Western tradition, she says, has constructed an entire mythology round feminine blondeness − from spiritual iconography and fairy tales, to artwork and promoting − that has informed particular tales about what it means to be blonde. In cinema’s early years, comedies comparable to Platinum Blonde (1931) and Bombshell (1933), starring Jean Harlow, embedded ideas of the dazzling, devastatingly stunning blonde into the cultural vernacular. “The concept you are a bombshell, it is nearly like a weapon,” says Nead. “On the one hand, it’s this type of excellent, however on the similar time, it is also threatening.”
Earlier than Harlow, there was one other − extra natural-looking − blonde on the scene: Mary Pickford, whose amber curls helped earn her the moniker of “America’s Sweetheart”. However whereas Pickford performed the guileless lady ready to be rescued, Harlow’s peroxide blonde was extra empowered, paving the way in which for fair-haired femme fatales of Forties movie noir comparable to Veronica Lake and Barbara Stanwyck, who performed alluring however devious girls who used their attraction and wits to control males.
AlamyBlonde Ice (1948), starring Leslie Brooks as a cold-hearted adulterer, fraudster and assassin, would capitalise on the recognition of the “blonde ice queen” trope − the protagonist’s halo of golden hair at odds along with her darkish intentions. It was a assemble revisited within the thriller Fundamental Intuition (1992), the place Sharon Stone performs the calculating Catherine Tramell, the suspect in a homicide case who succeeds in seducing her interrogator.
Blonde hair, which tends to darken with age, suggests a radiance and a childlike innocence that facilitates the femme fatale‘s deception. In The Postman At all times Rings Twice (1946), for instance, Cora Smith (performed by Lana Turner) lures her lover into serving to homicide her husband, her flawless white wardrobe and baby-blonde hair disguising the scheming character inside.
