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On
Blondes
If you are interested in the history of beauty, hair color,
and hairstyles within the social context of culture then I think you
will find Joanna Pitman's On Blondes a book with all of
the compelling fascination of a ‘blonde' itself. Beginning with
the ancient Greeks and concluding with the holy female trinity of Madonna,
Princess Diana, and Margaret Thatcher it is an intriguing and knowledgeable
study of the history and place of the ‘power of the blonde' within
the ‘symbolic code' of
different Western cultures. It is not 'scholarly' or 'academic' in that
there does not seem to be a systematic theoretical perspective used by
Pitman to organise the material she presents but it is well written and
entertaining. There is also much in it for the academic reader interested
in beauty in culture. Pitman wonders why blondeness still
has such an enduring hold on not only the Western psyche but, increasingly, on
that of other nationalities and cultures as well. Does it have to do with
the obsession with youth? Does it have to do with unconscious racism and an attempt
to distinguish oneself from darker groups? Are people blonding themselves
in order to feel assimilated into the dominant culture, so that they will ‘pass'? Whatever
the truth to these questions, and they may all have some truth, 'blondeness'
does not seem to have lost any of its alluring magic and mystery. You can read
a feature length review of the book on 'Beauty Worlds: The Culture of Beauty' here. |
