Not offended or angry, but quizzical

[bohemiancoast]

Why is this joke, which was extremely funny and completely unacceptable when told about Paddy the Irishman, suddenly acceptable when told about blondes?

Have we decided, as a culture, that it's acceptable to take the piss out of women who just happen to be blonde? Or do we really think that blondes are stupider? Can you imagine this joke being told about blond men? Note the classic strategem of apologising to the group maligned in the joke, too. ("Oh no, flickgc or hhfishlifter. I didn't mean you! Obviously you're not dumb. But everyone knows that 'blondes' in this joke means 'generic group of people mocked for their stupidity'.")

Both men and women shown pictures of blonde women judge them to be stupider than pictures of the same women with dark hair, red hair or grey hair. So I think it's a pretty safe bet that they're discriminated against at school and in the workplace too.

Blonde women tell tales of being systematically put down all through school because of their hair colour. And there are far more blonde jokes now than there used to be. Now, it's fine for adults to dye their hair whatever colour they like, but we don't normally encourage children to dye their hair. Is it reasonable to expect blonde girls to put up with people assuming they're stupid, and making jokes at the expense of their ethnic group?

Comments

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

Why is this joke, which was extremely funny and completely unacceptable when told about Paddy the Irishman, suddenly acceptable when told about blondes?

It isn't.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

From my point of view it isn't. There's no reason to demean anyone for any physical feature, chosen career, nationality or other distinguishing characteristic. Unfortunately homo sapiens is naturally tribal, and as a result xenophobic rather than xenophiliac.

It's annoying and upsetting, and I have no idea what we can do about it...

[drplokta]

We need to find an ethnic group that doesn't exist about whom to tell jokes. I vote for the Elbonians.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Or how about drummers?

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I'll be having words with you later, Bisson.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

A hit! A palpable hit!

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

How about people who quote Shakespeare? (or extend it to people who quote petry at length in ordinary conversations :-)

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm a lot cooler about drummers. The difference, you see, is that drumming is a lifestyle choice. And this joke would have worked just fine with drummers, too.

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

I went blonde to match a dress and stayed because it's much more me; that might be a lifestyle choice.

the thing is, as a joke - it's funny. As a joke about blondes - it's offensive because it's laughing at a stereotype. It's both at once, like so much humour. The balance tends to lie in a mix of who tells it, why they tell it and how they tell it. Father Ted never seemed offensive because there was so much affection in it.

I've been thinking a lot about a recent line on the West Wing (is it Ok for colleagues to make comments about your appearance? I saw yes, if they treat you professionally anyway) and about the reaction to Estelle Morris resigning (women in public life getting judged at least in the media on different criteria from men). If we could get past this gender bias on ability and appearance we could enjoy blonde jokes without them being offensive - but would they be funny?

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Just don't be dissin' filkers.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Some of my best friends are (samba) drummers...

When I was younger ...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

... I remember joke books using "Martians" instead, though it does lead into jokes that start

"Two Martians walk into a bar, and Mick turns to Paddy and says ..."

A couple of the smartest women I've ever met were blonde, and one of them, in sixth form, acted the dumb blonde part wonderfully; bubbly, vivacious, social ... and when I asked what she was going to be doing at uni it turned out she was going to do medicine and was expected to get four A grade A-levels ...

... There's an interesting commentary about pretty girls and smart girls in, I think, Love & Rockets. Which basically (IIRC) divided girls (young women if you prefer) into three categories. Pretty (meaning that they could get what they wanted by looks and personality), Smart (which meant that they didn't have the looks so they had to apply intelligence) and Weird (good looking but still applied intelligence). The theory being that applied intelligence is there to achieve goals and takes effort, so if you have some way of achieving the goal without that effort, you're likely to not use your intelligence.

Blonde women, in many Western cultures, are usually regarded as the "prettiest" (Ulrika, Kylie, Cameron Diaz, generic cheerleader, Princess Di etc.) and as such are quite often spoiled as children and treated better (this is my theory, feel free to disagree). This means that they have found a perfectly valid way of achieving their goals without having to study hard (why "study hard" when you're told that you can get what you want by smiling, by the promise of sex, and that you'll be emotionally fulfilled by marrying a successful man and raising his children ... )

Yes, it's discrimination, as much as treating any particular race as "stupid" or "criminal" and the hard thing in that is that environment has such a major impact on academic achievment (I think it was either Estelle Morris or William Stubbs that said that of course A level grades were going up, more of the children had better educated parents and this was a well know and accepted factor in a child's achievement). If a child is raised in a society where petty theft is condoned and rewarded, they will take that as "the truth". If they are raised in an environment of violence, then again they are likely to believe violence is valid. And if they are raised in an environment where being cute and blonde gets you what you want, why would they study (unless they are forced to/encouraged to or are "weird" as mentioned above).

This is a vicious cycle/loop and it means that I'd love to see comparative IQ scores for differently coloured haired women in an area where there are no other ethnic factors (e.g. if there are a lot of Jews or Indians in the area, those cultures strongly value education, so it is likely that the children will be given time to study, encouragement to succeed academically etc. I believe this to be true, maybe this is racism, if so I need to learn better)

Blondes have more fun

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

I hate to be so un PC but this is a load of cobblers. Judging by the children I see streaming out of the high school oposite me, 9 out of 10 girls dye their hair blonde as soon as they're allowed near a packet of Clairol. There's certainly far far more blondes than there were in my year at (Scottish) school and I don't think you get much mutation within a twenty year period.. my nieces both dyed (highlighted, streaked etc) their hair from the age of 10 or 12 and this seems normal nowadays. I think there's far more positive endorsements to become blonde due to its connotation bubbly sexy etc than there are putdowns. No one seriously thinks blondes are stupid when they tell these jokes; they just need, as Mike has sussed, a target for generic jokes about "stupid people". On the other hand as somone who recently became blonde I am fairly certain more people really do turn their head to look at you when you walk into a room or party which I, and probably most schoolgirls like (tho some obviously might not).

In picking a generic group of stupid people, I myself am tempted to make jokes about "university secretaries" . That will no doubt make me REALLY popular.

And then of course there's the suppressed joke about Tonies... (bwa ha ha)

Re: Blondes have more fun

[sneerpout.livejournal.com]

Me being me, the minute I was allowed near a box of Clairol, I dyed my blonde hair black. Fifteen years on and I'm still being hit with Goth jokes. So perhaps the immoral of the story is that human beings will find something to poke fun at regardless.

Re: Blondes have more fun

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

Judging by the children I see streaming out of the high school oposite me, 9 out of 10 girls dye their hair blonde as soon as they're allowed near a packet of Clairol.

Remember that the person making this point about children's hair has a blonde daughter who probably hasn't been given hair dye to play with just yet.

Re: Blondes have more fun

[akicif.livejournal.com]

You'll have seen the one that starts with the head of department leaping tall buildings and talking to God, working down to the lowly postgrad tripping into walls and talking to himself, before finishing with the departmental secretary, who IS God?

As a culture, then I think, yes we have ..

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

... and while each of us "knows" better, there are films like "Legally Blonde" and characters like Marilyn Monroe and Patsy (in AbFab) and so many other areas where the blonde is very pretty and very stupid. And the big twist is quite often when it turns out the blonde has a brain as well.

But this hasn't always been the case, the blondes in the Film Noir detective movies were always both smart and devious.

But this hair colour thing goes further: Red Heads are firey and fun, brunettes are more intelligent and sensible. And it's true for men as well. "Ginger" men are ridiculed, blonde men are considered weak willed or admired for their physicality, while most CEOs are dark haired.

Could there be a genetic basis to this? Is there something about blue-eyed blondes and the fact that two recessives must meet up for that description to be true (I believe) be possibly some indicator that there are other genetic weaknesses (but aside from a penchant for Saabs, saunas and suicide, I'm not aware of any great Scandinavian plague, though of course they practiced euthanasia up until the 1960s...)

I've just done a fair bit of websurfing to see if there are any believable comparative figures, and I couldn't find any ... the best we could have done locally was the BBC "Test the Nation" which did have some figures by hair colour I believe, but they've taken down all those pages.

In the meantime, two URLs to check out.

I'd love to read this site, but it's blocked from work http://www.neoteny.org/a/femalesexualselection.html
Another interesting site
See http://www.unc.edu/~kmbooth/moore.html

Legally Blonde

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

The "joke" was that the vacuous airheaded blonde, when it looked like she'd lose her dark haired rich "aristocrat" boyfriend, decided she had to get into Harvard Law School with him, so she studied and succeeded.

The moral of the story (in that part at least) is that you can actually be very clever and able to study, but being blonde means you don't have to (usually) and very few people seem to have attacked the film on that basis.

Re: Legally Blonde

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

See, I thought that the joke was that she was a really good lawyer *becuase* she was a dumb, high maintenance blonde..

Re: Legally Blonde

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

I commented on this earlier, and deleted it, and have now decided to re add it folowing what I wrote below about Buffy. The moral of Legally Blonde is that the character grows through the movie by discovering there are things she can only get by using her brain not just by being blonde and beautiful ; she starts off just wanting her boyfriend back; by the end she is earning her own self respect and the respect of other people who (implicitly) are more worthy of both her and the audience's time eg the rather cardboard fiancee of the last scene. What is lovely about Legally Blonde is that she gets to that stage WITHOUT losing either her beauty, her popularity or her joie de vivre. It is in this sense partly having-it-all post feminism and in an other sense simple impossible escapism and rather sad. But I love it, not least because the main character really does remind me hugely of my own elder niece (yes the same one who streaks her hair blonde) who now has a very nice career but is also v happy with her nice clothes, nice car, nice hair and nice boyfriend. And Why Not??

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Have we decided, as a culture, that it's acceptable to take the piss out of women who just happen to be blonde?

It doesn't actually say that the group of blondes is women; only the leader's gender is specified.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

First, a group of blondes is by definition female, if they're all male, or a mixed group, they're a group of blonds. Second, blonde jokes are jokes about blonde women, and in fact they're much more about the alleged stupidity of a particular class of women than they are about the alleged stupidity of people with blonde hair.

Blondes vs Blonds

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Did you know, I didn't know that a group of male blondes was a group of male blonds? I've learned something today.

If I had to think about what the joke meant to me (rather than me retelling a joke told by a blonde woman (Sarah Kennedy) on national BBC Radio 2 this morning) I'd have said that it was probably as Alison said, about a particular class of woman (the sort of woman that spends 24 hours of the day "having a blonde moment" as I've heard it described, by a woman who happened to have light coloured hair)

All the rest of this is IMHO, ok?

There *are* women out there that have a particular approach to life, the sort that can't change a plug or a light bulb or a tire, and have no interest in ever finding out how to do so. The kind that put makeup and clothing ahead of just about anything else. But for each individual woman that presents that appearance to the world, there are others that are totally different but share a hair colour. And I'm sure there are dark haired (or red haired) women who are just as "blonde" for that meaning of blonde.

It is my belief (backed up by green_amber's experience and a couple of websites I found while searching for "blonde discrimination intelligence" that a woman with blonde hair will attract more attention, there's either something cultural or something primal in the wiring of males that the bright colour attracts attention. And perhaps there's some aspect of social conditioning that "blondes" feel they have to play a particular role and this just reinforces the vicious downward spiral.

Re: Blondes vs Blonds

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

I think *that* "blonde" is the feminine, and no-e is the masculine.

It's what I use, anyway, and there must be a reason for me doing so!

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

First, a group of blondes is by definition female, if they're all male, or a mixed group, they're a group of blonds.

I didn't actually know that. In fact, I'm not sure there's really a distinction on This Side of the Pond. (To be fair, I've never actually checked.)

blonde jokes are jokes about blonde women

I'm not sure this is true; I've heard the same jokes told about guys.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

I'm not blonde.

I'm ginger.

Wow, I'm actually gritting my teeth as I type this

[dalmeny]

It's not acceptable. It's tiring and it's dull. If someone tells me a blonde joke, I will usually completely lose interest in whatever else that person has to say, if only because I start to associate the speaker with the sort of person who told me blonde jokes when I was an undergraduate. These people were usually poorly-socialised young male engineering students, typically those who had gone to single-sex high schools and who weren't entirely convinced yet that women were in fact human. I strongly doubt that the_magician bears any resemblance to these people, but an association has now been made.

Now that I am a proper grown-up and all, I seldom have to deal with people who find this sort of thing amusing (also, my hair has darkened somewhat). But a couple of months ago I was at a party attended by Person A, whose entire conversational style consisted of nervous locker-room humour and the denigration of women and gay men. I have to say that I was surprised by the strength of my reaction. Conversationally, I am normally a very placid individual, and I am pleased to say that I did not actually lose my temper, but vile and devastating retorts ran through my head. On several occasions I had to change seats because I was becoming overwhelmed by thoughts of doing actual physical violence to his person. It turned out that dmw felt the same way and we ended up leaving the party early.

I agree with green_amber that blondes are still thought to be more attractive, but I can't see this as too positive if the stereotype is "attractive and stupid" especially if there's an underlying assumption that only stupid women can be sexually attractive.

stereotyping

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

It's true, people generally will rate the intelligence of a dark-haired woman as higher than that of a light-haired woman, all other things being equal.

But it's also true that they'll rate the likeability and performance of the light-haired woman as higher than that of the dark-haired woman, all other things being equal.

Blondes, like other groups considered more attractive, are marginally more likely to get dates, job offers and raises, all other things being equal.

So who's the real victim here?

- Not a Blonde
(at least, not since I was very, very young)

Re: stereotyping

[dalmeny]

So who's the real victim here?

Um, blondes who want to be taken seriously and brunettes who want to be viewed as attractive?

I think you're suggesting that "I'm more victimised than thou" arguments are pointless, and I agree.

My objection is that this technique of constant belittlement is damaging to both the person making the joke and to the group being joked about. And yet it's still passed off as harmless fun.

Uppity women?

[maryread.livejournal.com]

Yikes, here it is 2002, not 1972, and I am reading here the very same conversation that I had with my best friend in high school. She was blonde. She was tall. She was athletic at a time when that meant she could be a cheerleader, but not a basketball player. She had a brain in her head too. It was hard times. Now there is much better funding for girls' athletic teams. But the brain in your head part is no better for either boys or girls than it ever has been, and possibly worse. You don't have to be able to put a coherent sentence together to be President.

I think there is a historic difference in how these issues played out culturally in the U.S. and in the U.K. Now we share this language about "political correctness" but the value of intellectual effort and verbal expertise is entirely different in our cultures. Divided by a common tongue, like the fellow said.

It has a lot to do with why Bridget Jones was such a hit in Britain and sank pretty quietly here in the States. The issues of appearance makes women crazy in similar ways on both sides of the water, but the intelligence issues seem to be different. I was going to say, some of my best friends are blonde... and so is Hillary Clinton, who still gets a hard way to go.

Re: Uppity women?

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

I hate (again) to be so stereotypically me, but what about Buffy? there's your classic buzzy, beautiful, ditzy popular cheerleader style blonde who in typical Joss Whedon metaphorical style has to face up to the responsibility & reality of actually being clever and competent and brave (and sometiems not automatically poular because if thexze things). if that isn't a metaphor for the fact that women can't get by on being dumb and attractive alone (however nice and easy that might be, and yes, it IS sometims v tempting) then I don't know what it is. (Curiously the nearest there was to a dumb blonde in Classic Buffy was Cordy, who was the most dark haired character apart from Angel. It is in fact noticeable that the less Joss has had to do with the day to day running of the series the more characters have become blonde or blonder - Anya, Cordy, Willow. Is Spike a dumb blond?)

Buffy very minor spoiler about hair styles!

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Yes Spike is a dumb blond, he makes several choices in the last few series (like those eggs) which are not the sign of someone intelligent, and Drusilla was the brains in the pair ... it took Harmony to make him look not quite as dumb (but only just) ... he sits around his crypt watching TV, playing poker for kittens, has Clem as a friend, enjoys himself by drinking and desperately wants to be loved (when the writers, as usual, forget he's a demon and evil). He has some street smarts, but his hair is always well styled, he's got the outfits sorted out and he can achieve most of what he wants without particular application of intelligence ... it's only when he wants things that terrorising and biting can't provide (e.g. Buffy) that he starts to use his mind.

spoiler space
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In season seven, some characters change their hair styles! Both Spike and Anya go darker, though Anya goes a lot darker ... and Willow's hair is longer and flows gorgeously <grin!>

I wish they all could be...

[maryread.livejournal.com]

Well, having seen very little indeed of Buffy, I have to say she does not strike me as a cheerleader. Maybe a wannabe. She is a New Kid, which is something I have far more experience of than anyone ought. She might sort into cheerleader if high school lasted long enough, but she is first an outsider.

But I have a basic lack of understanding and appreciation for the whole Valley Girl thing that Buffy is spoofing. Like Bridget, she is not as shallow as the bimbo ideal of American womanhood is spozed to be. Footnote here for Clueless. I can only wonder exactly how California girls map to British expectations. Fluffhead is still a pretty lively career opportunity here. Blonde, brunette or redhead: those are the salient categories. There too you think?

Re: Uppity women?

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

Harmony.

Have we decided, as a culture ...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I posted the joke, I'd heard it on BBC Radio 2 being told by a blond(e) woman.

I got six replies, all positive. Four from women, two from men.
Of the women, I think we have one German, one American, one Swiss (maybe German) and one Brit.
Of the men we have one American and one Brit.

When I posted a follow up message with some quotes from here I got another five people commenting, two Brits, two Germans and an American. Maybe they were being polite, maybe they were being supportive, but out of the eleven I've just mentioned that expressed a view on the joke, every single one of them thought it was amusing/funny.

So whose culture are we talking about? Me, I'm fairly mid-Atlantic (which is why I can't spell Blond(e) and didn't realise it took a gender, which would make it a fairly rare word in English, interesting, no?)

Would it have been as funny/insulting if it were, say, Government employees or Government ministers or Oxford graduates or religious fundamentalists or Al Quida or nuns or traffic cops or people named Dave or Burger King employees ... ok, let's try that one

A person walks into a Burger King restaurant and notices that the crew are all cheering and giving each other high fives and chanting "51 days". The person notices that there's a picture of Barney the Dinosaur on the counter top, so the person steps forward and aasks the burger-droid behind the counter what's up? And the serving unit says "We wanted to prove that just because we're all uniformed cogs in the machine working for minimum wage and going home stinking of burger grease, that we're not as stupid as people think ... so we bought this Barney the Dinosaur jigsaw puzzle and we've managed to complete it in 51 days, even though the box says 2-4 years!"

Is that funny? Is that insulting to those fine men and women (like gothtart) who work in Burger King? Yes, of course it is ... is it *as* insulting though?

Re: Have we decided, as a culture ...

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Damn. Before I got to the last couple of lines I was thinking "Ooh. I'm going to tell gothtart you said that...

Seriously, though. I've spent a significant chunk of my life as the butt of asorted Irish jokes - until working in recent years working in London when I was the butt of assorted Scots jokes - and in some circles I get bisexual/pagan/SM jokes of varying degrees of viciousness (some of my former colleagues managed to form the impression I was only a member of any of those groups as a ploy to score with particular people - none of whom I'd intended to get off with), but I was always able to do the mental translation of the joke into the "Two stereotypes go into a bar" form, and enjoy the joke for its own sake.

But I've just realised that I'm coming horribly close to the archetypal School Bully's "what's wrong with you, can't you take a joke?" and that's not what I meant so say at all...

Re: Have we decided, as a culture ...

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

Well I think you've proved your point. It's not funny. You're too embarrassed to laugh. So I'm clearly not too embarrassed to laugh at blondes..

BUT Alternately it's not funny cos I know the joke now :-)

I'm not too embarrassed to laugh ...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

And I've tried a rewrite back at the original posting ... wag_9393 is that funny?