If you’re my age and you’re a female, there’s a good chance that you’ve seen the Reese Witherspoon movie Legally Blonde. In the movie, Reese Witherspoon is just another university sorority girl with the most sought-after bachelor in her university and surrounding universities. In the beginning, he takes her out to dinner, where she thinks he is going to propose. After they’ve gotten there, he begins explaining that if he wants to be a well-known and respected lawyer, he would need to have a “Jackie, not a Marilyn” by his side, comparing Reese Witherspoon to Marilyn Monroe, the iconic blonde. Her proposal hopes are quickly diminished through his drawn-out break-up.

This brings up the decades-long argument that brunettes hold an intellectual precedent over blondes.

I’ve heard men say that while blondes are fun for a fling, brunettes are the ones they want to settle down with. This is especially concerning to me, as I have been a blonde for the majority of my life. I was blonde as a child and when my darker roots began growing out, I started dying my hair blonde. A six-month stint in 8th grade and another six-month stint this past year landed me a total of one year as a brunette in my entire twenty years of life. I found that my fiance thought I was ‘sexier’ as a brunette, but he also liked the idea of dating a blonde, because it brought to life his fantasy of dating a ‘playmate’. After going back to blonde in April, I’ve decided that I never want another hair color other than blonde. It just feels right. It’s me.

So, why are men like the fictional Warner Huntington afraid that they won’t be taken seriously in their careers if they have a blonde significant other? Is it because of the bad rap that blondes get for their sometimes lax intelligence? 

 

That being said, I believe that Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy-Onassis were beautiful in their own ways. Just like I think that Audrey Hepburn would be beautiful no matter what hair color she sported. Needless to say, she was more iconic as a brunette, but the roles she played in movies would stifle the argument that blondes should be taken less seriously than brunettes. I remember watching her in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and thinking she was so aloof and in all honesty, a little goofy. At some points in the movie, her mentality could even be compared to a child’s.

If men are planning on growing old with brunettes and using blondes for flings, then I suppose I’m doomed to a life of singledom because I refuse to give up my signature and best hair color.

Lovelies, how do you feel about this argument? Should blondes be respected less than brunettes because of their hair color? Why do you feel this way?