Why Did the Original Charmed Have a Huge Problem with Blondes?
Charmed was a groundbreaking feminist show in the 1990s and 2000s, but it messed up the blonde representation pretty badly.
Charmed had a running gag about blondes for years, there’s no denying it. The Halliwell sisters, who were natural brunettes, made a lot of jokes on that topic themselves, but why? What did blonde women ever do to them? That’s exactly what a few Reddit users asked themselves.
Well, the dumb blonde trope was pretty popular back then – you know, when people didn’t get offended over every little thing. Many shows and movies creatively played with the topic (like Legally Blonde) or just plainly used it to take cheap shots and make stereotype-fueled jokes (like most others), and Charmed wasn’t an exception.
The Halliwell sisters prided themselves on being brunettes (although they all went blonde at some point), but the writers of Charmed took the blonde jokes one step further. Remember the infamous season 6 episode The Power of Three Blondes?
In that episode, three low-level witches, the Stillman sisters, stole the Charmed Ones’ identities and tried to take over their lives. These caricatures of villains weren’t a big threat, but they did provide for a fun episode.
The Stillman sisters were walking stereotypes of what society used to think about blonde women – dumb as a doorknob, self-absorbed, and shallow. It’s actually pretty horrifying that this was deemed “funny” at that point.
This episode is far from being the only instance Charmed’s hatred for blondes shined through. Prue once made a joke about Phoebe’s intelligence after she dyed her hair blonde, and Piper did the same seasons later. Paige was pretty ruthless about Glenn’s blonde fiancée, and Phoebe was presumptuous toward Kaia, the blonde demon who was obsessed with Cole.
Of course, not all blonde characters were evil or stupid or both. Prue from the future wasn’t portrayed as that kind of blonde, and Lady Godiva was a heroic woman despite her hair color. Actually, Charmed’s running joke about blondes is pretty hilarious when you remember that their ancestor, Melinda Warren, was a blonde herself. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Source: Reddit