The blonde versus brunette rivalry is a rivalry—whether real, imagined, or fictional—between women with blonde hair and those with brown (brunette) hair. In popular culture and everyday conversation, the words blonde and brunette are sometimes used as nouns to refer to women by these two hair colors. This supposed rivalry is a common fictional theme in books, magazine articles, film, and television. The spectacle of blonde and brunette women engaged in physical fights with each other has been a male fantasy for many years.^[1]

Competitive events

Team Blonde during the 2011 Blondes vs. Brunettes Charity Powderpuff Football game

An example of a competitive event is the blonde vs. brunette chess matches that began in 2011 as part of the World Chess Tournament held in Moscow. The matches were hosted by the Botvinnik Central Chess Club and featured two teams of young girls: blondes dressed in light colors and brunettes dressed in dark colors. This was a reference to the light (White) and dark (Black) pieces used by chess opponents. All of the contestants had to prove a degree of expertise to participate. The inaugural 2011 match was won by the brunettes, who also went on to win the 2016, 2018, and 2019 matches. The teams of blondes defeated the brunettes in 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2017.^[2][3] The 2013 match, also held at the Central Chess Club, resulted in a tie score.^[4][5]

Blonde vs. brunette rivalries in U.S. society date back to at least 1875, when the first female professional baseball players were assigned to teams according to their hair color. Baseball historian John Thorn notes that blonde and brunette baseball teams barnstormed the country in the late 1800s.^[6] A 1924 newspaper article referenced a female swimming meet and listed, among the many events, a "blonde vs. brunette" relay race, that was "Won by the blondes".^[7] A more recent example is the gridiron football game called blondes vs. brunettes powderpuff football, a charity event that raises money for the Alzheimer's Association.^[8] The annual contests started in the fall of 2005, in Washington D.C. The games have received considerable publicity, including feature articles in The Washington Post, and are now played in 16 cities around the United States.^[9][10] In some cases, blondes and brunettes on the same team may compete against each other. Anson Dorrance, the women's soccer coach at the University of North Carolina, is known for dividing his team into blondes and brunettes and then having them compete against each other. Losers have been forced to stand in front of the goal facing the rear of the net while the winners take penalty shots against their posteriors.^[11] Dorrance, in his years of coaching female athletes, claims to have learned that women are motivated differently from males and that his "blondes vs. brunettes drill" worked with his female team because it was a "matter of pride".^[11][12]

Tug of war events have also featured teams of blondes and brunettes competing against each other. During a 1918 picnic in Ohio, a tug of war between blondes and brunettes was "Won by the blondes (They stripped the brunettes off the rope against a tree like beads off a string.)"^[13] Sports writer Pete Axthelm refereed a 1978 tug of war between blonde and brunette women at a Kentucky charity event, declaring the blonde team, led by Anita Madden, winners of the event.^[14]

In the media and entertainment industry

Matching blondes and brunettes against each other, especially as romantic rivals, is a Hollywood technique that extends back to at least the early 1930s. In a 1932 interview with an Australian newspaper, Hollywood director Dorothy Arzner stated that lead women typically had brunette hair, while supporting women typically had blond hair. Arzner also stated that blond women were usually cast as "fickle" types, while brunettes are cast as "deep lovers".^[15]

A blonde vs. brunette rivalry exists Archie Andrews within the Archie Comics series.^[16]

Betty and Veronica form a blonde vs. brunette rivalry in the Archie Comics series

Three's Company, an ABC sitcom that ran from 1977 to 1984 featured a blonde and brunette triangle. The blonde, Chrissy Snow, was played by Suzanne Somers and the brunette, Janet Wood, was played by Joyce DeWitt.^[17] Somers and DeWitt were continually faced with media stories that described both an on and off-screen "rivalry"^[18] between the two co-stars. Both women repeatedly denied the stories and attempted to dispel "the myth that women, especially blondes and brunettes, can't get along in Hollywood."^[18] This show was based on the British sitcom Man About the House, which likewise had brunette Paula Wilcox and blonde Sally Thomsett and Richard O'Sullivan as the man in the middle.

Other film and TV examples

A 2016 Washington Post article highlighted the tension between blondes and brunettes in Hollywood productions saying, "In movies, blondes and brunettes often have to battle it out." Examples included^[19]

• Harry Potter. Draco, as the blonde-haired bully and foil to the dark-haired Harry Potter
• Cruel Intentions. Dark-haired Sarah Michelle Gellar, in a love triangle with Ryan Phillippe, spreads rumors about Reese Witherspoon to include her being a fake blonde
• Rocky IV. Sylvester Stallone battles his blonde nemesis, Drago
• The Karate Kid. Bad boy Johnny, played by William Zabka, has a head full of blonde hair, a popped collar, and money. He bullies dark-haired Ralph Macchio in this 1984 movie.
• Tangled. Flaxen-haired Rapunzel enacts revenge on her raven-haired step mother.

Other notable films and TV shows that used a blonde vs. brunette set-up or was perceived as using such by the media include:

Review for the 1925 movie A Thief in Paradise, highlighting a polo match between blonde and brunette women in bathing suits

• A Thief in Paradise. Directed by George Fitzmaurice the movie includes a polo match between a team of brunettes and another team of blondes, each attired in bathing suits.^[20][21]
• The Bachelor. Season 14 featured Jake Pavelka as the worthy man and was advertised by CBS as ""It's blondes vs. brunettes in the first sexy, barefoot football scrimmage in Bachelor history!"^[22] The brief football game followed a dinner held inside a mansion. Dividing the teams up evenly into blondes and brunettes was Pavelka's suggestion to the female contestants. Some critics were dismissive of the season premiere's set-up: "In what sounds like a 1962 frat boy's fantasy, it's soon a barefoot, evening attired brunettes versus blondes football scrimmage."^[23]
• Blonde or Brunette. Adolphe Menjou stars in this 1927 silent film comedy as a businessman who must choose between his blonde wife, played by Greta Nissen and a dark haired rival played by Arlette Marchal. Although there is no physical confrontation between the two women, one film critic headlined the movie's review by saying "Blonde and Brunette Fight it Out in This Film".^[24]
• Fort Ti. Joan Vohs and Phyllis Fowler fight for the affections of George Montgomery. Advertisements for the film showed Vohs and Taylor captured in what was referred to as blonde vs brunette fight.^[25]
• Hot Blood. A 1956 musical drama starring Jane Russell and Cornel Wilde where Wilde is tricked by his brother into a disposed marriage with tempestuous Annie Caldash, played by Russell. "One of the liveliest scenes in the movie is a hair pulling battle, blonde vs brunette, when Jane encounters a rival for her hubby's affections ... and a free-for-all with blonde Helen Westcott follows."^[26]
• One Million Years B.C. While the movie includes a well-known fight scene between blonde Raquel Welch and brunette Martine Beswick, the primary aspect of the "rivalry" was the juxtaposition of an intellectually superior, generous, peaceful, and compassionate tribe of blue-eyed blondes, which Welch was a member of, and a primitive, self-centered, violent tribe of dark eyed brunettes, of which Beswick was a member.^[27][28] The confrontation between the two women occurred soon after Welch joined the brunette tribe as a newly found mate of one of the tribe's male members, arousing the jealousy of Beswick.^[29]

"[In] the famous sci-fi epic One Million Years B.C. ... I played Loana, Queen of the Shell People and producer Michel Carreras had his heart set on a blonde ... she was the good girl. We know that because she was a blonde. There was also not-so-good girl, the Queen of the Rock People. She had to have black hair. When we had our famous girl fight it would be good against evil ... blonde against brunette." - Raquel Welch^[30]

• In 2003, a Miller Lite television commercial, produced by Oglivy and Mather,^[31] played upon the rivalry by bringing back its "Great Taste/Less Filling" campaign in a controversial fashion. The campaign, titled "Catfight," featured "a blonde and a brunette fighting each other over why each drinks Miller Lite". During the fight, the women exchange blows in a fountain and lose much of their clothing, exposing significant cleavage on TV. The final scene has the women falling into a large vat of liquid concrete, analogous to a mud wrestling match.^[32][33] The ending of the commercial revealed the fight as a fantasy conjured up by two men drinking Miller Lite in a bar. A second commercial also featured a fight between a brunette Natalie Denise Sperl and a blonde, as well as a Spanish language commercial featuring a blonde and a brunette fighting at a soccer game.^[34]

Research and studies

A 2008 study found that men in Greater London, England preferred dark haired women rather than women with blonde hair.^[35] A 2018 study based on University of Florida students found that men prefer brunette women over blonde women.^[36] These studies offered differing explanations for this preference. Worthham, et al. (2018) propose that stabilizing selection (preference for people with normal appearances) may be responsible for the male preference of dark-haired women. These authors noted that, while women from different geographic regions varied their preferences in male hair color, men did not vary in their preference for female hair color across regions.^[36] However Swami, et al. (2008) have posited that men may prefer women with dark hair because they are predominant in the fashion and modelling industries, or because they may be perceived as healthier or more fertile than blonde women.^[37]

In a 2012 interview with NBC News, Lisa Walker, chair of the sociology department at the University of North Carolina, explained that hair color "absolutely" plays a role in the way people are treated.^[38] A Cornell University study showed that blonde waitresses receive larger tips than brunettes, even when controlling for other variables such as age, breast size, height and weight.^[39]

The local NBC news affiliate in Charlotte tested Walker's theory by asking a natural blonde to walk around the Charlotte business area, drop a scarf and keep going. The volunteer did it 20 times as a blonde and then 20 times wearing a brunette wig. As a blonde, every time she dropped the scarf a bystander picked it up for her, but when wearing a dark-haired wig, people simply mentioned that the scarf was dropped or ignored it altogether, only occasionally picking the scarf up for her.^[38]

A well-publicized 2011 University of Westminster study, however, evaluated how men perceived women who entered a London nightclub as a blonde or a brunette. The study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, used the same woman and had her dye her hair a different color for each visit.^[40] After spending some time in the club, she departed and then researchers entered the club and interviewed the men who had engaged her in conversation. The results showed that, as a blonde, she was more likely to be approached for conversation than as a brunette. However, when the researchers interviewed the men who spoke to her, the men rated her more intelligent and attractive as a brunette than as a blonde.^[41] Many news organizations covered the story as evidence that blondes were not preferred over brunettes.^[42][43]

In 2014, a study analyzed the experiences of blonde Swedish women who migrated to Singapore, a country with a large population of Chinese people. Swedish women were ranked below Chinese women in the female beauty hierarchy. According to the author, the blonde hair of Swedish women reduced their femininity, because it was racialized as a Western trait. The authors also noted that these women's Swedish husbands were highly attracted to local East Asian women, which further reduced the self-esteem of the blonde Swedish women.^[44][45]

In March 2016, a study by the Ohio State University was published in the Economics Bulletin.^[46] According to Jay Zagorsky, author of the study, the results show that: "the average IQ of blondes was actually slightly higher than those with other hair colors, but that finding isn't statistically significant." He adds: "I don't think you can say with certainty that blondes are smarter than others, but you can definitely say they are not any dumber."^[47]

Another study by the University of Tampa, which also used male and female students, found male students preferred brunette women over blonde women by 40%, while female students preferred brunette women over blonde women by 48%.^[48]

According to Lora Jacobi and Thomas Cash, it has also been shown that blonde women overestimated the percentage of men who would choose blonde hair as their ideal hair color. Among blonde women in their study, 92.9 percent rated blond hair as ideal, with half believing that men would choose so as well. In reality, only 34.8 percent of men said they preferred women with blond hair.^[49]

See also

• Blonde stereotype
• Colorism
• Discrimination based on hair texture
• Human hair color
• Human skin color
• Melanin
• Prejudice and discrimination against redheads

References