The Reeler has an interview with film critic Carrie Rickey, who has curated an event in New York tonight called Dumb Blondes, Smart Blondes. The program sounds great, but Rickey says a few questionable things in the interview.

One thing I bristle at is the notion that Judy Holliday wanted to play smarter, “but she really didn’t get that opportunity because people really enjoyed the dumb blonde. I just think that Holliday and even Marilyn Monroe — as much as I love them — invite a certain kind of male condescension.” I don’t think that’s true at all. Born Yesterday was one thing, but I think Judy Holliday was at her best playing smart blondes, who allowed men to treat them as though they were dumber than they really were, so that they could then be a little bit sneaky about the smartness.

It Should Happen To You is a really great example of this: Holliday’s character becomes a self-made media star, but only after convincing a bunch of men that she’s nothing but a dizzy dame on whim. Even when her boyfriend tries to woo her in a bar (see above), she can’t stop talking/thinking about business. Of course, she gives it all up in the end, but she ends up with a cute independent filmmaker played by a young Jack Lemmon, and I don’t think that’s so bad of a trade. And in Bells are Ringing, the implication was that she was too book smart for her old job as a “lingerie model,” and she’s too street smart for Dean Martin’s shallow party swirl. Either way, there’s no condescension––if anything, there’s maybe a sense of empathy from smart girls the world over when, in both films, Holliday’s overactive imagination impedes her social progress.

Rickey also holds up Frances McDormand in Laurel Canyon as a blonde role model, which is laughable, right? “She’s running the show: a mother, a producer, a businesswoman all at once.” Okaaaay…but she’s also luring her son’s girlfriend to the Chateau Marmont for a threesome. That certainly doesn’t do much to dispel the notion that blondes are all impulse and no ration.

If anything, I think the lesson here is that blondes are blank slates–we project what we want on to them.