Blondes vs. Brunettes
This is actually something that really bothers me. I didn’t see it as a cultural thing until I discovered Disney again…
Q: Which child in this picture is me?
A: Which is the only brunette one?
My mother was the only brunette daughter in her family, and I was the only brunette cousin. Both of us grew up, no doubt, subconsciously feeling singled out and falling for all the stereotypes. We’re dark. We’re moody. We’re bitter and antisocial because we’re not classically pretty. (A cousin on my dad’s side, brunette and male, later explained to me that blonde girls keep brunette girls around, and vice versa, so that they make themselves look better. And then it occurred to me that all of my best friends were also blonde.)
I think it was my extremely feminist aunt who bought me my first Barbie doll (really, really ironically). Disney’s Aladdin came out the year I was born; my first plastic idealized woman was in the form of Middle Eastern Princess Jasmine. I wanted to be her. When Pocahontas came out, I wanted to be her too, and, later, Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I wanted to look like a stereotype princess, like my friends and family did, but the only ones presented to me were instead exact fits of the stereotype brunette. Esmeralda was a tramp, Pocahontas only attracted creeps, Jasmine owned a tiger and didn’t listen to her parent. Luckily my parents outlawed Beauty and the Beast. I think being compared to Belle, the lonely, bookish, nearly incestuous princess (by marriage, I might add), would have pushed me over the edge.
My personal favorite was The Little Mermaid, probably because it has no basis in reality and no one can naturally achieve that shade of red hair. Ariel was undoubtedly a cracker like me, but looked different enough from all of us to be a universally perfect fit.
She was also probably the only thing I had in common with all the little blonde girls I happen to be related to.
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