Blonds Are Disappearing From TV Land

I’ve noticed lately a strange phenomenon when I watch TV. There are very few blondes in any of the shows I watch on a regular basis. This led to a more extensive investigation on my part. I started randomly watching shows I’ve never watched before just to see what the main characters look like. The phenomenon continued. Hardly any blondes.

Now I know that Hollywood is being extra “sensitive” with regard to offering lead roles to people from all nationalities, whether on purpose or as the result of lawsuits from actors insisting that they have been slighted or discriminated against because of their race, I cannot say. However, among the Caucasian actors I’ve been studying, there seems to be a huge popularity right now for brunettes, both male and female.

Here are some of my findings (sorry for some of the grainy pictures):

Criminal Minds: 8 leads, 2 blondes, both women.

Hawaii 5-0:  8 leads, 1 blond (Danny, although he doesn’t look blond in this picture.)

Lethal Weapon: 7 leads, 0 blonds

NCIS: 9 leads – 1 blonde, female. (I’m considering Mark Harmon and David McCallum to be gray not blond.)

Designated Survivor: 9 leads, 1 blonds, male. (Natascha McElhone looks blond in this picture, but she did not in the show.)

The Alienist: 8 leads, 1 blonde. (Although I supposed Brian Geraghty could be considered a blond. He looks brunette in the show, perhaps due to all the hair gel.)

Seal Team Six: 10 leads (yes I included Dita the dog as a lead), 0 blonds (although I might be inclined to consider Max Thieriot a dirty blond, which really doesn’t count as a blond in my book.)

NCIS New Orleans: 7 leads, 0 blonds

Blindspot: 6 leads, 1 blonde.

NCIS LA: 8 leads, 2 blonds, both male (they have added an additional African American female so really 9 leads now.)

Scorpion: 7 leads, 0 blonds

SWAT: 8 leads, 1 blond (I’m giving blond credit here to Kenny Johnson since I’ve seen him in other shows and he’s definitely been blond in those shows.)

I know there are a lot of other shows out there, but these are the ones I happen to be the most familiar with either because I watch them regularly or I studied a few episodes for purposes of this blog. I’m also of the opinion that dirty blonds don’t really count as real blonds (I’m a purist). And, I know that some of the actors I’ve shown above have dyed their hair in order to keep their roles (i.e. Pauley Perrette who plays Abby Sciuto is a true blonde in real life but she dyes her hair to play the Abby character), but I refer to them as the hair color of their character to show that TV land is predominately brunette these days.

So, of the 12 shows listed above, there are 94 leading roles (95 counting Dita the dog). 10 of those roles are filled by blonds. That’s a pretty low percentage don’t you think?

So what do you think about the abundance of brunettes in TV land? Have you noticed this trend? Are there a lot of blonds in the shows you regularly watch?

Word of the day: Firkin

Fun fact about me: I’ve never really paid much attention the the hair color of actors until recently. I have no explanation for why I suddenly started noticing.

Original post by Jansen Schmidt, March 2018. Photos courtesy various TV and actor websites.