Struggle of Blondes

Voice over:
"In every society, smart women and men adapt behaviours and take on appearances that give them social, cultural or survival advantages. Man is mimetic and can’t help it." (images of nature, of babies, animals, imitating objects)

"In Gulag for example, the infamous soviet work camps, some women transformed easily from home woven girls to hard core whores, just in order to please the men in charge- the urkis- and enhance their own chances of staying alive for one more day.

Falling in love with a Moscow intellectual these days was a really really bad idea. Intellectuals were seen as scum and doomed as soon as they stepped in to Gulag." (images from Gulag, tattoos, black and white photos…archives…)

"From this perspective it is not strange that poorer women of the north east hemisphere like Sweden and Poland often dye their hair blonde. It is a smart survival strategy. If they are lucky- they can attract a man from a position that they perceive as high. (images of men in suits, big cars…mobile phones tacky watches,
jewellery but also classy and prominent guys as…Kofi Annan?)


But Blondes are not just one species. Just like in the old ottoman era, where the harem consisted of thousands of women, the blondes have their on hierarchical system.
(Images of harems and veiled women.)

Andrea Rosenbaum, who is a professor in Anthropology at the University of Stockholm, has an ongoing project in which she studies the hierarchy of blondes and at what point a blonde stops being an object and becomes a subject: a so called Seer.

(Images: Andrea in her workplace at the university, computer, books, she walks down the street, tiny jewish woman with glasses, She watches blondes in a bus, blondes in a room, an intellectual jewish woman, a couple of blondes, they look at each other, throw gazes, stare..sometimes awkwardly they notice the camera….they know they are studied….)
Rosenbaum:
-Well, the concept of subject and object has almost become obsolete these days. I see this from a standpoint of cultural survival strategy. But still- when do you stop being an object and become a subject? At what point? Primarily I study gaze and how the blondes try to give themselves a position in the group. Call it hierarchy! Call it female survival strategy...

Image: Four blondes sit in a white waiting room and read, maybe two chat. One intellectual blonde, on regular girl next door blonde, one sporty blonde etc. Different types. The door opens. In comes a platina blonde with fixed breasts and a pink jump suite.
Rosenbaum:

- I have been doing this for ten years. And all of my data is pointing towards one direction. That is Mimesis. Mimesis is the built capacity of man which is much stronger than what we think is rational man. As a matter of fact, Im about to tear down the whole foundation of western thought. It has become clear to me that…………………………..



En filmidé från 2003 som inte blev av, men jag tycker den bådar gott..