Plenty of Blondes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Where characters with fair hair can be seen more frequently than expected for what should be a melting pot population. Specifically, you can see a disproportionate number of blondes for the setting when a show has no fewer than half of the female Caucasian cast being blonde. It can include the whole Caucasian cast. Similar to Blonde, Brunette, Redhead, but on the other end of the scale. The thing is that film casters believe the audience finds blond hair to be beautiful, so if you want to be a movie star, it helps to look good with fair hair. Usually, it's a white-yellow shade but sometimes darker. They can range from identical twins to a bunch unrelated characters.

Any combination of the sweet, malicious, or dumb blondes becomes Plenty of Blondes because you can't contrast something with itself. Each can be a Power Blonde or Everyone Loves Blondes. Compare Monochrome Casting if it's one race in what should be a melting pot population, and Phenotype Stereotype when non-Caucasian media believes this is true of Caucasians. This may be justified if some of them explicitly dye their hair.

Examples of Plenty of Blondes include:


Anime & Manga

  • Most characters in Axis Powers Hetalia that aren't of Asian or African descent are blond.
  • Pretty much all of female characters in Claymore (which, by the way, accounts for over 80% of all characters) have hair of various shades of blonde. This is because they are mostly genetically-modified monster-slayers whose transformation universally bleaches their hair.

Comic Books

Film

Literature

  • The Baby Sitters Club has five primary characters. Out of the five, there's one Asian and two blondes.
  • In the Sweet Valley High books, identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth have sun-streaked blonde silky hair.
  • The improbable number of blondes in the Lannister/Baratheon family actually winds up being a plot point in A Song of Ice and Fire, since the fact that the dark-haired Robert Baratheon's children with the blonde Cersei share her hair color indicates that they're not really his, especially since his other illegitimate children, including those from blonde mothers, all have dark hair.
  • Of all the women in the story, all but one of them in Ranger's Apprentice is a blonde (and she's a minor character, at that!). Subverted when they go to Arrida in book seven, which is an Arabia expy, but only one Arridi woman plays a role in that, and she's on-screen for a grand total of a chapter as a side character.

Live Action TV

  • The Suite Life of Zack and Cody has four character in the younger generation. Two boys with shaggy blonde hair, Maddie with her wavy blonde locks, and an Asian.
  • Kyle XY has half of the female cast being applicable. It becomes more than half if you add Andy and her dark golden locks.
  • Six of the eight white women from Heroes, season three, are applicable. Four have bright blond hair and the two others have goldenrod hair. Lampshaded In-Universe by the blonde Meredith when she reunites with her ex, Nathan, and sees that he's accompanied by Tracy, who's also blonde.
  • Degrassi the Next Generation counts when you include the guys.
  • Emma, Rikki, Miriam, Byron, Bella, Will, and Lewis all from H₂O: Just Add Water. Hell, it must be that Cleo is loved despite not being a blonde.
  • The eponymous character of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and each of her two aunts.
  • An absurdly extreme majority of named female characters in Supernatural are blonde. Starting with Mary and Jessica and including Jo and Ellen. Notably excluding Lisa. Also an improbable percentage of the random victims, and females in general. There are no redheads besides Anna.

Music

  • S Club 7 started out with three blondes in the group, but moved up to five by the time they split up.
  • Atomic Kitten went from the Blonde, Brunette, Redhead tandem to having all three members as blondes for two of their albums. They definitely fit the trope in the video for "It's OK".

Toys

Video Games

  • In Final Fantasy XII, every main character is a blonde (except Fran, since she's a humanoid bunny, but she's still a White-Haired Pretty Girl). And this is set in the same world as Final Fantasy Tactics, where most story characters and almost every generic unit has blond hair (among generics, only male Monks have visible non-blond hair).
  • Name a western white character in Street Fighter. Chances are a pretty good they're a blond with blue eyes. Even the non-white westerners often get drawn with blue eyes.
  • Big Boss's timeline in the Metal Gear Solid series has a ridiculously large proportion of plot-significant blonds—EVA, Volgin, Ocelot, The Boss, Elisa, Gene, Roy, Kaz, Paz, Cécile... Stretches plausibility when the blond, blue-eyed Kaz is half-Japanese and identifies as more Japanese than American, and Paz is depicted with Hair of Gold despite being Costa Rican and at one point mentioning in her dialogue that she has a darker complexion than "pale-skinned Anglo Saxons". Since Big Boss has Unresolved Sexual Tension with most of these characters, the fandom just likes to joke that he's really into blonds.