Is being (or playing) a dimwitted blonde a marketing boon? This USA Today article suggests that it is for Jessica Simpson:
Simpson is the latest in the “proud” dumb-blonde tradition: She joins such icons as Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe, Suzanne Somers’ Chrissy on Three’s Company and Anna Nicole Smith. Carol Channing made a career out of playing a dumb blonde. “I didn’t have to be bright,” she said in an interview in Ladies Home Journal in 1955 “All I had to do was be blonde.”
It’s working for Simpson. Last week she met with execs from Chicken of the Sea, who are courting her as a new spokesblonde. The just-wrapped 10-week run of Newlyweds was such a reality-TV hit � the show follows Simpson, 23, and her husband, Nick Lachey, 29 � that a new season started taping Sunday.
The article notes that “men have long equated blondes and dimwittedness with sexiness.” True, though as a male I’ve never completely understood why. Sure the dumb blonde thing is cute and fun for a while, but it quickly gets old.
As I see things, brains enhance beauty. But maybe that’s just me.