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Simon Phoenix is a strong believer of this trope.
"In Hollywood, blond guys have two choices: Dye your hair brown, save the world and get the leading lady. Or keep it blond and work on your bad guy face."
Fair-haired guys in media almost always end up evil. Especially noticeable if they are compared to a nice dark-haired guy, or if they are opposite ends of a Love Triangle. And if his blond hair is LONG, you'd better hope he's an elf, because if not, that's pretty much evil incarnate.
If they're not evil, they're still jerks, although they may or may not be nice underneath, and they usually lose. Where a Betty And Veronica usually has a blond Betty and a dark- or red-haired Veronica, a male version of this setup will do the reverse.
Given that blond heroes were not rare in films 40 or more years ago, this may be a Cyclic Trope, albeit with a longer cycle time than that for female "bad hair colors". That said, it has certainly become a much more prevalent trope in the days since World War II. World War II may be responsible for that, since the Nazis did love blondes. On the other hand, it may be more simple: popular kids are jerks, and so are all cheerleaders. Blonde is a suitably desirable hair colour for both, therefore...
In Anime, this can be explained by all Japanese having black hair and the country's extreme institutional xenophobia. Having blond hair is a visual shorthand for being an Evil Foreigner.
Compare Evil Redheads, White Haired Pretty Boy, White Haired Pretty Girl. Distaff Counterpart to Blondes Are Evil. Often synonimous with Light Is Not Good; after all, blonde guys are more often associated with an angelic appearence than black haired ones.
Examples
Anime
- General Blue from Dragonball.
- In Tokyo Mew Mew, Ichigo chooses sweet black-haired Aoyama Masaya over blond Jerk With A Heart Of Gold Shirogane Ryou.
- Well, there's also the blonde Blue Knight, who is actually Aoyama and the Big Bad (sorta). Go figure...
- Char Aznable, the probable trope-maker for White Haired Pretty Boy, was in fact blond, demonstrating how these two tropes are related. Most of his many, many Expies are also blond.
- General Peters-Stahl, one of the few outright villains in Scrapped Princess. Also worth noting is that Cz, the only Peacemaker who is supposed to be sympathetic, is also the only one that isn't blonde.
- Fist of the North Star has Shin and Souther. Raoh was originally blond in the manga as well, but was given black hair in the TV anime series due to Adaptation Dye Job (the newer anime versions restores his original blond hair). This is evened out by Jagi in the original anime (whose hair color was changed from the manga's black to blond), who is not only purely evil, but was the one who turned Shin evil in the first place. Subverted with Falco, who was only doing evil things because he was being blackmailed to.
- Johan of Monster is handsome, blond, blue-eyed,and absolutely terrifying.
- Chrono Crusade has Joshua Christopher, a blond, blue-eyed Ill Boy who's manipulated by the White Haired Pretty Boy into becoming one of his minions after he puts on a pair of demon horns (which also drive him absolutely insane). However, the series also has Father Remington, another blond man who might be one of the the most genuinely good characters in the series.
- Mello from Death Note is a Mafia terrorist since he was 14, armed with guns in leather pants. Not to mention taking extreme measures to get what he wants, including kidnapping a teen girl and causing her to go through a traumatic experience that leaves her catatonic.
- Does this make him a literal Draco in leather pants, then?
- A flashback story revealed Hiruma from Eyeshield21's hair is naturally black and he dyed it specifically as part of his strategy to make himself look more intimidating. It works.
- Mizumachi is blond too, but he's not evil, just tactless (and shirtless).
- Although he's amusingly psychotic to the point where it's hard not to like him to an extent, Ladd Russo from Baccano! would most definitely fall under this trope, if not for undecidedly brown tan AND dark blonde hair Which turns gray for artisticness in Alcatra). I mean, come on. He shoots a small child's head off and constantly threatens to kill his girlfriend, among other things.
- Graham Spector might fall under this trope too, though sometimes it's ambiguous whether he's evil or just plain funking crazy.
- Played with in The Prince Of Tennis. Kevin Smith is an angry, bitchy, aggressive American boy who is an absolute Jerk Ass for quite a while... and comes from a broken family with a negligent father, also blond. When he's defeated and comes to terms with himself, he shows a sweeter side, though not losing his strong temper completely.
- Naruto himself averts this, as he's the hero, but Deidara of the Atatsuki does not.
- Code Geass plays with this trope with Second Prince Schneizel El Britannia: although for a long time he doesn't do anything truely evil, and could even be considered as pretty nice, his blondness helps setting up his status as an antagonist for the dark-haired Lelouch and validating his Informed Ability as an opponent Chess Master. Toward the middle of season two, he does start doing some really evil actions, such as using FLEIA against Tokyo and Pendragon, however the jury's still out on whether that makes him worse than Lelouch or not. His plan to kill several hundred million people with Damocles in order to ensure world peace pretty much sealed the deal.
- Code Geass also has Prince Clovis and V.V.. The former is an insecure wreck who commits mass slaughter to cover his screw ups, the latter is just plain insane. And don't forget that Charles di Britannia had dark blond hair before age turned his hair white.
- Krad in DN Angel, who is also a prime example of Light Is Not Good thanks to his angelic appearance and utterly sadistic personality.
- Cain from Trinity Blood is blond, angelic looking and a complete evil bastard.
- Fushigi Yuugi's Nakago (bonus points for being the sole survivor of his repulsed, entirely-blonde tribe), also male Yandere Suboshi.
- Dio Brando from Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure
- His most loyal subordinate, Enrico Pucci, is not only this, but also subverts the Dark Skinned Blonde trope by being pretty damn cunning. And by the looks of it, part 7 villain Funny Vanilla is also one.
- Gin from Detective Conan although there is conflict over whether his hair is blond or silver.
- Gundam SEED both subverts the trope and plays it straight. On one side, we have Ace Pilot Mwu La Flaga, who acts as a bit of a Big Brother Mentor for Kira and his friends, and is just about the coolest guy you could ever meet; and Dearka Elsmann, a Dark Skinned Blond Ace Pilot who comes across as cocky, but is actually a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold if you get to know him. On the other hand, we have cold-blooded Manipulative Bastard and Omnicidal Maniac Rau Le Crueset (actually an imperfect clone of Mwu's father); and Blue Cosmos leader Muruta Azrael, an utter horror of a human being.
- Star Blazers: Everybody chant! DESS-lok Desslok Desslok! DESS-lok Desslok Desslok! DESS-lok Desslok Desslok!
- Although not all of them are necessarily "evil", about half of the Contractors in Darker Than Black are blonds.
- Yanda is, at minimum, a big jerk.
- Vincent from Pandora Hearts, and with heterochromia, to boot.
- Asuham Boone from Overman King Gainer is vengeful, believes in Revenge Before Reason and is utterly obsessed with capturing co-protagonist Gain Bijou. If he has to endanger innocents or manipulate subordinates to do so, he will.
- Justin. Freaking. Law.
- The Oni Clan in Harukanaru Toki no Naka de is probably deliberately presented as this, and anyone with blond hair is labelled as evil by the locals. In reality, though... Akuram is corrupted by his powers; Ikutidaru repeatedly questions their plans; much of what Shirin does is of the Love Makes You Evil kind (and she isn't even blond to begin with); Sefuru has a Freudian Excuse and isn't mature enough to comprehend the situation. Then you get into the clan's backstory...
Comic Books
- Played with regarding Ozymandias in Watchmen. The obvious interpretations is that he's the villain, but, this being Watchmen, there's a lot more to it than that...
- Eddie Brock, aka Venom, in Spider-Man (only in the ultimate version — he is a redhead in the other universe).
- Averted by Jean Paul Valley who was Batman during Knightquest and Knightend.
- The Dash, an evil speedster in Flare, is blond.
- The only physical difference between The DCU's Impulse and his Evil Twin Inertia is their hair; Impulse has brown hair, Inertia's blond.
- Wilhelm Ryan,the villain from The Amory Wars/Coheed and Cambria.
- Jan Arrah, Element Lad, the villain of the Legion Of Superheroes story Legion Lost, is innocently handsome and blond. To be fair, he was blond for thirty years worth of stories before he was a villain.
- Kordax, the ancient Atlantean prince in Aquaman, and the greatest villain in Atlantean history. Because of him blond hair was actually seen as a sign of evil by the people of Atlantis, especially in the royal family, which is why Aquaman was abandoned at birth.
- One of the more notable feuds in Marvel comics is that between the short, dark, noble Wolverine and the tall, fair, psychopathic Sabertooth, though this is subverted in the live-action Wolverine film, where both are dark-haired, and the only visibly blond male character (Fred Dukes, A.K.A. The Blob) is more or less sympathetic.
Film
- In The Princess Diaries, Josh is a blond jock that Mia's crazy about in the beginning. Michael is her best friend's nerdy brother (and brunette). Josh breaks her heart, and she ends up with Michael. Bet you never saw it coming.
- And then the books recently shot it to pieces. Michael ends up going to study in Japan for a year and Mia breaks up with him, for complicated reasons, and gets into a Will They Or Wont They situation with an Ascended Extra character, J.P., who is of course blond.
- Jossed in the last book. Turns out everything that happened between her and J.P. was a set up BY J.P. to get with her so he could get the celebrity he needed to follow his dream, screw Mia's feelings.
- In American Pie, the four main guys are all dark-haired and (somewhat) sympathetic. And then there's Stifler.
- James Bond faces muscular blond henchmen in regular basis, starting with Red Grant in From Russia With Love. Then they just keep coming: Vargas (Thunderball), Hans (You Only Live Twice), Eric Kriegler (For Your Eyes Only), Necros (The Living Daylights) and Stamper (Tomorrow Never Dies). Bond himself is now blond and somewhat more of an Anti Hero ( although people complained enough about him being blond to warrant him dying it to black).
- Roy Batty (though not a blond guy, but ridiculously human robot) in Blade Runner.
- Describing him as 'evil' would be pretty harsh. He's at least an Anti Villain.
- Talbot (Josh Lucas) in Ang Lee's Hulk.
- Any villainous character played by Dolph Lundgren, but specifically Ivan in Rocky and the badnik in Universal Soldier.
- It's probably also worth noting that the only two antagonistic boxers that Rocky faced who were white were both blond, the other being Deceptive Disciple Tommy Gunn.
- About 80% of all the characters Mark Rolston has played. (The other 20% were just assholes)
- Lt. Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky from Top Gun.
- The end of the movie seems to suggest otherwise, or perhaps the character merely transitions to Deadpan Snarker.
- Darth Vader (yes, Darth Vader). Although his hair is burned off for most of his time as a villain, his maybe-brown hair is canonically listed as "blond".
- Jake Busey and his father, Gary, are both ash blond, and both play bad guys fairly regularly.
- Applied lightly in the film Made of Honor where the brunette (and American) Tom wins the girl, and the Scottish blond Colin loses her. We say applied lightly because Colin is portrayed as quite a nice guy aside from not being very good at sharing cake.
- Genesis from Suicide Club is horribly evil, and happens to be the only blond in the whole damned thing.
- The TV movie She Cried No starred Mark-Paul Gosselaar as a blond frat boy who rapes innocent freshman Candace Cameron.
- Possessive ex-boyfriend who won’t accept that it’s over Cole Whittier (Robert Prescott) in Bachelor Party (1984), versus witty and easy-going brunet Rick Gassko (Tom Hanks).
- In Reservoir Dogs, Mr Blonde is evil.
- But he's not actually blond.
- The only blond character is Nice Guy Eddie. Total Jerkass.
- And Tim Roth's hair is sort of dirty blond/lightish brown. Symbolism?
- Inverted in The Princess Bride The Dread Pirate Roberts is supposed to be a fearsome villain, but Westley is the hero, and the brunet Humperdink the villain.
- In Never Back Down, brunette Jake Tyler fights Ryan McCarthy, who's fond of luring people to his home under false pretenses and savagely beating them.
- The Karate Kid, Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio), battles Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka, career Evil Blond Guy) for the affections of fair-haired Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue). Johnny sweeps the leg, but Daniel still wins in the end.
- In The Dark Knight, brown-haired Batman battles blond baddies. The Joker's hair is so greasy it looks dark, and cheaply dyed green on top of that, but he's definitely blond. Like Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent suffered two terrible losses and assumed a new identity. But while Batman dedicated his life to fighting crime, Two-Face tried to kill a cop's innocent child.
- This troper thought that Harvey Dent was an interesting subversion of the trope - the angsty, brooding dark-haired hero mopes as his love-interest takes up with a blond, popular, media-savvy politician who wears his idealism on his sleeve. Surely the blond rival must be a superficial jerk, incapable of truly loving the heroine and only affecting high principles for show? No, turns out he really is a courageous, noble, if somewhat vain man, and a better match for the girl than the hero until the poor blond man gets broken to pieces in the most horrible way.
- Justin Long is Accepted by Blake Lively after she realizes she's in another Hollywood love-triangle where the blond guy turns out to be a jerk.
- Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) in Demolition Man, pictured above.
- The main hench-villain in the recent Zorro movie wasn't only blond, but wore a U.S. Army uniform. How eeeevil can one get, eh?
- John Ryder in the original version of The Hitcher.
- Cary Elwes's oh-so-British Captain Boone competes for the affections of Lena Headey with Jason Scott Lee's sensitive, dark-haired jungle boy Mowgli in the 1994 live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book. He's evil, just so you know.
- Cary Elwes is also evil in Twister.
- In "She's All That," knowledge of this trope makes the plot's climax and eventual resolution very predictable, since male leads Zack and Dean are, respectively, brunet and blond.
- In Die Hard, the only noticeably blond characters are two of Hans' henchmen.
- jack from lord of the flies shold count
- Valentine from the oh so wonky film Mirrormask has dark hair, but wears a mask on that has blond Bart Simspon like "hair." It covers part of his natural dark hair. In the film, Valentine is shown to be a really friendly, helpful guy, even successful (owning a tower and such). Near the end, he sells out the main character Helena for literally all the jewels he can carry. His brunette side soon wins out and his guilt causes him to come back for her, though it's never told whether he gives back the jewels.
- After Valentine eats the future fruit, it is shown that in the future, he steals Helena's one chance to escape the "Gaimenverse," most likely due to his part blondeness. After being shown his fate as a waiter, his brunette side rationalizes that that sucks, so when the time comes, he gives Helena the mirrormask so she can escape the "Gaimenverse."
- Valentine's hair seems to fit the movie's overall theme of a Dark World, though there's also a Light World.
- Greg Marmalard in Animal House is the head of the Omegas, the prick fraternity that is out to shut down the Deltas.
- In Real Genius, William Atherton (Prof. Jerry Hathaway) and his brown-nosing sidekick Robert Prescott (Kent) constantly try to thwart, and later steal, the hero's science.
- In Revenge of the Nerds, Stan Gable (Ted Mc Ginley) is head of the Alpha Betas, a sadistic-jock-filled fraternity. He torments the titular Nerds for most of the picture, until he learns his lesson after Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine), heroically rapes Gable's girlfriend in a funhouse. (Ah, the 80s.)
- Gage, the little blond kid from Pet Sematary He put the 'Evil' in 'Evil Dead'.
Literature
- In the Tamora Pierce Kel books, the primary antagonist is Joren, so blonde and beautiful that one can forget the all misogyny, arrogance, hate crimes, kidnappings, and general dog-kicking that he engages in on a daily basis.
- In the Angels Unlimited series, the antagonist, Brice, has a bleach-blond mullet. After he goes back to Heaven, he still dresses in black, but he cuts off the mullet, spikes it, and only dyes the tips blond. I guess it'll have to do.
- Draco and Lucius Malfoy.
- Joker from the Read Or Die series.
- Not evil, but Sam Spade sure is an asshole.
- Note that, while Spade is portrayed in the book as looking like a 'blond Satan', in movies he is almost always a brunette and much more sympathetic.
- In the Sword Of Truth series the Big Bad of the first and second books, Darken Rahl, is blonde. For some reason, so seem to be all other "full-blooded" people of his evil empire.
- However, in later books, it's discovered that the vast majority of those people aren't evil, they were just loyal to an evil man. Once the protagonist takes control, they're firmly on the side of good, with many lamenting that they were under the heel of such a lunatic before, making this a subversion in the long term.
- Subversion: A Song Of Ice And Fire seems like it's pulling one of these with Jaime Lannister, but in later books it's revealed that he isn't evil, but rather extremely disillusioned and bitter, and after losing his hand he starts to go down a path to redemption.
- Played straight with Tywin Lannister, however. And most of the other Lannisters, including Joffrey and Cersei, if she were male. Subverted with Tommen, who's just a sweet little kid, and Tyrion, who's just snarky, though most characters think he's evil.
- Rhaegar Targaryen could also be considered a subversion, since his hair color could be considered platinum blond. Of course he is dead before the books start.
- The Time Travelers Wife invokes this trope twice over: while neither Ingrid nor Gomez (the blonde romantic rivals to the central couple's brunette Henry and redhead Clare) are bad people, the former is needy and confrontational and the latter is offputtingly glib and cynical (and has a weird Communism fetish). Neither Henry or Clare view them as legitimate contenders in the Love Dodecahedron (although Henry and Ingrid dated before he met Clare).
- "My name's Teatime. What's yours?"
- Cornelius Alba. The Big Bad has dark hair, though.
- Dorian Gray, anyone?
- Maximum Ride uses this one. Both Jeb Batchelder and Roland ter Borcht are described as having light hair, and Maximum Ride herself has blonde hair.
- In "Gone With The Wind", the blonde Ashley, while far from evil, is weak-willed and indecisive, and far from the romantic hero Scarlett persistently imagines him to be.
Live Action TV
- Adam Monroe, the Big Bad in the second season of Heroes.
- Prince on Lexx epitomizes this trait.
- Spike. Before the Himification.
- He's probably intentionally invoking this trope (for a fictional character the guy's pretty genre-savvy). Flashbacks reveal his normal hair is mouse brown and curly. Apparently he died his hair black during WW 2 and began bleaching it in the 70's, probably to attract dumb victims drawn to the "bad boy" association. Your milage may vary concerning Badass Decay, but when all's said and done he is a vampire and therefore a predator.
- Barney on How I Met Your Mother. Specializes in doing horrible things to women before or after sleeping with them.
- Rita's abusive, drug addicted ex-husband Paul is portrayed as blonde on Dexter.
- Dex himself is dirty blond, too. And, well...
- Vim Fuego/Alan Metcalfe from The Comic Strip Presents... episode Bad News has a huge rock-star mane of blond hair, and while he isn't evil he is arrogant, obsessed with his own talent, violent, not above fraud, and ARROGANT.
- And while he isn't evil either, Prince Wendell of The Tenth Kingdom is certainly arrogant, stuck-up, pompous, and a true jerk to Tony (not that he doesn't deserve it from time to time) and Wolf for the first half to two-thirds of the miniseries, up until he gets it rubbed in his face that wolves aren't the evil monsters he believes them to be and eats a major portion of humble pie after realizing he's failed to pass his test of kinghood. Humorously, even the dog he is turned into by his Wicked Stepmother is a golden retriever. (And it's being stuck in this form and losing his human self that contributes greatly to his change for the better.)
- Edie's new husband on Desperate Housewives is fair-haired, pale eyed, and extremely creepy. There was no doubt he was evil from the second he appeared onscreen, even though it has yet to be revealed what he is actually up to.
- This trope is a staple of Hispanic Soap Operas, though it usually applies to women rather than men.
- Alexander Lucard from Dracula: The Series. Guess who he was?
- The OC had Kevin Volchok. But it also has good blonde guys (Ryan Atwood) and bad dark-haired ones (Oliver Trask).
- One Tree Hill did it exactly the other way around: blonde Lucas is the good (half) brother while black-haired Nathan is more of a bad boy.
- It's nearly a trope on Hogan's Heroes. If there is a (male) prisoner, Allied soldier, or member of the underground with pale blond Aryan hair, he's almost certainly a spy.
- Eric from "True Blood" is the ultimate badass blonde: he's a Viking vampire, sheriff of his corner of Louisiana (for the vampires) and owns a nightclub called Fangtasia. He becomes upset when he gets blood in his beautiful, blonde hair.
- Peter Stone of Degrassi The Next Generation, who managed to set new standards for Fanservice in his first appearance.
- Sawyer from Lost, at first. Though not evil, he was certainly a Jerk Ass at first, especially compared to Jack and Sayid.
- The Master in the Christmas 2009 finale of Doctor Who, has a new-and-improved blonde look.
Music
- "Jessie", from Rick Springfield's music video of "Jessie's Girl", is blond.
- The McCoy's song "Sorrow" (best known from David Bowie's cover version) states that "with your long blonde hair and your eyes of blue | the only thing I ever got from you | was sorrow"
- Despite the fact that Bowie sang it, isn't it directed at a woman? And thus belonging under Blondes Are Evil and not this trope?
- The music video for Muse's song Knights of Cydonia has a heroic dark-haired cowboy fighting with an evil blond cowboy over a blonde woman.
Newspaper Comics
Truth In Television
- Real Life example: Jeffrey Dahmer.
- Notably subverted by Adolf Hitler and much of his inner circle.
- Who nevertheless considered blonde as the ideal of Aryan beauty. The pseudo-Aryan ideal of blonde hair and blue eyes and its association with Nazism may be at least partly responsible for the trope. See the Malfoys and all their talk about "pureblood".
Video Games
Webcomics
- The website hosting the Nukees comic also includes a page dedicated to SUSBEC
 : tracking evil, eyeless blondes, mostly male.
- Nale of the Linear Guild in Order Of The Stick. Inverted with Elan, Nale's twin brother and one of the main characters.
Web Original
- The titular Dr. Horrible from Dr Horribles Sing Along Blog.
- Subverted in that Dr. Horrible, despite his name and "villain" status, acts far less evil than the "hero", Captain Hammer, who has dark hair.
- It's really far less clear-cut than you make it out to be. Captain Hammer's a jerk for sure and possibly an amoral bastard but Dr. Horrible goes on a killing spree because his feelings get hurt. The only good character in the entire series is Penny.
- Goes on a killing spree...with only one, accidental death as the result? Not much of a killing spree.
- And considering Hammer partially strangled Horrible in Act 1, threw a car at his head {albeit offscreen) during Act 2 (The It's Personal was only the straw that broke the camel's back) and tried to shoot him with his own Death Ray, with no indication that this was more violent than usual, the dark-haired Anti Hero appears to be the one with fewer qualms about killing.
- Mostly averted in Survival Of The Fittest, but played straight with Bobby Jacks of V3. Inexplicably - he's black, mark you, with no reason given for his unusual hair colouration.
- Lenny Priestly and J.R. Rizzolo of V3 are blonds as well, and very much evil.
Western Animation
- Mike Morningstar from Ben 10 Alien Force. Guilty of draining girls of their life energy just to keep him from aging.
- Trevor Goodchild from Aeon Flux fits the bill. (In the live-action movie, on the other hand, he has brown hair... and turns out to be a good guy.)
- Plus this 'is Aeon Flux which was very grey on the area of who's good or bad
- In the DVD commentary for the Futurama episode "Anthology of Interest II" wherein Bender is turned into a human, it's stated that Mili Smythe "insisted that Bender be a blond man" as "blond men are more disgusting."
- Episodes of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs typically revolved around some sort of conflict between the jet-black-haired (and heroic, and environmentally-conscious) Old Blood Mechanic Jack Tenrec and evil Poacher Hammer Terhune, whose most prominent physical feature was his enormous blond flattop mullet. Additionally, perhaps the only other blond male character to appear was Shawn Russell, another Old Blood Mechanic who, in direct contrast to Jack, was depicted as being arrogant, corrupt and greedy to the extent that he was willing to betray everything the Old Blood Mechanics were supposed to stand for.
- Remy Buxaplenty on The Fairly Oddparents.
- Chad on Codename Kids Next Door, who was a KND Operative until his Heel Face Turn. Of course, the penultimate episode revealed that he was a long tern mole for the KND.
- In Star Wars: The Clone Wars Senate Guard Commando Captain Argyus is the first Senate Guard ever to be seen unmasked onscreen, revealing his elaborately coifed blond hair, a moment that caused this troper's genre-savvy younger siblings to collectively roll their eyes.
Web Animation
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