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 Longsking
, 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.