading as it is not a prime example of a Blonde stereotype and would not typically be associated with the general prejudices of being a blonde female. Her photo placement seems like self-promotion, in that, it is not a stock photograph nor is it a clear example of the associated subject matter. 65.73.44.148 (talk) 06:03, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're right and I've replaced the image. --NeilN talk to me 11:53, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alexz Johnson? 

message: I do not know how to format the references, so could someone please do it for me and add it in?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_student_performance
This link says Finland is second in Reading and first in science. Isn't Finland the blondest country in the world? Lightvd 04:39, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Lightvd, please provide a couple of sources that actually back up your statement. What you propose is pure synthesis. --NeilN talk to me 05:05, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Finland Smartest Country and Blondest 

message: The article has both "blonde hair" and "blond hair", both "blonde stereotype" and "blond stereotype", and both "blonde" and "blond" used as a noun (esp. in the phrase "dumb blonde"/"dumb blond", but also separately). It has "blonde jokes", "blonde bombshell", "blonde babe", and "blonde-haired individuals", but also has "blond woman", "blond men", "blond actresses", "blond girl", "blond character", "blond person", and "only 25 (5%) of the 500 CEOs were blond". I don't sense any logical pattern. This seems to simply be sloppy writing style.
As I understand it, the question of the spelling of "blonde" versus "blond" is somewhat of a mixture of national variations of English and the convention that sometimes "blond" is used to refer to men or to either men or women generically, and that "blonde" is sometimes reserved specifically to women and girls.
We should decide what our convention is for this article and apply it consistently. For what it's worth, I note that the article uses the spellings "characterization" and "feminization", and that all of the women who appear in the photographs are American celebrities (thus there are some national WP:TIES to the topic), so I suggest that the article be considered to be written in American English, such that American spelling conventions should generally apply.
—BarrelProof (talk) 19:34, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What is that convention? Aditya(talk • contribs) 05:43, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Frankly, I was hoping someone else would have a suggestion, but my current thought is to simply always use "blond" (without commenting about it in the article) except in direct quotations. I think "blond" is the most common spelling in American English, where it is frequently used for both genders, and thus it avoids WP:GENDER stereotyping problems. Here is one source that supports that view. Another possibility would be to always use "blond" as an adjective, and switch between "blond" and "blonde" according to gender when used as a noun. Here is one source that seems to support that view. But if we go in that direction, we have to decide which variant to use as a noun when the noun gender is unclear. That gets us into difficult WP:GENDER territory, which I think may be best to avoid by just always using "blond". —BarrelProof (talk) 18:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The English language doesn't give gender to words like the French do.  Also the French words were blound and blounde.  Where all of our words came from isn't relevant here.  Webster dictionary says Blond is the proper English spelling, with blonde just a variation.  We should just use blond everywhere, no need for a silent pointless e at the end.  Dream Focus 18:54, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't mind "blond". But, is that the convention? Aditya(talk • contribs) 15:04, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Blonde" versus "Blond" spelling uniformity 

message: Could we get some more up-to-date examples of who fit the ice cold/bombshell/etc stereotypes? Not all of us are versed in 60s pop culture. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:04, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples of types 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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message: The first image caption: The stereotypes of blond people, especially blonde women, are exemplified by the public image of Paris Hilton.[1][2][3] seems very unencyclopedic. Is that just my perception or should it be changed? NikolaiHo☎️ 05:50, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image caption 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: — Assignment last updated by StrawberryLemonade02 (talk) 19:16, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Black Women and Popular Culture

message: A great deal of content in this article fails to verify.
Starting with this sentence:
Feinman et al, '78 is linked  here. These authors do not anywhere say that men (Caucasian or otherwise) find blonde women more attractive than brunettes, redheads or women of other races. The word blond is written three times in the article, and it does not say in any case that blonde women are more attractive. 
On page 47, Table 1, the data for hair color perception is listed. 38% of men "liked" blonde women, while 41% "liked"  brunette. 21% liked women with other hair colors. The study says the opposite: most men did not prefer blonde women. Given the dated nature of this research and the fact that it wasn't even peer reviewed, I say we delete it entirely from the article.
Simpson and Douglas, '97 is, just as Feinman, another fabrication. Red Book Librarian (talk) 10:05, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Failures to verify