Blonde joke
Template:Short description Template:Infobox joke Blonde jokes are a joke cycle based on a stereotype of a dumb blonde woman.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
These jokes about people, generally women, who have blonde hair serve as a form of blonde versus brunette rivalry. They are often considered to be derogatory as many are mere variants on traditional ethnic jokes or jests about other identifiable groups that would be considered more offensive (such as Italian jokes involving Carabinieri).
In some cases, jokes about stereotypically stupid people have circulated since the seventeenth century with only the wording and targeted groups changed.<ref name=Kuipers>Giselinde Kuipers, Good Humor, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke, page 24, Walter de Gruyter, 2006, Template:ISBN</ref>
Some blonde jokes rely on sexual humour to portray or stereotype their subjects as promiscuous.<ref>Karen Ross, The Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media, chapter 6, John Wiley & Sons, 2011, Template:ISBN</ref> Many of these are rephrased sorority girl or Essex girl jokes.<ref name=Kuipers/>
Common traits
Blonde jokes nearly always take the format of the blonde placing herself in a situation or making a comment that serves to highlight her supposed promiscuity and/or lack of intelligence, cluelessness and clumsiness. The blonde of the joke is often placed in an unusual situation with a brunette or redhead.
The emergence of a class of meta-jokes about blondes ("meta-blonde jokes", i.e., jokes about blonde jokes) is noted. In a typical plot of this type a blonde complains about the unfairness of the stereotype propagated by blonde jokes, with a punch line actually reinforcing the stereotype.<ref>Limor Shifman, Dafna Lemish, "Virtually Blonde: Blonde Jokes in the Global Age and Postfeminist Discourse", in: The Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media</ref> An example is about a blonde objecting to a ventriloquist act packed with sexist jokes about blondes: Template:Quote
The British Essex girl joke, very similar in content, became popular in the late 1980s; it satirises working-class girls from the county of Essex.
Criticism
Like all humour based on stereotypes, blonde jokes are considered offensive to many people,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> particularly blonde women.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Blonde jokes have been criticized as sexist by several authors, largely because the target is invariably dimwitted, female and sexually promiscuous.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>