GingerBeat

Ah, a favorite redhead pigeonhole: the lush. I won’t kid myself into thinking that society at large actually disapproves of holding this stereotype, but “start talking before they start drinking”? Do we actually need to encourage people to start rumors about some kid who hasn’t even started drinking yet? Don’t worry, people will start talking about this poor ginger without a seven-foot sign telling them they should.

Many thanks to S&L, who have gone on gingerist patrol whole hog in Los Angeles and are faithfully reporting back to gingerbeat with their findings. LA seems to have a particular disdain for the small redheads – apparently bathrooms on the West Coast display warnings about them:

We all know that people have long thought of redheads as spawn of the devil, so it’s no surprise that gingerists show no mercy for ginger children – they just have longer left to cause trouble, right? Actually, contrary to popular belief, redhead kids can grow up to be productive members of society. LA isn’t aware of that though – witness the 1990 poster for Problem Child:

That crazed little demon doesn’t look like he’s headed anywhere good, but wait til you see it in German!

Just came across this excellent explanation of the all-too-common Redhead Cluster Phenomenon, wherein a person sees several redheads in a row and then doesn’t see another redhead for some time afterwards. The Redhead Cluster Phenomenon, of course, has the tragic effect of giving the public a false sense of security about redhead sightings, then stirring up anger and resentment during the redhead drought that follows. The phenomenon is almost certainly responsible for much of the gingerism in the world, and we redheads will have to take on the challenge of evening out redhead sightings one of these days.

We had a vicious cold snap and a lot of short gray days in February, but what some of you might not have noticed was that we redheads also had a spate of gingerism like we haven’t seen in years. To kick off the month, an ad aired during the superbowl featuring a cartoonishly ugly redhead and a punchline revolving around the absurdity of being attracted to her:

Next, New York Magazine published a story about “Why Kids Lie” – and plastered the pages of the article with pictures of innocent redheads. Thanks, NYM – I hope you enjoyed stamping “LIAR!” across the face of millions of unsuspecting redheaded children.

In a final blow, the New Yorker gave redheads an end-of-the month kick in the shins with this cover, clearly designed to tell a cautionary tale to redheads who might think they have some kind of creative skills (yes, that’s a garbage-can fire using a redhead’s first novel as fuel there in the last pane):

Let’s hope that the spring brings us better days.

It was the summer of 2007 when this redhead was directed to a disturbing news story about something called gingerism. What? Gingerism? I thought the whole world loved redheads! Well, having grown up on a ginger colony (see below), I’d apparently been sheltered from some of life’s hard truths. Since my introduction to gingerism, I’ve found anti-redhead propaganda on tv, in magazines, on billboards… Hence GingerBeat: your anti-redhead watchdog blog. Stay tuned for news about the plight of redheads everywhere.

Life on the Ginger Colony, Circa 1987