For anyone leaving a comment about red heads being "erased" from movies/tv, i BEG you to watch this video and educate yourself. Red heads were used in TV to show a visually diverse character (with negative stereotypes) *when actors of other races so so rarely shown on TV.* Now that its the TWENTY FIRST CENTURY we are lucky to see diverse casting that includes more than just white people. As stated in the video, red heads are *vastly* over represented in media. We're shown nearly 90% more on screens than we are on the streets based on the world or just the US population. We are not being erased. Our over representation is a product of racism in the media and we should be celebrating seeing other people getting their rightful chance to be seen. Adaptations do not erase the original. Keep your 1990s Disney Ariel, and appreciate future adaptations that have cast, story, and other kinds of adaptations. Your red head family card is revoked the second you show how racist you are fyi.
It's a serious red flag if someone is watching a live action disney remake and the ONLY criticism they can think of is "brown people". They're not just racist at that point, they also have horrible taste in movies.
Randomly fell on this video and this message alone is making me sub! You are freaking hilarious and repping diversity all at once I love it 😂 "redhead family card revoked!!" 👏👏👏👏 P.s. half Asian with subtle coppery auburn that pops up only in the summer, do I get a card? 🥹😂
As a natural ginger if anyone complains on my behalf I will curse you. And you will probably lowkey slightly believe that I am capable of cursing you because that myth still hasn't died lol
@@ChiefOfMessenger Yeah, this is my biggest problem with it. It has nothing to do with racism, I'm just disappointed that they aren't coming out with interesting stories that are actually about other cultures, instead of taking white fiction and casting people of color to play the same characters we've always known. Like, why make Cleopatra black instead of making an awesome series or movie about the great Amanirenas or any of the other actually black queens in history? Why hasn't there been a really cool AAA mainstream production about the Zulus still (STILL!)? There are so many great stories and history from actually black cultures they could be portraying and instead they're just casting people of color to take their place in white fiction and calling it a great triumph. No shade to the actors and actresses, because I think these are still great opportunities for them. I just don't think we need to pretend like there isn't any legitimate criticism about missed opportunities as well on the producers' part...
As a now 30 year old who grew up watching CN, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, PBS, etc', I have to say, I've always been kind of surprised by the under representation of brunette white girls. I know this might sound ridiculous to some, but if you really go and look back, you'll see that what I'm saying is completely true. The only time a white female is represented in a show(especially animated shows), they always have either red hair, blonde hair, or black hair. This always made me feel a little left out as a brunette growing up, and made me feel honestly like the world was telling me that brunette females weren't as good, that they were plain and boring, and didn't "stick out".
I actually like that combination. I have a female character with dark red hair, green eyes and freckles. She's the love interest in a certain trilogy I'm planning.
I honestly believe that the number of red heds in books is due to the fact that it's an easy way to make someone "different" and "interesting" without having to come up with a personality. Source: being a red head
@@simplesimply3753If redheads counted as “diverse” in the eyes of the ideologues (which they probably should, given their minority status in society and their historical persecution as witches etc.), why then was there a need to race-swap the Little Mermaid? 😂 In other words, the most iconic redhead character in history?
@@cosmicprison9819ariel is def not the most iconic and if you watch the video i tell you why red heads are often swapped with specifically Black women. When racial diversity wasnt allowed on TV (not that long ago!) red hair was the only way to make the case have diversity or a visual “other” and now that society thankfully lets all people be shown on tv, we’re seeing more representation.
@@caricanread What counts as “diverse” is arbitrary anyway - it’s actually a form of American imperialism, as they push their lens on everyone else. The different ethnicities within Europe, for example, are lumped together as “white” and defined as non-diverse, even though Scandinavians clearly look different from Slavs or from Mediterranean people; characters who actually are from Africa still get labelled “African-American” because that’s what people in the US treat as a synonym for “black”. Do characters with glasses count as diverse, for example? 😂 Most superheroes no longer need theirs when they gain their powers (Superman, Spider-Man etc.). Isn’t that ableist? Speaking of, does Daredevil count as “diverse” because he’s blind? Most people would probably say “no” - because he’s a white guy.
most unrealistic thing abt all these redheads is that they spend all this time outside and never get sunburnt. god knows all it takes for me is ten minutes with no shade and my skin starts to match my hair 😔
I have red hair and do not burn, I tan. I hate that everybody thinks my skin tone is inextricably linked to my hair color and go on and on about my "sensitive" skin. Meanwhile, I know several people with dark brown hair (my husband included) and fair skin yet no one is worried. My husband burns easily, fast, and brutally., yet I'm the one who has to hear about it all the time. 😠
@@ochoheido i think the OP was saying this because in books red heads are often also paired with porcelain white skin. as i mentioned in the vid, red hair is linked to many ethnicities and backgrounds. my italian red head friends tan easily for ex.
I think the decrease in bullying redheads is gender specific. For women, it’s generally considered pretty. However, redheaded boys were bullied about their appearance all the time when I was a kid, and I am 21.
I was relentlessly bullied for my ginger hair (I’m a woman) it only stopped when I turned 20 and men started fetishising me. I don’t know what was worse 😂
Here in Argentina people are obsessed with soccer and they are very superstitious about it. Last year, a host of a soccer program who used to be a player, cried on public television because they kept calling him mufa (a person who brings bad luck) because of his red hair. He is 47 years old and said he was tired of the bullying he has suffered since he was little because of his hair.
I think you’re right on the money. I’m in my 30s and even back in the early 2000s my younger brother got bullied a lot because of his red hair. He would either get bullied by kids his age or receive a lot of unwanted attention from grown women who were constantly trying to touch his hair. It’s like people ceased to see him as a person and more of a thing…all because of the color of his hair.
It's such a small detail but I really like how Jamie's red hair in Outlander becomes more strawberry blonde as he ages throughout the seasons, it's a nice touch that we don't see very often in media.
Exactly- most redheads I know (including myself!) don’t stay the same shade of red their whole lives. There’s baby baby photos of me where you could swear I was blonde with how light it was lol
Idk any of this but this does sound like a nice touch! Seeing my moms hair change over the years it def kinda changes like that. And people change as they grow older foo
Knowing history, the association between red headed women and bad temper is probably because a redhead women rejected a man a long time ago and he made it his personal mission to take it out on every red headed woman😂😂😂😂
@@caricanread I mean... I wasn't not-taking the joke(?)-I was being "serious" humorously. Lol (But please forgive me if it came off too wet-blanket instead!🙏😅)
Sophie isn’t the only redhead in Howl’s Moving Castle!!! Howl’s biggest freak out in the book is when Sophie moves his shampoo and it dyes his hair, you guessed it, RED.
Okay but the anesthesia thing is completely real. I went in to get my wisdom teeth removed as a teenager and scared the absolute pants off of the dental assistant when I woke up fully coherent and politely thanked the staff before getting up to leave 😂
Yes! The moment I wake up from anesthesia, I'm alert and coherent. I also remember everything from the moment I wake up. My wife, on the other hand (a brunette), is very groggy and barely aware of what's happening when she wakes up from anesthesia. She doesn't really remember anything and is too sluggish and out of it to do things for herself (like pick up a cup to drink water, or eat crackers). The difference is really interesting!
I feel this. I woke up and the first thing I said was to ask for my teeth. Granted it sounded funny with all the gauze. And when I had surgery on my foot I woke up twice to the most horrifying sensations with the tube in my throat and the feeling of doctors working on my feet.
Yes, having red-hair becomes part of your personality in the long run since it’s the distinctive feature that almost every single person throughout your life will identify you as, “the redhead”. Everyone will always have something to say, whether it’d be positive or negative. My son is a red head, as is my husband, and the amount of attention they receive over their hair can be overwhelming to a certain extent, especially for a shy individual.
The part about red headed women being evil and/or promiscuos reminded me of a youtube video I saw a while ago about how in kdramas the antagonist woman usually has red or a reddish hair color and when nearing the last episodes, if said antagonist goes through some change to become a better person the first thing to change is the hair color to brown or black
are you talking about "in defense of the hyper-feminine villain: k-drama analysis" by k-drama research institute? czcams.com/video/Pu5xGcS7rW4/video.html
What I like about Ygritte is that Martin addresses the tendency to have stereotypes about redheads and those stereotypes ("kissed by fire", "lucky", "fertile") are explicit in the text.
I'm not all the way through the video, but I needed to comment on your point at 13:22 - "If someone tells you that you have a bad temper, a bad attitude, enough times - you're going to have a bad attitude and a bad temper." This is the same deal for black and Latina women. We're constantly told we're angry or fiesty, and eventually we are pissed enough to be exactly that in that moment. Am I an angry black woman, or am I just angry and I happen to be a black woman? Clearly the latter, but it's such a frustrating cycle because I want to hide my emotions to NOT be prove them right. UPDATE: Got through the video and you said the same thing 🤣🤣so thank you for acknowledging the parallels between WOC and redhead! Women with wider hips - especially black women - were also seen as having advantages in giving birth (not saying it's true, but just assumed) and that also added to stereotypes of promiscuity in addition to the sexual violence of chattel slavery.
Also Ginger Spice. She set a certain bar for how gen x and millennials saw redhead women. Now that they’re the ones producing the media.. it’s not a big surprise the fantasy of a girl power character takes that form.
Ginger Spice only a few years after Anne of Green Gables and Pippi Longstocking and Ariel and a bunch of others... The red-headed girl protagonist trope goes back a looooong way.
My fiancé is a redhead and I’m a brown dude. I never knew the world of redheads until I started my relationship. I got a lot of hate for dating a red headed person for some reason from friends and family. Literally till this day, I don’t understand why people even hate on redheads or how some people fetish them. Whenever someone finds out my fiancé is a redhead people always act odd. I’m with you about the whole getting mad when ppl say annoying things. 😂 I get mad for my fiancé when ppl say, “You’re only this angry because you’re a red head.” I’m like bro I’m not even a redhead and that annoys me 😂
This is unrelated to your post, but I love the fact that you're talking about your redheaded gf while having Pain/Pein as your pfp 💀. But fr people need to chill out with that, it's so weird.
wth I swear I’ve never heard anyone say anything negative about red hairs. I’ve hairs jokes suggesting they are bad luck, but nothing more than that, just friendly jokes not ill-intended at all
As a Indian girl same, I think its because authors tend to write about their own race. Most of the time fantasy authors tend to be white women, most black and south asian authors I see tend to be contemporary writers.
For brazilians redhair is like the prettiest color ever, so when I read Anne of Green Gables I really couldn't understand why she didn't like her hair...sooooo I just thought fantasy authors wanted pretty characters tbh. Cool video Cari!
Thank you for mentioning the connections between antisemitism and redheaded male stereotypes! For those who are curious, I can talk in more detail about the origin of the association. In medieval Christian culture, there was a major association between red hair and Jewishness. This might originate from King David, who is described in the Bible as redheaded - and also, it's true that Ashkenazi/Eastern European Jews are disproportionately red-haired. But of course, in medieval times anything associated with being Jewish was also associated with being evil. This association does go both ways, though. One of my favorite examples of this that is in pre-war Yiddish folklore there was a legend about the "royte yidn" - literally "red Jews," red-headed descendants of the lost tribes who would someday come west across the river Sambation and liberate the oppressed Jews of Europe. So that's fun! Regarding the Lilith thing, though, it's unfortunately entirely incorrect. Lilith in the modern sense (as the first wife of Adam) is first mentioned in the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a pseudepigraphal comedic work from c. 700. Her story, to put it bluntly, is that she wanted to top, Adam didn't want her to top, so she swore to eat babies. That's what she does - she eats babies. The original Akkadian word lilītu, which is borrowed into Hebrew, actually doesn't refer to the first woman at all, but is just a common word for any evil spirits with feminine gender. A lot of the sources from the era use "lilith" as a catch-all term for spirits that would screw around with mothers and children, and amulets would often say things like "I cast out all liliths from [woman's name] and her child [child's name]." While Lilith is described as having long hair, the color of the hair is inconsistent, with many Jewish texts saying it was either dark or golden. The red-haired depictions, which date back to the 19th century at the earliest (since observant Jews didn't create depictions of people, and before the 19th century Christians didn't really care about Jewish folklore), are from painters who already had been raised in a culture with the association of redheads with promiscuity and seductiveness, so Lilith was painted with red flowing hair then, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with her original depiction.
In antiquity, or earlier, red hair in men had heroic qualities. Achilles and Menelaus are described as red-heads in the Iliad and the Odyssey respectively. Alexander the great was depicted with red hair, or as "tawny" like a lion's mane, which symbolised heroism and leadership. Those connotations later shifted under later antiquity and early medieval times. Herodotus described Thacians and Schythians, enemies of the Greeks, as being red-headed and thus the hair colour was regarded as "barbarian". Same thing happened in ancient Rome where the enemies of Rome, the gauls and celts etc, were described as red-headed. Red hair then became a symbol of barbarism, but it was sought after and fetishised by roman women who would create wigs of red hair. In early medieval times Judas Iscariot and Mary Magdalene were attributed with red hair, causing more negative connotations like treachery and promiscuity. And since red-heads were treacherous and promiscuous, and the prevalence of red hair in Ashkenazi jews, then that must mean jews were also just that.
"redhair IS my personality" so true 😭 Not only is my hair red, but it's also curly. I can barely walk out of the house without random strangers making a comment on it (or even touching it it!) It's hard not to make it my personality
Similar to the red head trait being everywhere in fantasy, there is so many people with green and gray eyes in the romance genre. They're the rarest eye colors in the world and yet I read descriptions of a main character with them in basically every romance book I read.
I think this is another way The Locked Tomb breaks the norm with Gideon, being the jock butch she is with red hair without the expected stereotypes. Also the fanart including the body hair 💕
On the topic of tempers and promiscuity, when people are enraged or aroused, their faces tend to get flushed which makes the skin redder. So we tend to associate the color red with those emotions so it kinda makes sense that people would associate red hair with those two emotions. In addition, redheads which tend to be paler on average as they don’t tan as easily, which means that the flush coloration can be even more noticeable which could make it easier for people to notice if a redheaded person was angry or aroused compared to another person with the same level of flush thus feeding into the stereotypes. On the topic of promiscuity specifically, there is a tendency in patriarchal societies to disproportionately blame women for promiscuity. That if a guy leaves a woman for another woman, people will blame the other woman for seducing him, rather than the guy for being shallow, or addressing root issues of why the relationship failed. Red hair is a fairly rare hair color and sticks out. That no doubt led to men that were purely interested in relationships with varied women for varied experiences to take note of them, so I wouldn’t be surprised if historically (or even today) redheaded women were more likely to be hit on by promiscuous guys, and thus have that stereotype passed along to them.
I haven't watched the video yet but I think red hair in fantasy is a trend because of the connection with the old myth of red heads being witches so it is automatically more fantastical.
Yes very true!! I didnt have enough info to include it but especially during the Spanish Inquisition too red heads apparently we “guilty” simply from their hair color. Ditto with the witch trials 🙃
I've never heard that one, but the fantasy tradition comes mostly out of Norse mythology, so I doubt it. As red hair in Norse mythology was literally meant to signify the "common man" trope. It's why Thor was a red head. The God of the common man.
Thank you!! Fellow redhead here and i've been pissed off by how...romanticized? Redheaded women are in media. Creators will slap some red hair on a character's head, call them stunningly beautiful, and call it a day. Creators definitely don't realize that there are a bunch of traits that go along with it. Usually paler skin, even for POC, sunburn, the anaesthesia thing, sensitivity to hot and cold, (this could me generalizing about my family but sensitivity to smells might also be a thing), TYPICALLY RED HAIR EVERYWHERE. I'M TALKING RED EYEBROWS AND EYELASHES, PEOPLE. Are the characters in your medieval fantasy putting on mascara and eyeliner? No? Then they are gonna have pale ass eyelashes. A common (although not across the board) white redhead trait is really sparse eyebrows (think Queen Elizabeth I). This is all part of being a redhead. I need to see more of these things represented. I'm so sick of fanart of supposedly makeup-less redheads (or even redheads in animation) with thick, glamorous black eyelashes and eyebrows. Of course, i have a whole separate rant about the treatment of redheaded men. That's very different. Give them some love, but remember that you can't take any old model and slap red hair on him :(
Wait i'm curious about redhead men most rumors (?) i got in my country about them is that when they get angry they are the most dangerous mf's out there
Throughout this video all I could think about was that one scene in the first Aquaman movie where Mera (a redhead) jumps from an airplane midair without a parachute and the pilot is all shocked to which Aquaman says to him: "Redheads. You gotta love them."
Such an interesting video! I was also thinking while watching that promescious women are often referred to as "vixen", and the most common fox's fur is red. I wonder if there is also a link there? Especially since in mythology, foxes are often tricksters and unreliable, but also clever.
I know a lot of mythologies from around the world have foxes that can shape shift into women to trick and seduce men ..... that is probably where it comes from
idk if anyone else remembers the collective fandom gasp when The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner came out and Bree just casually calls Edward Cullen "the redhead" bc Bella always just referred to his "bronze" hair and somehow no one picked up on that meaning his hair was red, lol
Author response here. I have auburn hair, and it turns bright red in the summer. I probably add red hair to my books because I have it myself. Also, in my main cast, I have a black boy character (with black hair), a red head boy, and a blonde girl. Partially, the reason is just to have three characters that are visually distinct from each other and easy to keep straight in the mind. If you're curious, he is a bit fiery, but it's because he's the foil for the more stoic other male MC, not because he has red hair, haha. I'm a very chill red head.
As a black female, when you started talking about how mad you'd get when people started to do the "oh you're mad because you're a red head", I immediately started to cringe in recognizing this for myself and my fellow black ladies. IT'S SO FRUSTRATING AND ANNOYING. I'm very happy you acknowledged the difference still
I hate that women with red hair are considered beautiful but men are not. I LOVE red hair on ANYONE. I want more male redhead representation in romance books!
My biggest crush in high school was on a redheaded guy, and in college I had a crush on another redheaded guy. I'm Black Jamaican-American and clearly didn't get the memo about redheaded men supposedly not being attractive. Both of these guys were super cute, super nice, and yes, that hair made them stand out.
My redhead character has a high pain tolerance!!! It's a huge part of her character and it winds up feeding into her need to protect everyone, she sees herself as naturally stronger.
I can't even deny the redhead stereotypes because I am in fact firey and sassy and stubborn as hell LMAO. Also....was reminded to take my vitamin D during this video 😔
I wanted so badly to be a redhead when I was little 😂 I had a good friend who was redhead and I told her and she was like "why the hell would you want red hair?" because she was bullied all the time. I just thought it was sooo pretty and that my brown hair was horrible and boring. This video was really interesting, I had been thinking recently about how there are so many redheads in books then you uploaded this! I wrote a lot of connected short novels when I was on high school where my main character and her brother were redheads, and it was partly inspired by the twins from The Song Of The Lioness books and partly because of my infatuation with red hair from when I was 9
When I was little I always wanted to have chestnut brown hair haha. Maybe because of the attention my red hair brought to my shy shelf. Like, my parents told me when I was younger an Asian family was so enamored with my red hair in DisneyLand that they asked to take a picture of it. I've learned to appreciate and love my red hair (and the attention! 🙃). I'm 36 now and another adult woman asked to take a picture of my hair just a few months ago to show her mother, ha.
@@ochoheido I've had a similar experience in Asia but because I'm half Taiwanese half white so when we would visit my mum's family there would always be people fascinated by our features, but they really do go mad for red and blonde hair when they see it in the wild 😅 I hope they were never rude to you
I appreciate your stance on unnatural reds. I have multiple redheads in my family including my father but I didn’t get the gene. When I was about 17 I officially went auburn and I haven’t looked back. After being red for over 10 years, I can confirm it becomes part of your identity even if you aren’t born with it. People refer to you as the girl with red hair, or comment on how certain colors look on you more, or how they’re jealous of it. I got 3 compliments from strangers on my hair in one afternoon out shopping. And I’m fortunate enough that because of my family it looks natural on me (pale w/ pink undertone, freckles) to the point where many ask me if it’s my real color (which is kinda fun when you know it isn’t, I’m sure it’s annoying to natural reds). Any time I’ve tried to change it, it just doesn’t feel right. So I consider myself an honorary redhead so to speak because I don’t feel like myself without it anymore.
As a redhead, I have so many thoughts and responses to all of this! I wrote out an essay, basically, but it’s too much- so what I want to say is: I think you are great at including your audience and making us feel as though we’re sharing ideas or learning about something together. It never feels like you’re assuming we won’t know something, which is something I think must be really challenging! I’m also curious about your favorite red headed character, now. 👩🏻🦰
The Mentalist has an unusually high number of redheads in the show, to the point where the Trivia section of the IMDB page of each episode will note the redheaded actresses in it. It’s because every episode for the first 6 (?) seasons relates to the word Red in some way because of the character Red John. It’s kinda a fascinating decision imo, and it kinda makes it so even if the episode isn’t about Red John, it’s clear the show is still partially focused on him-“always thinking about him” almost. Hilariously, Red John himself isn’t a redhead.
One of the things I love about Little Thieves is that not only is Vanja a fairly unflattering shade of redhead-carrot-the fact that she *is* a redhead is VERY intentional and has a purpose in the thematic material of the story.
I’m live in the south and I have heard many people say “ we are treated like the red headed step child” whenever someone is being treated bad or unfair.
Super interesting video. It's funny because every friend I have that has red hair are the calmest most patient people I've met so I never got the short tempered firey link.
This video made me realise how I just build my own mental images of characters, and really couldn't tell you what the author tells us about how characters look
I actually originally had two red-headed characters in my story (literally the mc and the main love interest lol) but I'm going to have to change the mc's hair color to brown for lore/worldbuilding reasons. I initially gave them red hair purely for aesthetics based on reference photos I found on Pinterest lol, but I really just can't imagine the love interest looking any different. He is very warm and sweet, but also a bit mischievous and fun-loving, and I feel like the red hair suits that perfectly. Plus, he's the court jester, and from his hair being red I created a whole red-headed foreign country, which ties into the idea of him being different from the dark-featured people of the main kingdom, resulting in him not being taken seriously and being suitably entertaining for the court since he looks so "other".
it’s also interesting how both achilles and helen of troy are sometimes described or portrayed as redheads! achilles representing the fierceness and bad temper and helen representing an adulteress
The Weasley family from the books tick every red hair stereotype ever lol Ron is framed as “dumb”, comic relief, envious, weaker than the other main characters. Ginny is fiery and seductive (dates more and earlier than older characters and is ultimately the love interest), the twins are mischievous troublemakers, Percy is aloof and annoying, Mrs Weasley has a bad temper and sends Ron a howler etc. But every character besides Harry in those novels is a stereotype to be fair lol
Even harrys a stereotype, messy hair and green eyes are another witch stereotype. Not to mention how many green eyed characters have main character syndrome (says the green eyed girl)
This was fascinating! I loved the chill video essay vibes, and as always, I’m obsessed with your editing choices they’re so funny- the cut to BTS sent me 😂
i’m from wales in the uk and whilst i do think i see less bullying over red hair it’s definitely still happening, just more often for men. my brother is 27 and he used to get sooooo many comments when he was in his early teens, to the point he got in a fight with someone because they gave him so much shit for it. compared to my best friend who’s a red headed woman, and another who is a dyed red headed woman and i notice they get much more of those “fiery” or more sexually based comments abt their hair
I cant confirm this, but its interesting that redheadedness potentially codes for being a person of color, as when the creators of the Witcher show were casting they were under a lot of pressure to increase diversity, so they replaced Triss the canonical redhead with a woman of color
It’s strange to hear there are so many redheads in books because I have barely seen any book character described as red hair. Unless copper counts. When it says copper I picture whatever the hell I want.
@@bookbrain1557 You dyed your hair without googling what color it was gonna be? ? 😳 I want that bravery, give 😆😆 Did you end up liking it?? Also even tho it came out orange, orange haired people are still called Red-Heads. When everyone here says Red they're moreso talking about the range from light orange to very vivid red
@@SummerAlleriaWindrunner I did end up liking it and I am newly enlightened about red-heads. In my defense, a present the flimsy excuse that I may have-definitely was-sleep deprived while writing this. I also recommend trying a hair color you’re not entirely sure what it is as long as you have it done by someone you trust!
😂😂😂 “Redhair IS my personality”….the best quote ever. Our family is Irish Catholic and at a reunion, at least half the people had red hair. Two of my boys are red headed like your’s and my second son was mortified as a little kid when all the old women would touch his head. So, it’s funny that you had a similar experience. As a 2-year-old he would wear a hoodie to keep people from touching his hair. So funny. And my husband had your color when we met and he (just like his mother) has gone white (early too!). Mine has always been more auburn/chestnut colored so of course we have the same genetic traits to pass on. Such a fun topic. I’ve noticed all the redheads in books or shows as well. It is an interesting trend. ❤ Fellow red headed fam. ❤
One of my main characters in my YA fantasy is a red headed male with wild red beard. He’s the most loyal and kind of the bunch. I made him Scottish because I have a link to Scotland. He’s not magical and he’s definitely not evil.
Not just fantasy protagonists, you can sometimes get the impression that for a time period, comic book writers were contractually obligated to give their heroes red headed love interests. Only very old (Superman, Batman) and very recent ones consistently avert this trope.
Loved the video!!! ❤ When I was a child/teen red-haired boys definitely got bullied, I remember the "no souls" thing well and I knew some girls that were very self-conscious about having "no eyelashes"
I had no idea that there were so many bad stereotypes about red heads 😮 I didn't grow up with any red heads around me so I wasn't exposed to any of it 😅 and whenever I see someone with red hair on the streets, either men or women, doesn't matter, all I think is "ohhh pretty ❤" and move on with my day 😂 idk why someone would want to try to touch their hair, though, rude.
I think it's a perspective thing. If you don't see redheads very often, you're not subjected to the negative comments & reactions nearly as often as a redhead would be.
As a redhead (and a writer, I’ll get into that), yes, it IS my personality. I have done endless research to answer my questions on why we are the way that we are and I couldn’t get factual answers I could only go based off what I knew, my own experiences and family experiences to make some theories. My conclusion was that we just feel a little extra special, and this special trait makes us defensive over it but it’s also a double edged sword, we don’t have a tight knitted community because we are just an occurrence, a mutation, we aren’t a race or religion. Others have picked out our stereotypes for us and it’s the only reference point we have because we only have ourselves in most cases. So that has always sucked, but when I’m with my redheaded family, things seem to just feel better, and when I’m with non redheaded family members I feel like I am only the eye candy. When I read stories, the inclusion of redheaded characters has often felt misplaced. So when I started working on my own it took me four years in to include a red haired character because it is something so special, it IS our personality. I had to do it justice! He perhaps is a slight genderbent self insert… Just a tad.
I loved this video. It didn't really feel disorganized. I grew up with auburn hair that became dark brown in my late 20's (my mom was the same). I 100% agree that it was part of my personality and it was sad to no longer have that. I have started dying it and the last time at the salon, a woman remarked that I looked like a redhead and I wasn't sure how to respond 😂
I am a blonde that has dyed my hair red and I can 100% attest that I was treated much differently while I was red! I was taken more seriously and listened to better. It was a wild little social experiment.
I find it auspicious that the day I become a red head for the first time ever my favourite booktuber releases this video. I'm choosing to see this as fun times ahead! (I'm a brunette but had bright pink hair and was wanting to move away from that so my hairdresser said red/auburn was the way to go 😊)
I'm really happy you tapped into the correlation between black women and redheads media portrail. It also works the other way. As someone said, sometimes redheads are used to be diverse without being diverse. Something common is a charecter being obviously black coded but is a white red head instead and i think that is specifically because as you said the same tropes are negative when applied to black women but can be seen as cute and saucy when applied to redheads.
It's such a funny fact that one of my closest friends is a red head and she's basically the opposite of fiery, stubborn oder hot headed. She's agreeable, reasonable and very level headed. I hate these stereotypes. Also: shoutout to red headed men! You are hot! You are gorgeous! You are valid! Don't let stupid comments get to you! ❤
The Gentlemen Bastards series by Scott Lynch has one very notable red headed female character, and that trait factors in greatly into her behavior and character, because of very particular lore surrounding redheads in the world building. It was a fascinating detail to me, and brought about a very interesting turn of events that in the third book!
Fire (Kristen Cashore) has the titular protagonist as both a redhead AND a black woman, AND considered by many people in-universe as being an "evil seductress" because of her beauty (and her hair is so often cited as being a large part of her beauty, to the point of tying it up in a hair wrap to avoid harassment). The book has so much to say about the treatment of women versus the power of men, and I love it so much. AAHH, Even though you didn't mention it, this video really made me love Fire more!
I think red hair is SO beautiful 😍 very interesting about the physiological differences from the mutation, I had no idea. Creative idea for the video, loved it!
this was so interesting!!! I’m a natural red head, my whole life I’ve had remarks I’d being called a ranga and being told I have no soul 😂 I used to dye my hair blonde but over the last few years I’ve grown it out and now I embrace it!!
I include red-haired characters in my stories because I always had a fondness for red-heads. Ever since Ariel I was wanting to be one, I associated myself with every red-haired character I saw. Bonus points if it's not the natural hair color but the bold red dark colour like Ariel's. My hair colour is uneven naturally and has a slight red tinge to it and I squeal on the inside whenever someone notices and comments on it. I used to dye my hair with toners bright red but grew to love my uneven hair colour with time. Even if it's just a shade of brown it's a very unique blend of brown. But I still have a soft spot for red hair hoho On the other note, I've encountered a lot of fetishism for red hair. I knew a guy who had curly red hair and he very much felt fetishised. Like girls would say things I'd a bear your kid if it got your hair and things like that. He liked it as a teen cuz he didn't know any better, but now it makes him super uncomfortable. To the point he didn't date for several years in fear his new girlfriend would also fetishise him.
Another note on the redhead-as-villain stereotype, Jack from Lord of the Flies is a redhead! Which may be another one of the reasons why people commonly cast the redhead as the villain, as a nod to arguably the most studied villain in high school. (although i would rather not take inspiration from William Golding but that's just me)
Out of curiosity, I’m wondering which main character from Percy Jackson The Lightning Thief she’s referring to. It might be Rachel, but she doesn’t come in until the latter half of the serious and isn’t really a main character until later on in that universe.
it’s interesting that it’s not just like romance fantasy or ya fantasy. i can think of several epic fantasy novels where the main character or several characters have red hair (kvothe in the king killer chronicles and rand in wheel of time) so it really is super present lol
as someone who loves video essays, i loved this video cari! you were candid about the research being heavily pulled by the book "Red" but clearly have some knowledge about this topic yourself. And your passion shines through! I also love more conversational video essays or else i get bored.
I had no idea there were so many in fantasy books! The only redhead I can remember reading about in a fantasy book is Alanna the Lioness. I absolutely love her (and that combination of purple eyes and red hair). It's great to get a redhead's perspective on the phenomenon. As a boring brunette, I just don't think about hair colour much when I'm reading/writing books.
i find that people who 'gatekeep' it are people who were bullied as kids and are bitter that its deemed as pretty now :/ i dont agree with their attitude but i get where it comes from i guess. a good reason to be nice to everyone - so that in the future we arent all bitter people hahaha
I made my main character a (male) redhead with his mom, because I always liked red hair, but it also symbolically disconnects him with his very light haired blond father (because [Red] just physically takes after his mom) and his adopted brother who looks very much like Dad's side of the family. Also Celtic legend does play a large role in the story.
Thank you for your open arms to those of us who dye our hair red! 💜Wish I had your pain tolerance, though! I have the sensitive skin part - I go outside for 5 minutes, and I'm ready to burn. Keeping sunscreen companies afloat over here. What amazes me is Disney Princesses - Ariel, Anna, and Merida, but you only have one gal (Belle) with brown hair. I think everyone else has blond or black hair, even though brown hair is such a common hair color (my natural). When I dyed my hair red, I immediately felt like I had more options for Halloween costumes if I wanted to match the character's hair.
I like red haired main characters because they are interesting and pretty (I consider red hair to be gorgeous) and because red hair is an easy way to make their appearance stand out without giving them weird unrealistic features such as purple eyes. And I like their looks being unique because that makes them feel more special
Loved this video! The other thing i am always dying to talk about is how many authors (esp female) have redhair!! like for years, Cassandra Clare had this ginger thing going, how there's Clarissa Broadbent, JK Rowling again, VE Schwab... just off the top of my head ( I mean, I kind of love it, but also think its interesting!)
I just watched a movie called Pure on Hulu where Lilith is the sort of unexpected protector/hero of a group of young women being abused by their controlling fathers! She was a red head ❤❤
Interesting video. Promiscuity doesn't surprise me too much since I remember learning in one movie that I think was called Melena that cutting your hair and dying it red meant you were opening yourself to prostitution. But I was surprised by the possible reason for it. I have written like a redheaded male mc before when I was a kid, but it was more for, like, you said, it was kind of this exotic, special hair color to me at the time, especially since I lived in an area where I didn't see a lot of people with natural lighter hair. I didn't know some of the things that come with it or it's origins
commenting to help offset some of the more ignorant comments that clearly didnt watch or understand this video! thought this one was super interesting & informative! hopefully people can think before they comment lol
I thought your video was well-structured! I especially noticed how you made the transition from talking about women to men, I was like wow that's so smooth! I think you're doing great and I always look froward to your videos! 😊❤
The male redhead stigma is very interesting. With characters like: Syndrome, Rumplestiltskin, Rorschach, Chucky and Gaara, it seems that red-haired men in fiction have an association with dark triad traits
As a Mexican "pitch black" hair girlie, this is a topic that is incredibly interesting and super new to me. Also, idk if you guys count her, but Rosetta from Tinkerbell is my favorite redhead :)
I looovveeeeeee this deep dive! It's so fascinating! I've always wondered the same things. I'm a blonde, both naturally and I highlight it. I'm always kind of bummed as to why authors make the "evil bitch" character blonde. Like why is that such a bad thing to be blonde? On the flip side, when a character is brunette, why do they always have to be "dull dirty brown" or whatever? Color me confused 🤷🏼♀️
as a borderline blonde I've never wanted to identify as blonde for fear of being seen as shallow or dumb, and never as a brunette for fear of being seen as boring. I didn't want to be the blonde bimbo or the brunette pick-me.
As a hobby writer, I do have an evil redheaded woman in one fantasy story. It isn't antisemetic, it's due to how common the redheaded heroine is in fantasy stories. See, she's has a bad case of main character syndrome and is utterly convinced that everything is about her. Now I'm trying to decide if she and her daughters are true redheads or if they dye their hair to try to look the part. I'm leaning into she's the true redhead and her 18 and 15 year olds dye their hair because she loves them more when she sees herself in them.
I cannot believe that as a mixed-race red-head myself, Lucien is actually representing me in the fantasy genre😂😂 Based on the fan art, I also always thought he was white🤔 I was sure the first brown skinned, red headed fantasy character I would read about would have to be created by myself🤷🏽♀️🤷🏽♀️ And I guess, since I'm black and ginger, I just got the double temper, fiestiness combo package😂💁🏽♀️
I have wavy red hair, waist length, and my hair is my favorite physical feature, I love it and never wanna cut it or dye it. What you said about red hair being a huge part of your life/personality is so true, I get complemented on my hair like once a day, my mom remembers when I was around one and a half and a friend who hadn’t seen me for a while exclaimed “look at you!” And I responded “and look at my hair”, it was already something I was so used to hearing that I was saying it before she could 😂 I feel like if I wrote a book with a red headed character having that kind of experience people would be like “this is so weird the author is just obsessed with her hair and keeps writing in people talking about it”, but that’s genuinely a big part of the experience. I didn’t really experience the negative stereotypes until high school, as a kid people were always very nice and I was proud of my hair. In high school I did have people occasionally joking about me having no soul, but by then I already loved my hair so thankfully it never was something I was self-conscious about. I’m very glad the culture is shifting towards viewing redheads in a positive light because I can imagine being very self-conscious if I heard people talking negatively about my hair. I didn’t know a lot of these facts about redheads so I really enjoyed this video, thanks Cari! I don’t really know what the point of this comment was but I guess it was fun to talk about the redheaded experience with a fellow redhead 😊
I could list about 30 redheaded girls in fiction that I adore, but for the boys i can only really think of the Finsters, Oz (but his hair has also been blonde and brown) and Bronson from Round The Twist.
I got a loooot of remarks from both my cousin and kids in my middle school that I was a "souless ginger" because of my hair. I started to make a joke that I did not, in fact, have a soul but collected the souls of my friends and kept them in decorative bottles 😂
Almost all my main characters have red hair because I have red hair but I usually also let it serve a purpose in the narrative like being a defining marker, showing lineage, or being linked to foxes and therefore looking like one
First let me say that I'm not a redhead but I do have a fun related anecdote. There's a yearly festival in the Dutch city of Tilburg called Redhead Days where thousands of redheads show up from all over the world. I knew about this, but wasn't aware when it was held. So imagine my surprise when I went to visit friends there last August and the streets were literally filled with redheads. A solid third of the people walking around downtown had red hair.
For anyone leaving a comment about red heads being "erased" from movies/tv, i BEG you to watch this video and educate yourself. Red heads were used in TV to show a visually diverse character (with negative stereotypes) *when actors of other races so so rarely shown on TV.* Now that its the TWENTY FIRST CENTURY we are lucky to see diverse casting that includes more than just white people.
As stated in the video, red heads are *vastly* over represented in media. We're shown nearly 90% more on screens than we are on the streets based on the world or just the US population. We are not being erased. Our over representation is a product of racism in the media and we should be celebrating seeing other people getting their rightful chance to be seen. Adaptations do not erase the original. Keep your 1990s Disney Ariel, and appreciate future adaptations that have cast, story, and other kinds of adaptations.
Your red head family card is revoked the second you show how racist you are fyi.
It's a serious red flag if someone is watching a live action disney remake and the ONLY criticism they can think of is "brown people". They're not just racist at that point, they also have horrible taste in movies.
Randomly fell on this video and this message alone is making me sub! You are freaking hilarious and repping diversity all at once I love it 😂 "redhead family card revoked!!" 👏👏👏👏
P.s. half Asian with subtle coppery auburn that pops up only in the summer, do I get a card? 🥹😂
As a natural ginger if anyone complains on my behalf I will curse you. And you will probably lowkey slightly believe that I am capable of cursing you because that myth still hasn't died lol
@@ChiefOfMessenger
Yeah, this is my biggest problem with it. It has nothing to do with racism, I'm just disappointed that they aren't coming out with interesting stories that are actually about other cultures, instead of taking white fiction and casting people of color to play the same characters we've always known.
Like, why make Cleopatra black instead of making an awesome series or movie about the great Amanirenas or any of the other actually black queens in history? Why hasn't there been a really cool AAA mainstream production about the Zulus still (STILL!)?
There are so many great stories and history from actually black cultures they could be portraying and instead they're just casting people of color to take their place in white fiction and calling it a great triumph.
No shade to the actors and actresses, because I think these are still great opportunities for them. I just don't think we need to pretend like there isn't any legitimate criticism about missed opportunities as well on the producers' part...
As a now 30 year old who grew up watching CN, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, PBS, etc', I have to say, I've always been kind of surprised by the under representation of brunette white girls. I know this might sound ridiculous to some, but if you really go and look back, you'll see that what I'm saying is completely true. The only time a white female is represented in a show(especially animated shows), they always have either red hair, blonde hair, or black hair. This always made me feel a little left out as a brunette growing up, and made me feel honestly like the world was telling me that brunette females weren't as good, that they were plain and boring, and didn't "stick out".
I've got the red hair green eyes and freckles combo, fantasy writers are out to GET me.
youre about to be snatched and taken to Fairy! watch out girlie!!
I actually like that combination.
I have a female character with dark red hair, green eyes and freckles.
She's the love interest in a certain trilogy I'm planning.
@@britt6184 Yes, that's what she's saying haha Writers often choose to write characters with green eyes and red hair and freckles :)
throw in some curly long hair you will be kidnapped away into some fantasy forest
because of race mixing and multi culturism people like that are rare
I honestly believe that the number of red heds in books is due to the fact that it's an easy way to make someone "different" and "interesting" without having to come up with a personality. Source: being a red head
It’s also a way to be “diverse” without researching a whole new culture or race.
@@simplesimply3753If redheads counted as “diverse” in the eyes of the ideologues (which they probably should, given their minority status in society and their historical persecution as witches etc.), why then was there a need to race-swap the Little Mermaid? 😂 In other words, the most iconic redhead character in history?
@@cosmicprison9819ariel is def not the most iconic and if you watch the video i tell you why red heads are often swapped with specifically Black women. When racial diversity wasnt allowed on TV (not that long ago!) red hair was the only way to make the case have diversity or a visual “other” and now that society thankfully lets all people be shown on tv, we’re seeing more representation.
@@caricanread What counts as “diverse” is arbitrary anyway - it’s actually a form of American imperialism, as they push their lens on everyone else. The different ethnicities within Europe, for example, are lumped together as “white” and defined as non-diverse, even though Scandinavians clearly look different from Slavs or from Mediterranean people; characters who actually are from Africa still get labelled “African-American” because that’s what people in the US treat as a synonym for “black”.
Do characters with glasses count as diverse, for example? 😂 Most superheroes no longer need theirs when they gain their powers (Superman, Spider-Man etc.). Isn’t that ableist? Speaking of, does Daredevil count as “diverse” because he’s blind? Most people would probably say “no” - because he’s a white guy.
@@cosmicprison9819 I don tthink you understood my comment because i have no idea what you're responding to
most unrealistic thing abt all these redheads is that they spend all this time outside and never get sunburnt. god knows all it takes for me is ten minutes with no shade and my skin starts to match my hair 😔
say it louder 😂😂😂😂
Same!
Factor 50 is your friend. 😉
I have red hair and do not burn, I tan. I hate that everybody thinks my skin tone is inextricably linked to my hair color and go on and on about my "sensitive" skin. Meanwhile, I know several people with dark brown hair (my husband included) and fair skin yet no one is worried. My husband burns easily, fast, and brutally., yet I'm the one who has to hear about it all the time. 😠
@@ochoheido i think the OP was saying this because in books red heads are often also paired with porcelain white skin. as i mentioned in the vid, red hair is linked to many ethnicities and backgrounds. my italian red head friends tan easily for ex.
I think the decrease in bullying redheads is gender specific. For women, it’s generally considered pretty. However, redheaded boys were bullied about their appearance all the time when I was a kid, and I am 21.
Ginger’s do have souls!
I was relentlessly bullied for my ginger hair (I’m a woman) it only stopped when I turned 20 and men started fetishising me. I don’t know what was worse 😂
Here in Argentina people are obsessed with soccer and they are very superstitious about it. Last year, a host of a soccer program who used to be a player, cried on public television because they kept calling him mufa (a person who brings bad luck) because of his red hair. He is 47 years old and said he was tired of the bullying he has suffered since he was little because of his hair.
@niamh7666 the same here!
I think you’re right on the money. I’m in my 30s and even back in the early 2000s my younger brother got bullied a lot because of his red hair. He would either get bullied by kids his age or receive a lot of unwanted attention from grown women who were constantly trying to touch his hair. It’s like people ceased to see him as a person and more of a thing…all because of the color of his hair.
It's such a small detail but I really like how Jamie's red hair in Outlander becomes more strawberry blonde as he ages throughout the seasons, it's a nice touch that we don't see very often in media.
Exactly- most redheads I know (including myself!) don’t stay the same shade of red their whole lives. There’s baby baby photos of me where you could swear I was blonde with how light it was lol
Idk any of this but this does sound like a nice touch! Seeing my moms hair change over the years it def kinda changes like that. And people change as they grow older foo
Knowing history, the association between red headed women and bad temper is probably because a redhead women rejected a man a long time ago and he made it his personal mission to take it out on every red headed woman😂😂😂😂
lmfao you are probably not wrong hahhaha
That’s what I thought about as well lmao. Like he spread a rumor about her or something.
Or it's literally just because of the association by color similarities. Lol
@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341pls just take the joke 😭
@@caricanread I mean... I wasn't not-taking the joke(?)-I was being "serious" humorously. Lol (But please forgive me if it came off too wet-blanket instead!🙏😅)
Sophie isn’t the only redhead in Howl’s Moving Castle!!! Howl’s biggest freak out in the book is when Sophie moves his shampoo and it dyes his hair, you guessed it, RED.
Okay but the anesthesia thing is completely real. I went in to get my wisdom teeth removed as a teenager and scared the absolute pants off of the dental assistant when I woke up fully coherent and politely thanked the staff before getting up to leave 😂
Yes! The moment I wake up from anesthesia, I'm alert and coherent. I also remember everything from the moment I wake up. My wife, on the other hand (a brunette), is very groggy and barely aware of what's happening when she wakes up from anesthesia. She doesn't really remember anything and is too sluggish and out of it to do things for herself (like pick up a cup to drink water, or eat crackers). The difference is really interesting!
My mum is much more grey nowadays haha but she had a terrible time with the anesthesia. She almost had to spend an extra night.
I feel this. I woke up and the first thing I said was to ask for my teeth. Granted it sounded funny with all the gauze. And when I had surgery on my foot I woke up twice to the most horrifying sensations with the tube in my throat and the feeling of doctors working on my feet.
Maybe that's why I don't get as much as a "fun" reaction as my sister.. Never thought of it 😅😅
Yes, having red-hair becomes part of your personality in the long run since it’s the distinctive feature that almost every single person throughout your life will identify you as, “the redhead”. Everyone will always have something to say, whether it’d be positive or negative. My son is a red head, as is my husband, and the amount of attention they receive over their hair can be overwhelming to a certain extent, especially for a shy individual.
The part about red headed women being evil and/or promiscuos reminded me of a youtube video I saw a while ago about how in kdramas the antagonist woman usually has red or a reddish hair color and when nearing the last episodes, if said antagonist goes through some change to become a better person the first thing to change is the hair color to brown or black
are you talking about "in defense of the hyper-feminine villain: k-drama analysis" by k-drama research institute?
czcams.com/video/Pu5xGcS7rW4/video.html
That's kinda fucked up
All the love to redheads! No one else could say "you know nothing, Jon Snow" with the same feisty power
yeah i get game of thrones comments more than anything else here in korea for some reason
@@caricanreadI’m jealous 🙁 that’s so iconic
❤❤❤
@@caricanreadso many redheads in that series. George Martin has a thing
What I like about Ygritte is that Martin addresses the tendency to have stereotypes about redheads and those stereotypes ("kissed by fire", "lucky", "fertile") are explicit in the text.
I'm not all the way through the video, but I needed to comment on your point at 13:22 - "If someone tells you that you have a bad temper, a bad attitude, enough times - you're going to have a bad attitude and a bad temper." This is the same deal for black and Latina women. We're constantly told we're angry or fiesty, and eventually we are pissed enough to be exactly that in that moment. Am I an angry black woman, or am I just angry and I happen to be a black woman? Clearly the latter, but it's such a frustrating cycle because I want to hide my emotions to NOT be prove them right.
UPDATE: Got through the video and you said the same thing 🤣🤣so thank you for acknowledging the parallels between WOC and redhead! Women with wider hips - especially black women - were also seen as having advantages in giving birth (not saying it's true, but just assumed) and that also added to stereotypes of promiscuity in addition to the sexual violence of chattel slavery.
We gingers have souls. They may not be our own but we do have them.
Also Ginger Spice. She set a certain bar for how gen x and millennials saw redhead women. Now that they’re the ones producing the media.. it’s not a big surprise the fantasy of a girl power character takes that form.
Ginger Spice only a few years after Anne of Green Gables and Pippi Longstocking and Ariel and a bunch of others... The red-headed girl protagonist trope goes back a looooong way.
@@kray3883ah, the good old stuff. That 5 girl singing combo, otoh, is something I like to ignore.
My fiancé is a redhead and I’m a brown dude. I never knew the world of redheads until I started my relationship. I got a lot of hate for dating a red headed person for some reason from friends and family. Literally till this day, I don’t understand why people even hate on redheads or how some people fetish them. Whenever someone finds out my fiancé is a redhead people always act odd. I’m with you about the whole getting mad when ppl say annoying things. 😂 I get mad for my fiancé when ppl say, “You’re only this angry because you’re a red head.” I’m like bro I’m not even a redhead and that annoys me 😂
This is unrelated to your post, but I love the fact that you're talking about your redheaded gf while having Pain/Pein as your pfp 💀. But fr people need to chill out with that, it's so weird.
wth I swear I’ve never heard anyone say anything negative about red hairs. I’ve hairs jokes suggesting they are bad luck, but nothing more than that, just friendly jokes not ill-intended at all
I want to move to wherever you’re from, that sounds great! I’d be straight up trauma dumping if I described what I’ve dealt with because of it
I love redheads!
Red hair is rare and stands out. I only wish there were more Black girls in fantasy, we are practically non existent in fantasy.
💯
Seriously. I hope in the near future there will be more black girl protagonists in fantasy stories.
Well, people write about their own race usually
@@emagalociova and that’s good. But I’m talking about black authors. I hope there will be more black authors in the future writing for fantasy
As a Indian girl same, I think its because authors tend to write about their own race. Most of the time fantasy authors tend to be white women, most black and south asian authors I see tend to be contemporary writers.
For brazilians redhair is like the prettiest color ever, so when I read Anne of Green Gables I really couldn't understand why she didn't like her hair...sooooo I just thought fantasy authors wanted pretty characters tbh. Cool video Cari!
When i was a kid i used to draw all my characters as redheads while not ever seeing one irl 😭 (eu morava no nordeste)
compreensível haha @@chiariscuro
A lot of people don't like their hair. I'm not a redhead but I have very long very curly hair and I hated it for so long.
Thank you for mentioning the connections between antisemitism and redheaded male stereotypes! For those who are curious, I can talk in more detail about the origin of the association. In medieval Christian culture, there was a major association between red hair and Jewishness. This might originate from King David, who is described in the Bible as redheaded - and also, it's true that Ashkenazi/Eastern European Jews are disproportionately red-haired. But of course, in medieval times anything associated with being Jewish was also associated with being evil.
This association does go both ways, though. One of my favorite examples of this that is in pre-war Yiddish folklore there was a legend about the "royte yidn" - literally "red Jews," red-headed descendants of the lost tribes who would someday come west across the river Sambation and liberate the oppressed Jews of Europe. So that's fun!
Regarding the Lilith thing, though, it's unfortunately entirely incorrect. Lilith in the modern sense (as the first wife of Adam) is first mentioned in the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a pseudepigraphal comedic work from c. 700. Her story, to put it bluntly, is that she wanted to top, Adam didn't want her to top, so she swore to eat babies. That's what she does - she eats babies. The original Akkadian word lilītu, which is borrowed into Hebrew, actually doesn't refer to the first woman at all, but is just a common word for any evil spirits with feminine gender. A lot of the sources from the era use "lilith" as a catch-all term for spirits that would screw around with mothers and children, and amulets would often say things like "I cast out all liliths from [woman's name] and her child [child's name]."
While Lilith is described as having long hair, the color of the hair is inconsistent, with many Jewish texts saying it was either dark or golden. The red-haired depictions, which date back to the 19th century at the earliest (since observant Jews didn't create depictions of people, and before the 19th century Christians didn't really care about Jewish folklore), are from painters who already had been raised in a culture with the association of redheads with promiscuity and seductiveness, so Lilith was painted with red flowing hair then, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with her original depiction.
Genuinely a fascinating comment, thank you so much!!
This is all so interesting!
Very interesting, thanks
Thank you for explaining!!!
In antiquity, or earlier, red hair in men had heroic qualities. Achilles and Menelaus are described as red-heads in the Iliad and the Odyssey respectively. Alexander the great was depicted with red hair, or as "tawny" like a lion's mane, which symbolised heroism and leadership. Those connotations later shifted under later antiquity and early medieval times. Herodotus described Thacians and Schythians, enemies of the Greeks, as being red-headed and thus the hair colour was regarded as "barbarian". Same thing happened in ancient Rome where the enemies of Rome, the gauls and celts etc, were described as red-headed. Red hair then became a symbol of barbarism, but it was sought after and fetishised by roman women who would create wigs of red hair. In early medieval times Judas Iscariot and Mary Magdalene were attributed with red hair, causing more negative connotations like treachery and promiscuity. And since red-heads were treacherous and promiscuous, and the prevalence of red hair in Ashkenazi jews, then that must mean jews were also just that.
"redhair IS my personality" so true 😭 Not only is my hair red, but it's also curly. I can barely walk out of the house without random strangers making a comment on it (or even touching it it!) It's hard not to make it my personality
Felt that!!!
Touching it, that's so rude 😢
this is so real, getting constantly teased for it at school and then having old ladies come up to you and marvel at your hair😭
Similar to the red head trait being everywhere in fantasy, there is so many people with green and gray eyes in the romance genre. They're the rarest eye colors in the world and yet I read descriptions of a main character with them in basically every romance book I read.
my whole life changed when i looked up what gray eyes actually look like and its just light blue lmao.
I think this is another way The Locked Tomb breaks the norm with Gideon, being the jock butch she is with red hair without the expected stereotypes. Also the fanart including the body hair 💕
Gideon fanart truly did awaken something in me😳
On the topic of tempers and promiscuity, when people are enraged or aroused, their faces tend to get flushed which makes the skin redder. So we tend to associate the color red with those emotions so it kinda makes sense that people would associate red hair with those two emotions.
In addition, redheads which tend to be paler on average as they don’t tan as easily, which means that the flush coloration can be even more noticeable which could make it easier for people to notice if a redheaded person was angry or aroused compared to another person with the same level of flush thus feeding into the stereotypes.
On the topic of promiscuity specifically, there is a tendency in patriarchal societies to disproportionately blame women for promiscuity. That if a guy leaves a woman for another woman, people will blame the other woman for seducing him, rather than the guy for being shallow, or addressing root issues of why the relationship failed. Red hair is a fairly rare hair color and sticks out. That no doubt led to men that were purely interested in relationships with varied women for varied experiences to take note of them, so I wouldn’t be surprised if historically (or even today) redheaded women were more likely to be hit on by promiscuous guys, and thus have that stereotype passed along to them.
I haven't watched the video yet but I think red hair in fantasy is a trend because of the connection with the old myth of red heads being witches so it is automatically more fantastical.
Yes very true!! I didnt have enough info to include it but especially during the Spanish Inquisition too red heads apparently we “guilty” simply from their hair color. Ditto with the witch trials 🙃
Interesting. I did not know that myth. 😮
I've never heard that one, but the fantasy tradition comes mostly out of Norse mythology, so I doubt it. As red hair in Norse mythology was literally meant to signify the "common man" trope. It's why Thor was a red head. The God of the common man.
Thank you!! Fellow redhead here and i've been pissed off by how...romanticized? Redheaded women are in media. Creators will slap some red hair on a character's head, call them stunningly beautiful, and call it a day. Creators definitely don't realize that there are a bunch of traits that go along with it. Usually paler skin, even for POC, sunburn, the anaesthesia thing, sensitivity to hot and cold, (this could me generalizing about my family but sensitivity to smells might also be a thing), TYPICALLY RED HAIR EVERYWHERE. I'M TALKING RED EYEBROWS AND EYELASHES, PEOPLE. Are the characters in your medieval fantasy putting on mascara and eyeliner? No? Then they are gonna have pale ass eyelashes. A common (although not across the board) white redhead trait is really sparse eyebrows (think Queen Elizabeth I). This is all part of being a redhead. I need to see more of these things represented. I'm so sick of fanart of supposedly makeup-less redheads (or even redheads in animation) with thick, glamorous black eyelashes and eyebrows.
Of course, i have a whole separate rant about the treatment of redheaded men. That's very different. Give them some love, but remember that you can't take any old model and slap red hair on him :(
So true! I somehow ended up with dark brown eyebrows naturally. But I can’t remember meeting anyone else like this, even in my own family
Wait i'm curious about redhead men most rumors (?) i got in my country about them is that when they get angry they are the most dangerous mf's out there
@@xemnasxiii3992 you could watch my video - thats why i made it :''''''(
Throughout this video all I could think about was that one scene in the first Aquaman movie where Mera (a redhead) jumps from an airplane midair without a parachute and the pilot is all shocked to which Aquaman says to him: "Redheads. You gotta love them."
Such an interesting video! I was also thinking while watching that promescious women are often referred to as "vixen", and the most common fox's fur is red. I wonder if there is also a link there? Especially since in mythology, foxes are often tricksters and unreliable, but also clever.
I know a lot of mythologies from around the world have foxes that can shape shift into women to trick and seduce men ..... that is probably where it comes from
idk if anyone else remembers the collective fandom gasp when The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner came out and Bree just casually calls Edward Cullen "the redhead" bc Bella always just referred to his "bronze" hair and somehow no one picked up on that meaning his hair was red, lol
YES! I wanted to mention Edward being a redhead too!
Author response here. I have auburn hair, and it turns bright red in the summer. I probably add red hair to my books because I have it myself. Also, in my main cast, I have a black boy character (with black hair), a red head boy, and a blonde girl. Partially, the reason is just to have three characters that are visually distinct from each other and easy to keep straight in the mind. If you're curious, he is a bit fiery, but it's because he's the foil for the more stoic other male MC, not because he has red hair, haha. I'm a very chill red head.
As a black female, when you started talking about how mad you'd get when people started to do the "oh you're mad because you're a red head", I immediately started to cringe in recognizing this for myself and my fellow black ladies. IT'S SO FRUSTRATING AND ANNOYING. I'm very happy you acknowledged the difference still
I hate that women with red hair are considered beautiful but men are not. I LOVE red hair on ANYONE. I want more male redhead representation in romance books!
Write me a million outlanders pls 😭🥹😭🥹
As a fantasy writer who enjoys putting auburn male protagonist in her books I see this as an absolutely win
My biggest crush in high school was on a redheaded guy, and in college I had a crush on another redheaded guy. I'm Black Jamaican-American and clearly didn't get the memo about redheaded men supposedly not being attractive. Both of these guys were super cute, super nice, and yes, that hair made them stand out.
i can only think of the norse god Thor
@@vbrown6445 My husband is a redhead! I love redhead men ♥️
My redhead character has a high pain tolerance!!! It's a huge part of her character and it winds up feeding into her need to protect everyone, she sees herself as naturally stronger.
I can't even deny the redhead stereotypes because I am in fact firey and sassy and stubborn as hell LMAO. Also....was reminded to take my vitamin D during this video 😔
i hold the belief that we were not born that way but all the random strangers coming up and talking to us about our hair MADE us that way hahaha
talking to us about our hair and TOUCHING IT 😭the amount of times as a kid that adult strangers reached out and touched my hair...insane@@caricanread
At this point, I'm not sure if I am fiery and suborn for myself or if I developed that way because I was "supposed" to be those things.
I wanted so badly to be a redhead when I was little 😂 I had a good friend who was redhead and I told her and she was like "why the hell would you want red hair?" because she was bullied all the time. I just thought it was sooo pretty and that my brown hair was horrible and boring.
This video was really interesting, I had been thinking recently about how there are so many redheads in books then you uploaded this! I wrote a lot of connected short novels when I was on high school where my main character and her brother were redheads, and it was partly inspired by the twins from The Song Of The Lioness books and partly because of my infatuation with red hair from when I was 9
When I was little I always wanted to have chestnut brown hair haha. Maybe because of the attention my red hair brought to my shy shelf. Like, my parents told me when I was younger an Asian family was so enamored with my red hair in DisneyLand that they asked to take a picture of it. I've learned to appreciate and love my red hair (and the attention! 🙃). I'm 36 now and another adult woman asked to take a picture of my hair just a few months ago to show her mother, ha.
@@ochoheido I've had a similar experience in Asia but because I'm half Taiwanese half white so when we would visit my mum's family there would always be people fascinated by our features, but they really do go mad for red and blonde hair when they see it in the wild 😅 I hope they were never rude to you
I appreciate your stance on unnatural reds. I have multiple redheads in my family including my father but I didn’t get the gene. When I was about 17 I officially went auburn and I haven’t looked back. After being red for over 10 years, I can confirm it becomes part of your identity even if you aren’t born with it. People refer to you as the girl with red hair, or comment on how certain colors look on you more, or how they’re jealous of it. I got 3 compliments from strangers on my hair in one afternoon out shopping. And I’m fortunate enough that because of my family it looks natural on me (pale w/ pink undertone, freckles) to the point where many ask me if it’s my real color (which is kinda fun when you know it isn’t, I’m sure it’s annoying to natural reds). Any time I’ve tried to change it, it just doesn’t feel right. So I consider myself an honorary redhead so to speak because I don’t feel like myself without it anymore.
As a redhead, I have so many thoughts and responses to all of this! I wrote out an essay, basically, but it’s too much- so what I want to say is: I think you are great at including your audience and making us feel as though we’re sharing ideas or learning about something together. It never feels like you’re assuming we won’t know something, which is something I think must be really challenging!
I’m also curious about your favorite red headed character, now. 👩🏻🦰
The Mentalist has an unusually high number of redheads in the show, to the point where the Trivia section of the IMDB page of each episode will note the redheaded actresses in it. It’s because every episode for the first 6 (?) seasons relates to the word Red in some way because of the character Red John. It’s kinda a fascinating decision imo, and it kinda makes it so even if the episode isn’t about Red John, it’s clear the show is still partially focused on him-“always thinking about him” almost. Hilariously, Red John himself isn’t a redhead.
One of the things I love about Little Thieves is that not only is Vanja a fairly unflattering shade of redhead-carrot-the fact that she *is* a redhead is VERY intentional and has a purpose in the thematic material of the story.
I’m live in the south and I have heard many people say “ we are treated like the red headed step child” whenever someone is being treated bad or unfair.
I heard it growing up as "ugly red-headed stepchild." 😢
Super interesting video. It's funny because every friend I have that has red hair are the calmest most patient people I've met so I never got the short tempered firey link.
its almost like people with a shared physical trait arent a monolith :''') tell your friends thank you for representing us well lol
Literally just finished reading Falling Hard for the Royal Guard, where the main female character is a redhead 😂
LOL you cant escape us!
@@caricanread I don't mind 😂❤️
This video made me realise how I just build my own mental images of characters, and really couldn't tell you what the author tells us about how characters look
As a girl with curly hair, I felt you with so many of your points in this video. Loved the history lesson!
I actually originally had two red-headed characters in my story (literally the mc and the main love interest lol) but I'm going to have to change the mc's hair color to brown for lore/worldbuilding reasons.
I initially gave them red hair purely for aesthetics based on reference photos I found on Pinterest lol, but I really just can't imagine the love interest looking any different. He is very warm and sweet, but also a bit mischievous and fun-loving, and I feel like the red hair suits that perfectly.
Plus, he's the court jester, and from his hair being red I created a whole red-headed foreign country, which ties into the idea of him being different from the dark-featured people of the main kingdom, resulting in him not being taken seriously and being suitably entertaining for the court since he looks so "other".
it’s also interesting how both achilles and helen of troy are sometimes described or portrayed as redheads! achilles representing the fierceness and bad temper and helen representing an adulteress
Cleopatra VII was a Red-head
Not what my grandmother told me...@@clarehidalgo
The Weasley family from the books tick every red hair stereotype ever lol Ron is framed as “dumb”, comic relief, envious, weaker than the other main characters. Ginny is fiery and seductive (dates more and earlier than older characters and is ultimately the love interest), the twins are mischievous troublemakers, Percy is aloof and annoying, Mrs Weasley has a bad temper and sends Ron a howler etc. But every character besides Harry in those novels is a stereotype to be fair lol
Even harrys a stereotype, messy hair and green eyes are another witch stereotype. Not to mention how many green eyed characters have main character syndrome (says the green eyed girl)
Family is one of the nicer families in the book though. One thing that pissed me off is Harry being a little bitch to everyone that was helping him.😂
This was fascinating! I loved the chill video essay vibes, and as always, I’m obsessed with your editing choices they’re so funny- the cut to BTS sent me 😂
i’m from wales in the uk and whilst i do think i see less bullying over red hair it’s definitely still happening, just more often for men. my brother is 27 and he used to get sooooo many comments when he was in his early teens, to the point he got in a fight with someone because they gave him so much shit for it. compared to my best friend who’s a red headed woman, and another who is a dyed red headed woman and i notice they get much more of those “fiery” or more sexually based comments abt their hair
I cant confirm this, but its interesting that redheadedness potentially codes for being a person of color, as when the creators of the Witcher show were casting they were under a lot of pressure to increase diversity, so they replaced Triss the canonical redhead with a woman of color
It’s strange to hear there are so many redheads in books because I have barely seen any book character described as red hair. Unless copper counts. When it says copper I picture whatever the hell I want.
Yeah, copper definitely counts. The writers were most likely imagining red hair.
Copper is 100% red hair hahah
@@caricanreadoh! When I asked for my hair dyed copper a couple months ago, it came out like pumpkin orange so I wasn’t sure
@@bookbrain1557 You dyed your hair without googling what color it was gonna be? ? 😳 I want that bravery, give 😆😆 Did you end up liking it??
Also even tho it came out orange, orange haired people are still called Red-Heads. When everyone here says Red they're moreso talking about the range from light orange to very vivid red
@@SummerAlleriaWindrunner I did end up liking it and I am newly enlightened about red-heads. In my defense, a present the flimsy excuse that I may have-definitely was-sleep deprived while writing this. I also recommend trying a hair color you’re not entirely sure what it is as long as you have it done by someone you trust!
😂😂😂 “Redhair IS my personality”….the best quote ever. Our family is Irish Catholic and at a reunion, at least half the people had red hair. Two of my boys are red headed like your’s and my second son was mortified as a little kid when all the old women would touch his head. So, it’s funny that you had a similar experience. As a 2-year-old he would wear a hoodie to keep people from touching his hair. So funny. And my husband had your color when we met and he (just like his mother) has gone white (early too!). Mine has always been more auburn/chestnut colored so of course we have the same genetic traits to pass on. Such a fun topic. I’ve noticed all the redheads in books or shows as well. It is an interesting trend. ❤ Fellow red headed fam. ❤
My son at 14 still keeps his head covered to stop people from rubbing his head. He's got such thick wavy red hair, I hate seeing him hat up!
One of my main characters in my YA fantasy is a red headed male with wild red beard. He’s the most loyal and kind of the bunch. I made him Scottish because I have a link to Scotland. He’s not magical and he’s definitely not evil.
Not just fantasy protagonists, you can sometimes get the impression that for a time period, comic book writers were contractually obligated to give their heroes red headed love interests. Only very old (Superman, Batman) and very recent ones consistently avert this trope.
As a writer currently writing a story with a redheaded main character, I feel targeted by this video 😂
Yep...
Loved the video!!! ❤ When I was a child/teen red-haired boys definitely got bullied, I remember the "no souls" thing well and I knew some girls that were very self-conscious about having "no eyelashes"
I had no idea that there were so many bad stereotypes about red heads 😮 I didn't grow up with any red heads around me so I wasn't exposed to any of it 😅 and whenever I see someone with red hair on the streets, either men or women, doesn't matter, all I think is "ohhh pretty ❤" and move on with my day 😂 idk why someone would want to try to touch their hair, though, rude.
I think it's a perspective thing. If you don't see redheads very often, you're not subjected to the negative comments & reactions nearly as often as a redhead would be.
As a redhead (and a writer, I’ll get into that), yes, it IS my personality. I have done endless research to answer my questions on why we are the way that we are and I couldn’t get factual answers I could only go based off what I knew, my own experiences and family experiences to make some theories. My conclusion was that we just feel a little extra special, and this special trait makes us defensive over it but it’s also a double edged sword, we don’t have a tight knitted community because we are just an occurrence, a mutation, we aren’t a race or religion. Others have picked out our stereotypes for us and it’s the only reference point we have because we only have ourselves in most cases. So that has always sucked, but when I’m with my redheaded family, things seem to just feel better, and when I’m with non redheaded family members I feel like I am only the eye candy. When I read stories, the inclusion of redheaded characters has often felt misplaced. So when I started working on my own it took me four years in to include a red haired character because it is something so special, it IS our personality. I had to do it justice! He perhaps is a slight genderbent self insert… Just a tad.
I loved this video. It didn't really feel disorganized.
I grew up with auburn hair that became dark brown in my late 20's (my mom was the same). I 100% agree that it was part of my personality and it was sad to no longer have that. I have started dying it and the last time at the salon, a woman remarked that I looked like a redhead and I wasn't sure how to respond 😂
I am a blonde that has dyed my hair red and I can 100% attest that I was treated much differently while I was red! I was taken more seriously and listened to better. It was a wild little social experiment.
I find it auspicious that the day I become a red head for the first time ever my favourite booktuber releases this video. I'm choosing to see this as fun times ahead! (I'm a brunette but had bright pink hair and was wanting to move away from that so my hairdresser said red/auburn was the way to go 😊)
I'm really happy you tapped into the correlation between black women and redheads media portrail. It also works the other way. As someone said, sometimes redheads are used to be diverse without being diverse. Something common is a charecter being obviously black coded but is a white red head instead and i think that is specifically because as you said the same tropes are negative when applied to black women but can be seen as cute and saucy when applied to redheads.
It's such a funny fact that one of my closest friends is a red head and she's basically the opposite of fiery, stubborn oder hot headed. She's agreeable, reasonable and very level headed. I hate these stereotypes.
Also: shoutout to red headed men! You are hot! You are gorgeous! You are valid! Don't let stupid comments get to you! ❤
The Gentlemen Bastards series by Scott Lynch has one very notable red headed female character, and that trait factors in greatly into her behavior and character, because of very particular lore surrounding redheads in the world building. It was a fascinating detail to me, and brought about a very interesting turn of events that in the third book!
Fire (Kristen Cashore) has the titular protagonist as both a redhead AND a black woman, AND considered by many people in-universe as being an "evil seductress" because of her beauty (and her hair is so often cited as being a large part of her beauty, to the point of tying it up in a hair wrap to avoid harassment). The book has so much to say about the treatment of women versus the power of men, and I love it so much. AAHH, Even though you didn't mention it, this video really made me love Fire more!
So excited to hear your thoughts on thiss! Ps: as a scientist, I loved the genetic and physiology infos 🥰
as a very non-science-minded person i apologize for messing anything up ahhaha
@@caricanread you always do greatt! And actually you are the one teaching me here hahah
I think red hair is SO beautiful 😍 very interesting about the physiological differences from the mutation, I had no idea. Creative idea for the video, loved it!
this was so interesting!!! I’m a natural red head, my whole life I’ve had remarks I’d being called a ranga and being told I have no soul 😂 I used to dye my hair blonde but over the last few years I’ve grown it out and now I embrace it!!
I include red-haired characters in my stories because I always had a fondness for red-heads. Ever since Ariel I was wanting to be one, I associated myself with every red-haired character I saw. Bonus points if it's not the natural hair color but the bold red dark colour like Ariel's. My hair colour is uneven naturally and has a slight red tinge to it and I squeal on the inside whenever someone notices and comments on it. I used to dye my hair with toners bright red but grew to love my uneven hair colour with time. Even if it's just a shade of brown it's a very unique blend of brown. But I still have a soft spot for red hair hoho
On the other note, I've encountered a lot of fetishism for red hair. I knew a guy who had curly red hair and he very much felt fetishised. Like girls would say things I'd a bear your kid if it got your hair and things like that. He liked it as a teen cuz he didn't know any better, but now it makes him super uncomfortable. To the point he didn't date for several years in fear his new girlfriend would also fetishise him.
This video made me think of re-reading one of my favourite books Fire by Kristin Cashore!! Loved it so much. Red head girl here too 😁
Another note on the redhead-as-villain stereotype, Jack from Lord of the Flies is a redhead! Which may be another one of the reasons why people commonly cast the redhead as the villain, as a nod to arguably the most studied villain in high school. (although i would rather not take inspiration from William Golding but that's just me)
My mom is a redhead, and I have always been kinda sad that I didn't inherit it :(
I do have a coppery brown color, so I guess that's something 😂😢
Red hair often skips a generation so your kids might have it?
Out of curiosity, I’m wondering which main character from Percy Jackson The Lightning Thief she’s referring to. It might be Rachel, but she doesn’t come in until the latter half of the serious and isn’t really a main character until later on in that universe.
it’s interesting that it’s not just like romance fantasy or ya fantasy. i can think of several epic fantasy novels where the main character or several characters have red hair (kvothe in the king killer chronicles and rand in wheel of time) so it really is super present lol
as someone who loves video essays, i loved this video cari! you were candid about the research being heavily pulled by the book "Red" but clearly have some knowledge about this topic yourself. And your passion shines through! I also love more conversational video essays or else i get bored.
I had no idea there were so many in fantasy books! The only redhead I can remember reading about in a fantasy book is Alanna the Lioness. I absolutely love her (and that combination of purple eyes and red hair). It's great to get a redhead's perspective on the phenomenon. As a boring brunette, I just don't think about hair colour much when I'm reading/writing books.
Boring and brunette dont belong in the same sentence! 🥹
I love that you're not gatekeeping this whole red hair thing, that anybody can be a redhead even those who dye their hair
Kudos for that
i find that people who 'gatekeep' it are people who were bullied as kids and are bitter that its deemed as pretty now :/ i dont agree with their attitude but i get where it comes from i guess. a good reason to be nice to everyone - so that in the future we arent all bitter people hahaha
I made my main character a (male) redhead with his mom, because I always liked red hair, but it also symbolically disconnects him with his very light haired blond father (because [Red] just physically takes after his mom) and his adopted brother who looks very much like Dad's side of the family.
Also Celtic legend does play a large role in the story.
Thank you for your open arms to those of us who dye our hair red! 💜Wish I had your pain tolerance, though! I have the sensitive skin part - I go outside for 5 minutes, and I'm ready to burn. Keeping sunscreen companies afloat over here. What amazes me is Disney Princesses - Ariel, Anna, and Merida, but you only have one gal (Belle) with brown hair. I think everyone else has blond or black hair, even though brown hair is such a common hair color (my natural). When I dyed my hair red, I immediately felt like I had more options for Halloween costumes if I wanted to match the character's hair.
Rapunzel's natural hair is brown in Tangled (like her parents') after her magical blonde hair is cut.
I like red haired main characters because they are interesting and pretty (I consider red hair to be gorgeous) and because red hair is an easy way to make their appearance stand out without giving them weird unrealistic features such as purple eyes. And I like their looks being unique because that makes them feel more special
Loved this video! The other thing i am always dying to talk about is how many authors (esp female) have redhair!! like for years, Cassandra Clare had this ginger thing going, how there's Clarissa Broadbent, JK Rowling again, VE Schwab... just off the top of my head ( I mean, I kind of love it, but also think its interesting!)
I just watched a movie called Pure on Hulu where Lilith is the sort of unexpected protector/hero of a group of young women being abused by their controlling fathers! She was a red head ❤❤
Lololol i feel so at home because of your choice in spliced in clips, like we are the same age for sure and i am so here for it 🤣🤣
100/100 on the vid idea cari
i got this idea from you guys in the comments!!
Interesting video. Promiscuity doesn't surprise me too much since I remember learning in one movie that I think was called Melena that cutting your hair and dying it red meant you were opening yourself to prostitution. But I was surprised by the possible reason for it.
I have written like a redheaded male mc before when I was a kid, but it was more for, like, you said, it was kind of this exotic, special hair color to me at the time, especially since I lived in an area where I didn't see a lot of people with natural lighter hair. I didn't know some of the things that come with it or it's origins
commenting to help offset some of the more ignorant comments that clearly didnt watch or understand this video! thought this one was super interesting & informative! hopefully people can think before they comment lol
I thought your video was well-structured! I especially noticed how you made the transition from talking about women to men, I was like wow that's so smooth!
I think you're doing great and I always look froward to your videos! 😊❤
The male redhead stigma is very interesting. With characters like: Syndrome, Rumplestiltskin, Rorschach, Chucky and Gaara, it seems that red-haired men in fiction have an association with dark triad traits
As a Mexican "pitch black" hair girlie, this is a topic that is incredibly interesting and super new to me. Also, idk if you guys count her, but Rosetta from Tinkerbell is my favorite redhead :)
I looovveeeeeee this deep dive! It's so fascinating! I've always wondered the same things. I'm a blonde, both naturally and I highlight it. I'm always kind of bummed as to why authors make the "evil bitch" character blonde. Like why is that such a bad thing to be blonde? On the flip side, when a character is brunette, why do they always have to be "dull dirty brown" or whatever? Color me confused 🤷🏼♀️
as a borderline blonde I've never wanted to identify as blonde for fear of being seen as shallow or dumb, and never as a brunette for fear of being seen as boring. I didn't want to be the blonde bimbo or the brunette pick-me.
this was an absolutely fascinating video to watch. Learnt so much
The music inserts are top-notch, really. Thank you for those and this fascinating dive ❤
As a hobby writer, I do have an evil redheaded woman in one fantasy story. It isn't antisemetic, it's due to how common the redheaded heroine is in fantasy stories. See, she's has a bad case of main character syndrome and is utterly convinced that everything is about her. Now I'm trying to decide if she and her daughters are true redheads or if they dye their hair to try to look the part. I'm leaning into she's the true redhead and her 18 and 15 year olds dye their hair because she loves them more when she sees herself in them.
I cannot believe that as a mixed-race red-head myself, Lucien is actually representing me in the fantasy genre😂😂 Based on the fan art, I also always thought he was white🤔 I was sure the first brown skinned, red headed fantasy character I would read about would have to be created by myself🤷🏽♀️🤷🏽♀️ And I guess, since I'm black and ginger, I just got the double temper, fiestiness combo package😂💁🏽♀️
People always assume that I'm Irish because of my red hair. Do they do that to you? Do they always assume you dye your hair?
I have wavy red hair, waist length, and my hair is my favorite physical feature, I love it and never wanna cut it or dye it. What you said about red hair being a huge part of your life/personality is so true, I get complemented on my hair like once a day, my mom remembers when I was around one and a half and a friend who hadn’t seen me for a while exclaimed “look at you!” And I responded “and look at my hair”, it was already something I was so used to hearing that I was saying it before she could 😂 I feel like if I wrote a book with a red headed character having that kind of experience people would be like “this is so weird the author is just obsessed with her hair and keeps writing in people talking about it”, but that’s genuinely a big part of the experience. I didn’t really experience the negative stereotypes until high school, as a kid people were always very nice and I was proud of my hair. In high school I did have people occasionally joking about me having no soul, but by then I already loved my hair so thankfully it never was something I was self-conscious about. I’m very glad the culture is shifting towards viewing redheads in a positive light because I can imagine being very self-conscious if I heard people talking negatively about my hair. I didn’t know a lot of these facts about redheads so I really enjoyed this video, thanks Cari! I don’t really know what the point of this comment was but I guess it was fun to talk about the redheaded experience with a fellow redhead 😊
I could list about 30 redheaded girls in fiction that I adore, but for the boys i can only really think of the Finsters, Oz (but his hair has also been blonde and brown) and Bronson from Round The Twist.
As a redheaded Leo, I’m sorry to say I frequently live up to so many stereotypes 😅
I'm a naturally redheaded Leo and people often comment on how CALM I am, haha.
I got a loooot of remarks from both my cousin and kids in my middle school that I was a "souless ginger" because of my hair. I started to make a joke that I did not, in fact, have a soul but collected the souls of my friends and kept them in decorative bottles 😂
Almost all my main characters have red hair because I have red hair but I usually also let it serve a purpose in the narrative like being a defining marker, showing lineage, or being linked to foxes and therefore looking like one
I just want to say that I loved seeing the little clip from Derry Girls at the beginning. Hahahaha😅💖
First let me say that I'm not a redhead but I do have a fun related anecdote. There's a yearly festival in the Dutch city of Tilburg called Redhead Days where thousands of redheads show up from all over the world. I knew about this, but wasn't aware when it was held. So imagine my surprise when I went to visit friends there last August and the streets were literally filled with redheads. A solid third of the people walking around downtown had red hair.