Why Brunettes have more fun

I remember when I was a child and my father, as a special treat, took me to the Hollywood extravaganza known as Ivanhoe, a 1952 film based on Sir Walter Scott’s epic tale of damsels in distress and valiant knights during the reign of King John (same one of Robin Hood fame). The swashbuckling aside, all I was interested in was the love triangle between Knight Ivanhoe (played by Robert Taylor) and his two loves, Lady Rowena (Joan Fontaine) and the Jewish Beauty Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor). What was most intriguing to me was how there ever could be a competition between Fontaine’s Rowena, and Taylor’s Rebecca. It seemed obvious to me that the bland…oh, excuse me, blonde Fontaine could not stand a chance against the fiery dark beauty that was then a teen-aged Taylor. I was flabbergasted that Ivanhoe (albeit reluctantly) let go of Rebecca at the end. To me, the most beautiful and celebrated women in the world have always been brunettes, be it from Sophia Loren to Ava Gardner, to the most recent Catherine Zeta-Jones and Salma Hayek. Even so-called blond icons like Marilyn Monroe were original brunettes, and did you know that perennial brunette Winona Ryder is really a natural blonde who chooses to dye her blonde locks black?

I have never understood the practice of my female compatriots, blessed with the darkest, thickest and most voluminous tresses, to ruin Mother Nature’s gifts to them by bleaching and highlighting their mane into god awful versions of cheap bottle blondes. And Iranian women don’t go for the subtleties either, it’s all or nothing. She could be the darkest, most olive-skinned woman, with long black eyelashes and tattooed on eyebrows to rival Cleopatra’s and she will still motion to her hairdresser in impatient gestures: More…More blonde!!! This gives way to clownish results such as having hair that is almost white, and has become wispy and brittle due to the mistreatment inflicted upon it, lying above two thick black eyebrows and dark eyes. Or highlights of the most golden shade alternating with the deepest black, giving it the Cruella De Ville effect. Why, oh why would you inflict such a thing on yourselves my sisters when Mother Nature is always the wisest in choosing what becomes you most. You are supposed to enhance the beauty that is naturally there, not try to become someone you are not. I swear, I have never seen so many phony Swedish women on the arms of short fat hairy dark men with thick mustaches as at my local chelokababi.

Ah-Ha, speaking of those Iranian men, there is the culprit. My brothers, your lifelong obsession with anything light, whether it is light-skinned, light-eyed or light-haired has put your beautiful women in a devastating predicament. Why do you insist on your wife mimicking a third rate Jayne Mansfield when you already have an Audrey Hepbrun on your hands? After all, you are no Robert Redford yourself n’est-ce pas? It is really rather sad to see!

Aside from all this, you must know that bleaching your hair can have very damaging effects on your hair such as drying, and making your hair brittle. I once saw a lady at the hair salon who had bleached her hair so many times that it was falling out in clumps. The devastated woman had no other option but to shave it off, giving her with a closely shaved “Sinead O’Connor” look. It also costs a lot to maintain blonde hair because it will turn green when you go in the pool or orangy if left in the sun, so the decision to go blonde will definitely not be kind on your wallet. But that’s not all. Now, according to Dr. Martin Pratt of Brandine University, and Dr. Benjamin Staines of the Center for the Institute of Studies, hair bleaching may also cause brain damage. Hydrogen peroxide, the key ingredient, will seep into the skull, and kill brain cells, they claim. I don’t know how “scientific” their conclusions are, but this would go a long way to explaining all those dumb blonde jokes, don’tcha think?

So I invite my sisters to stop all this nonsense, accept who they are, with all their natural beauty and pigmentation. And if your man still drools over Britney Spears, let him. Just know that at the root (pardon the pun) of every beautiful blonde lies an even more beautiful brunette.

From l to r: Liz Taylor, Robert Taylor (no relation), and Joan Fontaine in 1952’s Ivanhoe: Who would you pick?