Red hair is associated with being Irish in the UK? Since when? Red head=Irish is very much a US thing; red heads are so spread over the UK that there's no big assumption that a red head must be Irish. Because they're probably not.
Edited by Bluesqueak It ain't over 'till the ring hits the lava. Hide / Show Replies
Anyway, I've now deleted the 'in the UK' part. I'm not entirely sure about prejudice about red-heads being linked with Irishness anywhere, but since I'm not over-familiar with Hollywood in-fighting I've left it in. However, the Irish Diaspora Research Unit thinks there's no link. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6725653.stm
There's no redhead=irish therefore prejudice in the UK but pale redhead=probably has Irish or Scottish family is definitely there. Still makes sense to remove in the UK as that implies the irishness is the causing factor.
Also related, the Burn Notice example. Any real Irishwoman? I live in Ireland and I know plenty of girls that do take the sun well and during the summer when temperatures do get up to about 30 degrees, walk around not looking like overgrown lobsters. The troper who added that example probably assumes that all Irish people have red hair and pale skin. Plus Gabrielle Anwar herself is British and from the same climate as Ireland so...
This may possibly stem from the false assumption that red hair is somewhat associated with Celts and as the Irish and Scottish people are considered Celtic, they ought to be red-headed and fair-skinned. In reality, majority of Celts sports pale skin and _dark_ hair. They also take tanning pretty well. Fair and red hair is most likely a sign of Scandinavian (i.e. Nordic) heritage.
Here's an item for the Trivia section of this page: the term "posh", meaning "rich", "upper-class", or "expensive", originated as an acronym—Port Outbound, Starboard Home—that was a rule of thumb for Victorian ladies to keep from getting tanned when traveling to and from "The Colonies", because being pale meant that you were idle rich (i.e. not having to work out in the sun, which caused freckles and tanning, both indicating 'working class' status).
"lead and arsenic based make up" isn't really Too Dump To Live, as ancient people didn't know about their toxicity, so I removed the remark.
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Snowclone
, started by MegaJ on Sep 14th 2019 at 11:39:26 PM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman