Do Blondes really have more fun? Hollywood’s fetish for platinum.

by Emily Costello

Blonde hair (in a woman at least) has always come loaded with assumptions—promiscuity, stupidity, reduction to nothing more than a bimbo who is easily taken advantage of. They are stereotyped and fetishized, and if they god forbid attempt to take the archetype forced on them back into their own hands they are often subject to further scrutinised and sometimes even humiliation. This is no different in the unforgiving film industry, especially Hollywood, where blondes are heavily sought after, yet violated on and off screen.

One of the most frequent fetishizers of blonde starlets is Alfred Hitchcock, the master of horror and suspense who dominated Hollywood for over three decades. Preferring cold, icy blondes as his leading ladies and often attempting to seduce them, Hitchcock’s religious issues and troubled relationship with his mother began to affect not only the themes of his films but also his off-screen behaviour toward his actresses. His affection for blondes was so obvious that the term “Hitchcock Blonde” was even coined to refer to the almost white colour he favoured for his starlets. Most notable of these behaviours was Hitchcock’s attachment to actress Tippi Hedren. Hedren starred in two critically acclaimed Hitchcock films, The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). Hedren alleges that Hitchcock made sexual advances towards her and when she turned him down threatened to ruin her career , and claimed he had an unhealthy obsession and desire for her. Whilst filming for The Birds, during the climatic scene where Hedren's character is attacked by a group of birds, Hitchcock changed the birds used from mechanical to live ones at the last minute, and Hedren spent five days enduring torturous set conditions whilst filming the pictures most intense scene. Whether this was for Hitchcock’s own gain or for the sake of his ‘art’ is unknown, but he stated in the past that “actors should be treated like cattle”, emphasising his cruelty to the women he cast.

Hedren achieved the role of Marnie after Grace Kelly declined perhaps due to the nature of the script, which contained a scandalous rape scene that Hitchcock insisted on including. In fact, when the original scriptwriter Evan Hunter, who heavily objected to the scene, presented two versions of the script, one without the rape, Hitchcock fired him, insisting on its inclusion.

The most famous blonde bombshell in history can be none other than Marilyn Monroe, once considered for the role of Marnie won by Tippi Hedren. One of the most photographed women in the world and a sex symbol still desired (and fetishized) today, who endured mistreatment and sexualisation in both her public and private life. Monroe had an extremely difficult upbringing, with a mentally ill mother and absent father and grew up mostly in foster homes, where she was molested and taken advantage of. Although a great talent of the silver screen, Monroe’s image as a ‘dumb blonde’ and a sex symbol allowed for not only mockery at her expense but often dehumanising sexualisation of a kind and witty woman who desired to be a mother. Even over 60 years after her death, films like Blonde (Andrew Dominik, 2022) exploits her trauma for financial gain and disturbingly depicts depressing incidents in Monroe’s life, further sensationalising her public image, rather than the woman she actually was.

Hugh Hefner who has a history of obsessions with platinum blonde’s and made his empire of their sexualisation, became successful after purchasing the rights to nude photos of Monroe she had done years before under a fake name. Marilyn didn’t receive a penny of the money he made from them. Hefner even requested to be buried next to Monroe, and said “spending eternity with Marilyn is too sweet to pass up”. Monroe, who never even met Hefner, even in death is dehumanised, unable to rest in peace.

Marilyn wasn’t the only blonde who Hefner was oddly obsessed with. His whole brand, Playboy, and the creepy mansion that spanned from it, was built on the beautiful bombshells he employed. Arguably the most successful, yet perhaps the most disrespected was Pamela Anderson. Anderson was flown over from her hometown in rural Canada by Playboy, a young and naïve girl who would spend the rest of her career belittled and disrespected by the media. Her sex tape was stolen from her house and sold throughout the world, men profiting of her body and justifying it because of her involvement with Playboy. Her on screen appearances were often stereotypical blonde roles, heavily oversexualised and frequently thwarted by the possessive men in her private life, like her experience filming on Baywatch and Barb Wire (David Hogan,1996) , whilst married to ex-husband Tommy Lee. Her inability to move beyond her image as a blonde bombshell led to Anderson often being typecast. However, in the last few years, she has starred in the stage production of Chicago as Roxie, a role which brought her great success and personal fulfilment, suggesting that it is possible for a blonde to escape Hollywood’s stereotyping.

it would be impossible to discuss Hollywood’s fetish for blonde bombshells without mentioning the horror genre. In most horror, and more specifically the slasher genre, blondes are the easy target. Labeled as the ‘slut’ or ‘whore’, they are normally the first to die, often in hideous or gruesome deaths. In their book, ‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers’ Jude Dole describes this stereotype in relation to Final Destination 3 (James Wong, 2006). One of the most intense and terrifying scenes of the franchise involves the blondes being burned alive and electrocuted by sunbeds, further ‘punishing’ the girls for their ‘vanity’. The audience is invited to take a sick visual pleasure from their demise and Doyle sums it up perfectly, “It’s not entirely clear what the victims are being punished for, other than being pretty, young women with pretty young female bodies,” In Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, 2012), a film that breaks the fourth wall of the horror genre by discussing the archetypal roles often used in traditional slasher movies, this is further explored. The character of Jules (Anna Hutchinson) is drugged to lessen her intelligence and enhance her promiscuity so she may be more like the stereotypical slasher blonde, even though she is actually very smart and accomplished. This ironic discussion of the genre’s treatment of blondes not only makes for an interesting film but also challenges the role created in Hollywood for the fair haired.

Whilst it is an exaggeration to say that every blonde in Hollywood throughout history receives this mistreatment, it is fair to say that the blatant sexualisation and stereotyping of women for something as simple as a hair colour comes from systemic misogyny in the industry and a desire to pigeonhole multifaceted women like Monroe and Anderson and turn their own sexuality against them. It is my hope that someday blondes will be able to break out of the box of platinum dye and be free to live their private and public lives without judgment.

by Emily Costello, July 2023