Brunettes have more fun, or the True YA Prince has dark hair? xD

I mean I guess it's true, but I don't really think about it very much when I'm writing because 90%+ of my characters have dark hair.

Tall, dark and handsome was coined somewhere. But then, there is the phenomenon that is Fabio. I have no idea what the answer to your question may be except for the personal preferences of the YA author.

Titanic was wildly popular with youthful females when it was released. The trends may be capricious or based on what male celebrities are popular at the time.

Peeta in THG is blond... goes with the whole boy-next-door thing.

I like blonds -- the natural, sandy blonds you don't see so often in pop culture anymore. My LIs are probably split between them and brunettes (brunets?).

And what of the gingers? Are they always doomed to be wacky sidekicks?

Fuchsia Groan said:

And what of the gingers? Are they always doomed to be wacky sidekicks?

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Right? At this point I mostly want a career so red headed smart guys get to be YA spec fic boyfriends for once.

I seem to recall David from Uglies being sandy haired. Maybe. It's been a while.

Something loosely related I've noticed: most of these YA SFF LIs are also the action hero type. Which, is cool, I guess. But where are the smart guys? The skinny Mage or tech guy? A guy healer? Just someone not equipped to swoop in and save the MC? The closest I can think of is Farmer from the last Beka Cooper book.

C.bronco said:

Tall, dark and handsome was coined somewhere.

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This was my first thought, as was the classic blonde princess and dark haired prince trope(s). I admit I'm guilty of having brunette/dark hair leading males, probably because that's what I'm attracted to in real life. Blond-haired boys give off the "All American" vibe or surfer dude that doesn't interest me. Though, the LI in my current WiP is a blond, so there's that.

I also write very few red-heads, but that's mostly because I have red hair myself and I've always detested the color of my hair...and yeah, that's my own personal issues with that. Actually, I remember wishing I could have brunette hair like my parents, so that may explain my love for brunettes.

IIRC, wasn't Edward from Twilight supposed to have reddish hair? Other than the Wesleys, he's the only red head I can think of.

ooh, I like this discussion!

Last MS had a auburn/gingery LI (I use the term LI loosely, since he decided early on he was a LI, and the MC is less convinced.) Current MS has a sandy blond guy though if he counts as an LI is debatable...

I think both have very clear tropes attached to them. Blonde - surfur, all-american boy, preppy/golden boy/jock, ice prince, etc. Dark hair is the same though, TDH, bad boy, etc

Considering both have positives (good boy blondes, stable dark haired boys) and negatives (ice prince/golden boy, dark and dangerous), I can only guess it lands back in the realms of preference.

I always took Draco vs. Harry in an appearance way as much more a class thing, by the way. Harry as any-boy while Draco is the over-bred poodle line. I do think the hair color thing does often end up more closely related to class/race/diversity/"diversity" than trope...

I read somewhere a long time ago that blonde hair tends to signify youth, and so it's considered attractive for girls but not so much for boys. No idea if it's true, but if you look at all the "sexiest man alive" types and guys with George Clooney/Robert Pattinson levels of fandoms, there does seem to be more of a trend toward dark hair. That said, I personally like blond guys

The LI in my WIP shaves his head and eyebrows.

How about the ya where every character is a ginger, as a plot twist

Ehh...I think a lot of it has to do with certain aspects of society and history; mainly we live in a society that at least on the surface likes to push liberal ideas. Granted, there is still a lot of systemic issues that keep up a lot what we claim to have overcome, but liberal ideas are popular, especially with those in creative fields like, say, writing. As a result the blond hair, especially when paired with blue eyes and light skin, have certain connotations. One of them, due largely to WWII, is Nazis. Another as mentioned is the whole upper-class, WASP-y "aristocrat" idea. Both of these character types are far from wholsome in the modern view, and as a result the "blond haired villain" has become a trope in our media.

A testiment to the power of this trope is that it expands well beyond YA lit and even the United States. In the world of anime and manga for example, it is common for villains to have white, silver or sometimes even normal blond hair, invoking much of the same imagery as draco's "icy blond" hair does in HP.(though black hair is also extremely common among anime/manga villains as well). Also, while there is Arnold, about how many action movie heroes have light blond hair? About the only "positive" connotation I've seen for blond-haired characters is the "all american" type, and even then in this day and age America is hardly seen as the paragon she once was in people's eyes, which means this type of character will show up less and less.

So I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that these aforementioned connotations are just so pervasive that it effects media....because as much as we hate to admit it, tropes sell. People like tropes. People are used to tropes and we, as writers, are all prone to using them because they are familiar and comfortable; they require less legwork to "make work."

I'm reading FALLEN (for some reason ) and Daniel is blonde.

The main question I have related to this topic is why they're all white.....

lenore_x said:

The main question I have related to this topic is why they're all white.....

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This is the implicit question here, isn't it? While there certainly are not-white people with naturally blond or red hair, it's not very common, especially without dyeing one's hair. And a character with dyed hair has different connotations than someone who naturally has red or blond hair.

I'm kinda sad that teenagers don't usually have grey hair. I mean, it's pretty. Or maybe I'm just weird.

lenore_x said:

I'm reading FALLEN (for some reason ) and Daniel is blonde.

The main question I have related to this topic is why they're all white.....

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YES this is what I was thinking.

Like, diversity is not "Barbie was blonde and Susan was a fiery redhead." I mean, part of the reason why there are so many dark-haired princes MAY be that most of the world is dark-haired? Unless the setting is, like, Norway, natural blonds--especially after a certain age--are not all that common. What sticks out to me more is that so few princes in YA are black.

Just throwing this out there, since someone asked where the blonde action heros are: Channing Tatum, chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans (least as thor and Captain America respectively)

Didn't Hemsworth just get voted sexiest man or something?

Bloo said:

Just throwing this out there, since someone asked where the blonde action heros are: Channing Tatum, chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans (least as thor and Captain America respectively)

Didn't Hemsworth just get voted sexiest man or something?

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And Chris Pine, and Chris Pratt! We have an abundance of blond men named Chris, it seems.

I just asked my mom, and yeah, Hemsworth is the sexiest, officially.

Bloo said:

Just throwing this out there, since someone asked where the blonde action heros are: Channing Tatum, chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans (least as thor and Captain America respectively)

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Don't forget Daniel Craig!

But I still feel like they're in the minority.

graygrammar said:

And Chris Pine, and Chris Pratt! We have an abundance of blond men named Chris, it seems.

I just asked my mom, and yeah, Hemsworth is the sexiest, officially.

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Niiicola said:

Don't forget Daniel Craig!

But I still feel like they're in the minority.

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It seems like all of these guys regularly sport chiseled, scruffy looks. Which I am all about . But I think it lends weight to Niiicola's theory about age. These guys have more in common with our dark-haired princes, since they don't look like youthful, round-faced golden boys. But they're not icy enough to be villains either.

ETA: I don't know why they're all white, either. But I think it's changing. Maybe. Hopefully. I'm interested to see how some of the high fantasy YA coming out soon handles diversity.

Hmm... Let's hope the #weneeddiversebooks thing catches on and we will see a variety of characters - not only as love interests but as protagonists, too!

Right now, in a popular series, I can only think of Elder in Across the Universe. He was mixed race. (As were most people in the book.)

And a long time ago before THG was turned into a movie and exploded, there were some discussions going on whether Katniss and Gale were mixed race as well. (And then Hollywood came along and cast only white people for the main characters.)


As for Blondes: Both Ash and Jared in Sarah Rees Brennan's Unspoken are blond.
And I believe the Grisha series has a blond LI, too.
Four? Was Four blond or brunette in Divergent? I don't remember. Theo James, however, looked like he had dark blond hair in the movie.

dancing-drama said:

And a long time ago before THG was turned into a movie and exploded, there were some discussions going on whether Katniss and Gale were mixed race as well. (And then Hollywood came along and cast only white people for the main characters.)

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And Finnick too. The book pretty much says he's brown-skinned with blond-ish hair and green eyes (I don't have the book anymore, so if I'm wrong, correct me please.). The movie cast a white guy with a spray tan.

brunettes are cool / it's funny though / they often wind up dying their hair blonde in the ones I read / red is a popular choice too / lol

There was a study once about what hair/eye color people found most attractive. The winner was dark hair and blue eyes.

As for the 'all white' thing, I can't speak for all YA authors, but I think there have to be a few titles at least where the cast of the book isn't white washed. In my book 'Sea Foam', the female lead is white, but the love interest is of Hawaiian descent, and her friends are a real mix, and none of them are stereotyped. In another book, the love interest was Japanese. But, on the other hand, I like it when an author doesn't actually mention anyone's ethnicity. That way, people can picture them being whatever nationality and colour they like.