A Vindication of the Redhead investigates red hair in literature, art, television, and film throughout Eastern and Western cultures. This study examines red hair as a signifier, perpetuated through stereotypes, myths, legends, and literary and visual representations. Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier provide a history of attitudes held by hegemonic populations toward red-haired individuals, groups, and genders from antiquity to the present. Ayres and Maier explore such diverse topics as Judeo-Christian narratives of red hair, redheads in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, red hair and gender identity, famous literary redheads such as Anne of Green Gables and Pippi Longstocking, contemporary and Neo-Victorian representations of redheads from the Black Widow to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and more. This book illuminates the symbolic significance and related ideologies of red hair constructed in mythic, religious, literary, and visual cultural discourse.
Author(s): Brenda Ayres, Sarah E. Maier
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 307
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Authors
Chapter 1: Introduction: “Hair is the woman’s glory”—Unless It’s Red
Bibliography
Chapter 2: The Devil Has Red Hair and So Do Other Dissemblers in Ancient Discourses
Gothic Roots of Red Hair
Satan Is a Redhead
Thor as a Redhead
Goat Gods with Red Hair
Red-Headed Devils
Babylonian Redheads
Adam and Eve and Their Red Hair
Lilith and Lamia Redheads
The First Murderer Had Red Hair
Red Hairy Esau and Deceit
Villainy and Red Hair
A Dancing Redhead
The Emerging Stereotype in Judeo-Christian Culture
Bibliography
Chapter 3: “Real are the dreams”: Red Hairy Incubi and Unheavenly Succubi
Red Hair and Evil
Red Hairy Nightmares
The Intercourse of Incubi and Succubi with Humans
Rosemary’s Baby and Afterward
Bibliography
Chapter 4: Les Roux Fatales: The Plaits of Pre-Raphaelite Redheads
The Debut of the PRB Redhead
The Roots of Pre-Raphaelite Redheads
Vampires and Red Hair
Lady Audley’s Pre-Raphaelite Look-Alikes
Lydia Gwilt and Red Hair
Daphne du Maurier’s Neo-Gothic and Red Hair
The Woman, aka, Whore and Red Hair
Daphne: A Plait of Red Hair
From Boudica to Victoria
Bibliography
Chapter 5: The Agency of Red Hair on the Male Gender Equivocal in Mr. Rochester, The Little Stranger, The Danish Girl, and Elsewhere
The Unmanning of Mr. Rochester
Dickensian Redheads
The Desexing of the Red-headed Patriarch in The Little Stranger
The Queering of Red Hair in The Danish Girl
Raped Fathers
The Power of Red
Bibliography
Chapter 6: “Here we are again!” Red-Haired Golems Galore Including Those in Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem
A Jewish Mythical Creature with Red Hair
The First and the Last
The Golem in Us
The Red-haired Metaphors
Red-haired Golems
Golems Galore
Golem Murders
Bibliography
Chapter 7: Tangled Webs of Red Hair from the Grimm Brothers to Kate Morton
Grimm Redheads
Hair as Sexual Trope in Art
Mrs. Redhead: Angel or Demon?
The Forgotten Garden
The Clockmaker’s Daughter
Hairline Note About The House at Riverton
Bibliography
Chapter 8: The Other Redheads Throughout Asia and Africa
Orange Creatures in the East
Enlarging One’s Circle of Acquaintance
Bedouins
Red-haired Fan
Red Hair in Japan
Red Hair in Korea
Red Hair in Africa
Centricisms, Gingerphobia, and Gingerphilia
Bibliography
Chapter 9: Tough Little Red-Headed Orphans: Anne (of Green Gables), Little Orphan Annie, Madeline, and Pippi
Anne with an “E”
Little, and Orphaned, Annie
Redhead Out of Line
Pippi with Long Stockings and Braids
Bibliography
Chapter 10: Rebellious Royals: From Disney’s Ariel to Pixar’s Merida
Disney’s Monstrous Mer-Maid
Pixar’s Scraggly-Haired Lassie
Bibliography
Chapter 11: Neo-Victorian Freakery: Flaming-Haired Women, Dolls, Art, and Detection
Guys, Art, and Dolls
Collecting and Detecting Women
Bibliography
Chapter 12: STEAM(y) and Marvel(ous) Women: Agent Scully, Lisbeth Salander, Beth Harmon and the Black Widow
The Truth (About Scully) Is Out There
The Girl as Dragon
Queen Harmon and Her Gambit
Supersmart Superspy
One Final Redhead
Bibliography
Chapter 13: Epilogue: The Splitting of Red Hairs
Bibliography
Index
