Everybody loves a dumb blond – or so the ratings for shows like The Simple Life, Rich Girls, and Newlyweds would seem to indicate. To read some of the comments in the press, one might almost think that the public enjoyment of fair-haired morons stopped sometime during the mid-sixties, as if Kelly Bundy never existed; but, even though they still crop up now and then, we certainly see a lot less of them than in the swinging heydays of Old Hollywood. We primarily have feminism to thank for this turn of events, but surely the untimely death of the physical embodiment of this trope had something to do with it too.

Marilyn was everybody's favorite dumb blond, a role in which she excelled in on screen, even if it wasn't quite true in real life. But her death cast a pallor over the stereotype with which she became so closely associated. Even now it's hard not to see her as a sweet, innocent young thing whose deadly excess was brought about by the Hollywood attitude that wouldn't let her escape her image. After August 5th, 1962, who but the least self aware individual could have a good time gawking at the idiotic bombshell without also feeling a tremendous amount of guilt too?

Ah, but we still gawk of course, and we'd like to do it without the knowledge that we're participating in the objectification of some poor, blameless creature. Reality television is a handy way of getting around that little buzz-kill of a realization. Instead of forcing somebody to act out the classic male fantasy that the most beautiful women are also the stupidest, why not hire someone who is genuinely both hot and stupid? What harm could it do?

Well, ask Jessica Simpson. ABC has recently offered her a sitcom -- to be scripted, no doubt with her image in mind. While putting a dumb women in the role of a dumb women could easily be defended simply as effective typecasting, one can't help but wonder if the dumb blond bombshell is going to re-enter the public consciousness in a big way. And completely guilt free too, if the objects of the media's desires are as willing to go along as Ms. Simpson seems to be.

There is one other aspect to the recent spate of stupid blonds, which helps to make the degradation more palatable: They're all very, very rich. No matter how stupid, useless, cruel, and shallow these women are depicted on television, they still get to go home, get changed into a thousand dollar outfit, and head out on the town for a consequence-free evening of drinking and drugging. No matter how much pig shit they step in, they're still better off than we'll ever be. Doesn't that give us every right to laugh at them? Not really, but it sure makes us feel better.

-B. C. Silvia