Redheads Are Ravishing

"...sir, we just met."

"I wanna live
with a cinnamon girl
I could be happy
the rest of my life
With a cinnamon girl."

— Neil Young, "Cinnamon Girl"

Red hair has attracted much attention due to its rarity. One very old perception is that they're associated with evil — and because sexuality and evil/deviance often go hand in hand, a link between red hair and perceived sexuality emerged. More innocently, red is also considered the color of love and passion.

As a result, red is very frequently the hair color of choice for femme fatales, seductresses, and other bombshells of note, especially if they're contrasted with a more modest blonde or brunette. Even if the character is not particularly sexual, their red hair might still be considered attractive or otherwise a factor in their good looks, especially if the rarity and historical associations of the color are noted. A disproportionate number of characters will mention they have a thing for redheads in particular.

You'll notice that this trope skews towards flame-haired women, as redheaded men tend to be portrayed as uncool losers. The one exception to that is works made for and by gay men, in which case gingers fill a very popular niche.

Note that this is not about any redhead who happens to be attractive, or even any redhead who happens to be a love interest. The red hair must be correlated to attractiveness in some way.

Compare Fiery Redhead; the two tropes may overlap if the redhead's feisty personality also adds to her allure. Contrast Redheads Are Uncool and Redheaded Stepchild, who are ostracized redheads. Compare and contrast other hair color attractiveness / personality association tropes Everyone Loves Blondes and Brainy Brunette.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Twice in Isabelle of Paris: Isabelle has eyes for the ginger Captain Victor (but this is because she Likes Older Men), while Andréa pursues a Hot Gypsy Woman named Irma who also has red hair.
• Zigzagged in Naruto. Kushina was initially mocked for her long red hair, but unfortunately for her bullies, it was the source of her power and she even fought with it, earning her the nickname "Red Hot-Blooded Habanero." When she was kidnapped by Kumo ninja, she left behind strands of her hair for anyone to follow, which helped Minato track her down. When he rescued her, Minato boldly stated that her red hair was "beautiful." Given that he was the first person to compliment her hair, Kushina was putty in Minato's arms very quickly. Afterwards, Kushina was renowned for her beauty in the Leaf Village.

Art

• Hylas and the Nymphs: The naiads seducing Hylas to a watery death notably all have auburn hair, which adds to their allure and starkly contrasts with the nature surrounding them.

Comic Books

• Archie Comics: Parodied in one story where Betty and Veronica come at Archie demanding whether he prefers blondes (i.e. Betty) or brunettes (Veronica). He (rather wisely) tries to dodge the unwinnable question by picking redheads—as in himself, comparing redheaded men favorably to blond and brunet men (respectively Dumb Blond Moose and untrustworthy Reggie). This leads to several rounds of the girls Moving the Goalposts to defeat his Loophole Abuse, until finally an actual redheaded girl shows up and he goes off with her, affirming his preference for redheads.
• Nightwing's two major canon love interests are both red-heads; Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) and Koriand'r (Starfire). And if that counts, Girl of the Week Cheyenne was a red-head. Nightwing has even stated himself that he has a thing for red-heads when first meeting the new Batwoman in 52. And in the 2011 series, his love interest is Raya Vestri. Guess what color her hair is. For bonus points, his two Heterosexual Life-Partners pre-New 52, Roy Harper and Wally West, are redheaded as well.
• Parodied in Powers; when a philandering superhero is found dead in bed as a result of bedroom-related complications, the police find a little black book with the names all of the women he tried it on with and have to go and interview all of them. Every single one of them is a redhead.

Fan Works

• A PG version in the Infinity Train: Blossomverse stories. Chloe Cerise is a Fiery Redhead and while she's not seen as good-looking in her world, on the Train, she has beings (human or otherwise) liking her for either being a kickass fighter or her love of the macabre. In three stories, she's the interest of a talking book, a youkia, and a kid spy.
• Played for Drama in With Pearl and Ruby Glowing:
  • The Serial Rapist police sheriff consistently targets young skinny redheads of any gender, with the other Dirty Cops letting him know when they find an inmate who fits the description
  • Hans date rapes redheaded girls, such as Anna and Merida, and rejects the blonde-haired Helga Sinclair for not being his type until she dyes her hair red.
  • Jessica Rabbit and Red Hot Riding Hood are fetishised by creepy/abusive white men because of their "exotic" Native American heritage and their oculotaneous albinism, which causes them to have light skin and red hair.

Film — Live Action

• Aquaman: Mera is a redheaded Ms. Fanservice. Arthur lampshades this, saying, "Redheads! Gotta love 'em!"
• Diamonds Are Forever: Bond states in this movie that he did really like redheads.
• Far and Away: Joseph takes quite a liking to Shannon, an Irish immigrant with unsurprisingly red hair. At least a couple of the more minor characters are attracted to her as well.
  Coniff: I think the prettiest girl in this factory, the one with the prettiest eyes, and the prettiest red hair, is Joseph's sister ^note They're only pretending to be brother and sister.- if you don't mind me saying so, Joseph.
  Joseph: Well, you can say what you like, lad. But I warn you, that redhead has a bite that stings.
• In The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, a Jewish matchmaker asks the disguised Mohammed what kind of woman he prefers, and he reluctantly mentions a thing for redheads. At the end of the film Pivert's daughter runs away from her Arranged Marriage and her veil flies off, revealing very bright red hair. Naturally it's Love at First Sight for the both of them.

Jokes

• I like my women the way I like my ale: ginger. (Works best when told by The Teetotaler.)

Literature

• The Doll Factory: Many of women in Pre-Raphaelite paintings have red hair, reflected in the story in which many of female characters (some of whom are based on real life historical figures), including models like Iris and Lizzie and love interests like Flick, are red heads.
• Earth's Children: Tricie is an attractive redhead who came close to marrying Ranec (they had seriously discussed marrying and even had a child together), at least until Ranec met Ayla. She suggests he reconsider Tricie after breaking up with him and he does seriously give it some thought; it's revealed in the sixth book that Tricie and Ranec eventually got back together. Tricie had also taken on a sacred role of introducing adolescent boys to the Gift of Pleasure, making her even more inherently attractive and drawing a lot of male attention, though the one man she truly wants is Ranec.
• The Grishaverse and The Grisha Trilogy in particular: Genya Safin has red hair and is considered to be very beautiful, both by the lead character Alina (who comments on Genya's beauty constantly in her narration) and by the standards of the world around her.
• Gulliver's Travels: Gulliver notes that while the Yahoo species as a whole is hedonistic and perverse, redheaded Yahoos of both sexes are even more libidinous than the norm.
• The Han Solo Trilogy: Bria, Han's first girlfriend in the books, is a beautiful young woman with red-gold hair. It's one of the main features about her he initially is attracted by, and many other men also find her beautiful partly because of it. Bria's well aware of this, which comes in handy when she works as a Rebel spy, but on the other hand it's too noticeable at times, so that she has to cover her hair with a wig or dye it when undercover.
• High School D×D: Issei, upon first seeing Rias at school, remarked to himself just how beautiful her deep crimson hair is. His feelings are requited, and they finally become a couple in Volume 10, after Issei's harem encouraged him to confess to her.
• Maoyu: The Demon Queen is a buxom redhead who's often noted by many characters, including The Hero himself, to be quite beautiful, despite her thinking that she's not.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Red hair is rarer north of the wall, so redheaded wildlings are considered lucky in addition to being nicknamed 'kissed by fire'. Jon initially thinks Ygritte is plain-looking but later learns that the wildlings consider her a beauty for her hair.
• Sweet & Bitter Magic: Tamsin, one of the two heroines, falls for the other, Wren (a redhead). In fact, one of the first things she does with her store of love is note how beautiful Wren's hair is.
• Villains by Necessity: Kaylana is a beautiful redhead who both Sam and Fenwick want, while specifically her hair color was among the things the pair found attractive about her.
• Wagons West: At least two of Toby's love interests were redheads. When in one of the later novels his wife Alexandra (who was occasionally implied to be one as well) said they will not count the redheads he has gone for, Toby happily replies that there were too many to count.
• Virginia Crowe, the love interest of the teenage title character in the Young Sherlock Holmes series, is a redhead. Whenever he thinks of her, one of the first things to come to his mind is her cascade of red hair.

Live-Action TV

• Attila: Attila's first wife N'Kara was a redhead. Flavius Aetius uses this to his advantage when he recruits Ildico, a Roman woman lusting for vengeance against the Huns who resembles Attila's late wife, to make Attila fall in love with her, providing a perfect opportunity to assassinate him.
• Community: During the sixth season, as most of the characters are imagining what Season Seven would be like, Jeff imagines that the new group is a bunch of attractive red-headed women. This is also a case of Author Appeal, as Dan Harmon has stated that he is attracted by red-heads.
• Desperate Housewives: Orson Hodge had a wife, a mistress, and a second wife, all red heads. Even lampshaded when wife #1 (who'd vanished before he met and married Bree, the second wife) reappeared.
  Alma: So what is it with you and red heads?
• NCIS: Gibbs has been married four times and all of his wives were redheads. His first wife Shannon was killed while they were still married and the other three wives are ex-wives. He's also had an affair with his (redheaded) boss and was dating a redheaded Army investigator. And everyone else recognizes it. When he first met the investigator, the other team members noted the growing attraction and pointed out the red hair as proof it was inevitable Tony even said that "Gibbs just met his fourth ex-wife". He seems utterly bewildered by his attraction to a brunette lawyer, even asking if she used to be a redhead. Possibly hereditary — Gibbs' mother was a redhead.

Music

• In Dolly Parton's "Jolene", the eponymous temptress is described as an incomparable beauty, with "flamin' locks of auburn hair", who has bewitched the hapless speaker's husband. She's got green eyes to boot.
• Bruce Springsteen's "Red-Headed Woman" extols redheads as the best at sex:
  "Well brunettes are fine, man
  And blondes are fun
  But when it comes to getting the dirty job done
  I'll take a redheaded woman!"
• Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning", the singer's love interest is a redheaded, leather-clad biker babe nicknamed "Red Molly".
  "Said James, 'In my opinion,
  There's nothing in this world
  Beats a '52 Vincent
  And a redheaded girl.'"

Video Games

• Kasumi from Dead or Alive was the sex-symbol postergirl for the infamously-sexy fighting game series for its first several games for a reason, and her being a beautiful Japanese ninja with striking, exotic red hair was a lot of it. There are other very-attractive women in the cast who fit more classical East Asian beauty standards with dark hair, like Lei Fang and Kokoro, but almost all of them got passed over for the advertising (with Nyotengu being the eventual exception).
• In Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Iron Bull admits that he's got a thing for redheads and the fact that Leliana is your spymaster was why he did some research on her and the Inquisition.
• Galaxy Angel: The redhead Forte Stollen is the bustiest among the Angels, and has a confident, headstrong and mature personality with a bit of a seductive side to match her looks.

Western Animation

• Gravity Falls: Wendy Corduroy, who has very long, very red hair, is extremely pretty, and has attracted the interest of both the protagonist, Dipper, and his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis Robbie. She is also stated to have several ex-boyfriends who she broke up with.
• The Legend of Korra: In a setting where nearly everyone has dark hair, the appropriately named Ginger is a beautiful red-headed actress used as Damsel in Distress propaganda In-Universe by Varrick. Bolin plays her Love Interest Nuktuk and becomes attracted to the real actress herself. Ginger doesn’t return his affection at first, but she warms up to Bolin and even gives him a Big Damn Kiss at the end of the second season.
• Looney Tunes: 1956's "Broom-Stick Bunny" does this with Witch Hazel, who wants to remain the ugliest of them all. After Bugs gives her a beauty potion which she unknowingly drinks, she turns into a gorgeous caricature of her voice actress, June Foray.
• Morty of Rick and Morty has the hots for Jessica, a redhead in his math class. Rick himself also has a thing for redheads, getting his old Hive Mind fling to organize an orgy with all the hottest redheads it can control. It reached near-memetic status in Season 3, where all three women that Morty chases after detoxifying are redheads. In addition, "Morty Mind Blowers" showed that Morty once used one of Rick's devices to attract women, all are redheads.
• Sanjay and Craig: Sanjay's crush, Belle Pepper, has reddish-orange hair. He's very fond of this particular feature of hers; in "Middle Shame" he shouts "Belle Pepper is a cutie and I wanna kiss her hair!" while on Craig's boat in the latter's secret spot on a lake. In other episodes like "Ghost Pool" and "Dangerous Debbie", he's seen nuzzling up warmly against her hair.
• Daphne Blake of Scooby-Doo is a leggy, danger-prone redhead. Johnny Bravo flirts with her in "Bravo Dooby Doo".