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When the trolls are singing the Fixer-Upper song one of the lines is:

Are you holding back your fondness

Due to his unmanly blondness?

Why would they consider blond hair "unmanly," or consider this a big enough concern that Anna wouldn't want to date/marry him? At first I thought I might have heard the words wrong, but these words were confirmed by three different lyrics sites.

Here is the scene:

The lines in question happen about 1 minute into that video. The trolls are also clearly poking fun at Kristoff so maybe this was just some kind of absurd claim to elicit a response from Anna.

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    Pretty sure this is a common stereotype. Nov 21, 2016 at 17:17

3 Answers 3

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Hair darkens with age, so light/blonde hair is associated with youth. This is why it is seen as attractive on women, due to evolution she is seen as younger, therefore more fertile and healthier. Whereas men seem more 'manly' if they are older and wiser (more able to provide and protect). I'm sure you've heard about the whole generic "tall, dark and handsome" fantasy. - Yahoo Answers

If you have darker hair, you are considered more mature and manly (if male).

Actually, for this being in Norway, there is a shocking lack of blonde haired men in the movie. The Blonde map of Europe

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Hans and the Duke of Weaseltown (and his guards) can be excused because they are from somewhere else (presumably outside of Norway).

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Of the palace guards, maybe two of them have blonde hair, when really 5 out of 6 guards should be blonde haired based on statistics.

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A group of gawkers as the snow rolls in, not a blonde head among them.

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Here at least we see three very youthful guards who all seem to have blonde hair. This image may reinforce the idea of blonde being a youthful (and hence not manly) attribute for men.

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    This is a very interesting answer. Anecdotally I had blonde hair growing up and my hair turned brown in my 20's around the time I met and married my wife. I've always joked with her that she infected me with her dark hair color, since she's Peruvian.
    – Erik
    Nov 21, 2016 at 20:53
  • The same is true for me. I had blonde hair growing up, and it started turning more light brown in my twenties. I am still somewhat a dirty blonde or mixed, as no one would realistically call my hair color pure brown. Nov 21, 2016 at 20:55
  • More anecdotes: my father had blond hair growing up, black hair as an adult. I had blond hair growing up, reddish-brown hair as an adult.
    – Ghotir
    Nov 21, 2016 at 21:41
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    While I agree that blond hair is less common, the trolls in Frozen have grass for hair; they probably wouldn't develop stereotypes based on blondness.
    – Zxyrra
    Nov 21, 2016 at 21:53
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This may not be a serious line.
There are few if any reasons why the writers of the movie would create a culture opposed to blondness - and nothing about real myths, legends etc of trolls points to an opposition to a certain hair color. Tou can therefore assume that either

A) It's a joke for the audience, or
B) It's just the trolls poking fun at Kristoff to elicit a response

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When I was a little boy I wanted to have blonde hair because I think that is the most beautiful hair color. I remember thinking that it was unfair that blonde hair is so much more common in females.

Now I know that approximately as many males as females are born with blonde hair and the surplus of females seen with blonde hair is due to women dying their hair blonde. So in most societies one will see a lot more women than men with blonde hair, even though approximately as many men as women are born with blonde hair.

Thus blonde hair tends to indicate that a person is female.

And if as a little boy I had learned about hair dye and started dying my hair blonde people probably would have thought that I was acting like a girl. It would have been considered effeminate behavior.

These may be the reasons why the trolls sang about "unmanly blondness".

Or maybe they sang that because "blondness" rhymes with "fondness".

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  • I don’t think that blonde hair indicates a person is female nor do I think people would think you were acting like a girl if you died your hair blonde as a child.
    – Erik
    Dec 27, 2017 at 23:45
  • Erik - As a child I never deliberately tried to quantify the abundance of blonde hair between the genders. I merely subconsciously noticed that a lot more women than men had blonde hair. Thus I can believe that some people would subconsciously associate blondness with being female. Jan 2, 2018 at 16:30

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