This doesn’t explain why female characters seem to come color coded for our convenience a lot more often than male ones, though.
Thinking of Friends, all of the main characters are fairly fit, attractive white people of about the same age, but the three women have obviously different hair colors. The men don’t. Unlike the three dark-haired white guys on Seinfeld, they don’t even have obviously different hairstyles and body types. Joey, Chandler, and Ross are all pretty similar in appearance except for their actual facial features. Yet somehow audiences were expected to tell them apart.
The redhead on Glee was the guidance counselor, Shue’s fiancee, with bush-baby eyes. The carryover from Ugly Betty. I don’t want to look her up on IMDB.
It’s not so much that you can’t tell one (enter hair colour here) woman from another - if they are standing next to each other they’re bound to be very distinct in appearance. But which one is Sarah? Which one is the DA? Which one is sleeping with Jake?
On an other gender note, in Battestar Galactica I kept getting Helo and Anders mixed up.
I’ve no diagnosed mental defect except neurosis, but still have some trouble distinguishing two similar actresses in some movies. I have less trouble with males. Recently I conflated Sigourney Weaver and Susan Sarandon. I used to conflate Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke.
This all despite that I got 25 out of 28 on:
ETA: No, Sigourney and Susan weren’t in the same movie. Movies give me trouble when neither actress is famous.
I honestly think it’s much simpler than some kind of Hollywood conspiracy. I think it’s because most men have hair that’s some shade of dark brown/black. Blonde and redhead men are extremely rare and there are fewer men dying their hair than women. Just look at the hair products aisle, it’s all women’s faces (and mostly blonde hair dye) as far as the eye can see.
Pretty much how I would respond. You almost never see blond or redheaded men on television because it’s not considered a telegenic look for men, and you see far more blonde and redheaded women in real life than were born that way.
It’s also not as if hair color was the only difference highlighted in characters on television either. The way they dress, talk, move, and otherwise act will be used as distinquishing characteristics also.
I didn’t say there was any “conspiracy” here, but a couple of posters suggested that the “blonde, brunette, redhead” trope exists because viewers need an easy way to tell the characters apart. In some cases that may be true, but in the case of Friends it seems unlikely as the three male characters are pretty similar in appearance.
It might very well be just a coincidence that the three actresses considered best for their roles on Friends all had obviously different hair colors; as you say, it’s not that unusual even for women who aren’t actresses to dye their hair a more striking color. But if the creators of the show were really concerned about viewers being unable to tell the characters apart they would not have cast three actors who looked so much alike. I can think of several current shows, like How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory that have three white guys of around the same age (TBBT of course also has an Indian guy) who look less alike than Chandler, Ross, and Joey, so this presumably could have been done for Friends if it had been considered necessary.
I don’t think anyone said it was necessary, just that it can make things easier for some viewers. And someone upthread was right that there is a wider variety of hair colors generally on view among actresses than actors, and women are culturally more likely to be expected to, and okay with, changing their hair color.
Matthew Perry is clearly a yuppie-ish white guy while Matt LeBlanc is clearly the son of Italian immigrants while David Schwimmer is considerably taller than the other two.
That said, Friends didn’t even use the “blonde, brunette, redhead” trope as Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow are both blondes.
Interesting. Different people must use very different clues for facial recognition. I’ve never thought those two looked similar, though browsing Google Images now I guess some might.
I did very well on that test, so I know I don’t have face blindness, but I do struggle with keeping actors/actresses straight in movies. If they change their appearance I have a hard time noticing who they are.
I also have a hard time with people that were shown for a short period of time. Apparently I saw them before, but that was 45 minutes ago and they were in the scene for like 30 seconds. How am I supposed to recognize them now?
Yes, this irritates my wife because I am always asking “Do we know this guy/girl?”
Aside: Wanted posters always baffled me too. If they just change themselves a bit, there is no way in heck I would ever recognize someone from a poster. I don’t see how they ever work.
This all reminds me of something similar I encountered in the movie Hidalgo.
The filmmakers carefully cast their “Arab” characters, all just different-looking enough to overcome the apparent worry that the audience won’t be able to keep them straight by their names: one looks like a heavyweight Martin Lawrence, one is very dark-skinned, and one is Omar Sharif. And of the two that have beards, the bad guy’s is carefully trimmed to a demonic point.
We hardly ever see female characters with beards, why is that?
This is just what’s done. For women differing hair styles and color make good distinguishing features. For men it’s hair or no hair, on the face or the top of the head. For both sexes the clothing, mannerisms, and many other differences will be highlighted as well. The production team will consider these things when assembling an ensemble cast, they’ll want some way to distinquish the characters to facilitate introducing them to a new audience.
