It is a fact, only 1% of world population has Red hair. It is the most uncommon hair among humans and it tends to disappear overtime. Because it is rare, it procured through history either a fascination as well as fear. Red hair is more trendy than never. Here is why.
Red Hair a curse of beauty or damnation
In history, Red hair people have always been dealed with a special treatment. We tend to associate these people personality with the colour of their hair. Usually we say that their “temper matches their hair”. It is said that they usually have sharp tongues and would never submit to a higher authority.
There were also times in which red haired women and men were considered as witches or demoniac creatures. Unfortunately for them, most of the time it was because of their hair and the rarity of it. People are afraid of what they do not understand and of what if different.
According to wikipedia, a witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, or mass hysteria. The classical period of witchhunts in Europe and North America falls into the Early Modern period or about 1480 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years’ War, resulting in an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 executions.
Of course there were also more positive aspects of being red hair. Here are a limited list of celebrities in history… All red hair.
- Ramses II
- King David
- Achilles
- Elisabeth 1st of England
- Antonio Vivaldi
- Ravaillac
In the early Renaissance, women of red hair were icons of beauty. They were a huge source of inspirations for painters. The italian artist Sandro Botticelli used to paint a lot of women in red hair, almost to obsession. One of the most well known painting is The Birth of Venus .
Nowadays, is it true what we say about red hair people?
Today we still have some sort of “urban legends” about red haired people. Some are pretty much positive, others… Less! On the downside, people use to say that red hair people have a stronger body scent. True? Of course not. This myth is connected to the fact that Red haired people were unfortunately associated with the Devil during the Middle-Age period. Some people in the 80’s used to say that there was a variation of sulphur in the composition of the red colour of their hair, which would release a strong scent. All false. Red hair people are like anyone else. It is all a matter of personal hygiene.
If you are part of those people who also think that Red hair women are hotter than others, well, here is a matter of taste but from a biological point of view, there is nothing that would conduct a specific behavior. So stop looking to them like if they were a sort of porn star walking in the street! Somehow, on this point we can identify one of the main causes of this sulphurous reputation. The fault is to Hollywood!
The temptress was a Red head
Hollywood and the myth of the temptress or Vamp. The concept of the fatal woman is by far one of the main models you can find in literature and cinema. Hollywood definitely contributed to make red hair women as the symbol of ultimate seduction, temptation and personality. More than blond women who always had a childlike facet on their behaviour.
Bette Davis
Considered as on of the most influential actress in cinema history her career became huge when in 1936 she won an Oscar for her role in the film “Dangerous”. She has a fiery personality and her eyes could put you in a trance.
Susan Hayword
She started her career as a top model in New York in the 20’s. Then in 1937 she decided to start a career in Hollywood as an actress. She almost got the first role in “Gone with the wind” but finally the production picked up Vivian Leigh. Her career continued successfully through the 1950s and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958). Her reputation was literally that she would swallow men alive! Frankly, on that time, people used to associate a lot the person fictive character in a movie and what they really were in life.
Rita Hayworth
One of the ultimate vamps in the history of cinema was Rita Hayworth. 2 films set her legend. In 1943 She plays the role of Gilda Mundson Farrell in Gilda. The scene of the dance is purely the ultimate Femme fatale icon. Then in 1947, she is the star of the Orson Wells movie: The Lady from Shanghai. Rita Hayworth justified all the investments the movie industrie did in technicolor just to being able to see her ruby hair.
Samantha Eggar
The first modern Red head. She started her career in 1962 after playing in theater groups. In 1965, William Wyler offers her the role of Miranda Grey in The Collector. For this movie she gets an Oscar nomination for best actress, wins a Golden Globe and she is starrified in Cannes film festival with the golden palm for Best actress. And red hair became trendy again.
Jessica Rabbit
Not only real women could blow a man’s mind. This is the case of the fictional character of Jessica Rabbit, spouse of Roger Rabbit in the movie: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? She has curves that would challenge modern science and her look is completely inspired by the 1930’s Vamps. She was more than real.
Nicole Kidman
During the 70’s the tone was given to natural blondness. The naturalist and naive approach of David Hamilton took Red heads put of the spot lights for a while. Then, suddenly something happened: Nicole Kidman arrived. Her first big hit was Days of Thunder where she played the role of a doctor who falls in love with a race
Pilot (Tom Cruise). She definitely brought back the reddish sex-appeal and became the new vamp. And in 1999 when she played the role of Alice Harford in Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrik, she literally burned the screen with a glimpse of a look. Hot.
Kirsten Dunst
Despite the fact we see her often in blond, Kirsten Dunst is a red. After the incredible Virgen Suicides, she played of course in the first 3 Spiderman but also Marie-Antoinette by Sophia Coppola, Mona Lisa Smile, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind and in 2011 the excellent Melancholia by Lars Von Trier. She got the Golden Palm in Cannes film festival for the role of Justine in this movie.
Christina Hendricks
She would turn any man into a mad men. Christina Hendricks plays the role of Joan Holloway in the rewarded TV series Mad Men. She is hot and she obtains merelry everything she wants thanks to the fascination that her sex-red-headish-appeal provoke to all men. She is definitely preaching towards the Red hair women side.
Red hair women never crossed a decade without being notice, hopefully that human history tends to place them more in a sexy goddess condition than under a witch-fire. Both are anyway very… hot.
Info sourced at buzzfeed.com, wikipedia, Vogue, Allocine, shekknows.com. All content is copyrighted with no reproduction rights available.
