Critical Theory
Week 1: Introduction: Getting to Know the Water You Swim In
Example: Being Blond(e)
- What does it mean to be blond(e)?
- What are the social or cultural assumptions about blond(e)s? What assumptions
do you make, and what assumptions do you think other people make?
- There are very few true adult blond(e)s. Why do people color their hair
blond(e)?
- Why are there different spellings for men ("blond") and women
("blonde")?
- What does it mean when someone who is black colors his or her hair blond(e)?
- What does it mean when someone who is Asian colors his or her hair blond(e)?
- Do people treat someone different when they are blond(e)?
- Has being blond(e) changed meaning over time? Over place?
- What kinds of blond(e)s are there? I don't just mean, for example, "strawberry
blond(e)", although that might be included as well. What are the different cultural meanings?
- What are the race & gender implications of being blond(e)?
- What are the age implications of being blond(e)?
- What's the opposite of blond(e)?
- What's the difference between blond(e) and white?
- Does blond(e) refer only to hair?
Some famous blondes:
- Shirley
Temple (actress).
- Mae
West (actress).
- Marlene
Dietrich (actress, singer).
- Marilyn Monroe, another site (force of nature).
- Jean Harlow
- Blondie
(band, fronted by Deborah Harry).
- Farrah Fawcett, with the most
popular pin-up poster of the 70's and a Badfads page on Farrah hair (actress).
- Madonna (actress, singer, Kabbalah enthusiast).
- Britney Spears (singer. Pepsi hawker).
- Courtney Love (singer, front(ed) the band Hole, former wife of Kurt Cobain).
- Meg Ryan (actress).
- Goldie Hawn (actress).
- Lisa Kudrow (actress).
- Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie (generic celebrities).
- Jessica Simpson (singer).
- Anna Nicole Smith (???).
- Doris Day (actress, singer).
- Grace Kelly (actress, princess)
- Ursula Andress (actress)
- Pamela
Anderson (actress).
- Cameron Diaz (actress).
- Lady Diana (princess).
- Hillary Clinton (senator).
- Kato Kaelin (O. J. Simpson's house guest).
- Fabio
(hunk).
- Barbie
(doll).
- Diana Krall (Canadian jazz singer).
- Dixie Chicks (country music group).
- Platinum
Blonde (Canadian rock band from the 80s).
- Martha Stewart 1 (domestic goddess, jailbird).
- Legally Blonde.
- Legally Blonde 2.
- Buttercup (Robin Wright in Princess Bride).
- Brady Bunch.
- Buffy the
Vampire Slayer (Sarah Michelle Geller).
- National Blonde Day (Vidal Sassoon).
- Blond/e Jokes - large list of jokes, some (all?) offensive
White, not Blonde
Catalogues
Other Blond/e Resources
