I’m officially declaring this the summer of the read head. Cynthia Nixon was just cast on The Big C, Julianne Moore is playing a lesbian mom in The Kids Are All Right, Paramore‘s on tour with its fiery frontwoman Hayley Williams center stage and Tilda Swinton is one of the hottest women in film all around.
Gingers don’t always get the fair amount of respect they deserve, which is crazy considering how much we’ve always preferred Lindsay Lohan in her natural state. So it was time for us to announce our favorites publicly in this week’s huddle.
Ready, break!
Lindsey Byrnes: Pippi Longstocking was my first idol. From the moment that I set eyes on her I wanted to be her. Pippi’s punk hair style was what initially drew me to her but, ultimately, it was her strength and charisma that sustained my interest over the years. She picked her nose and had the occasional smoke and, to my 6-year-old self, 9-year-old Pippi Longstocking was the ultimate bad ass.
My obsession with Pippi was never out of control, though it lasted many years and, while I knew I wasn’t Pippi, I still acted like Pippi when the mood hit me. Once, while my parents were out for the night, I decided that I would scrub the floors in the house the way that Pippi and her pet monkey did in the movies. (Who was taking care of me that they let me do this, I wonder?)
I managed to find scrub brushes and scotch tape and McGruber together my version of Pippi’s movie attire. Scotch tape wasn’t a great adhesive and while flailing about the kitchen singing and dancing I managed to dump an entire tub of water and tear down half the kitchen. My parents weren’t impressed, as you might imagine. For a while I took to telling my friends that I was Pippi and I’d run around trying to pick up heavy things – this is something she does a lot of.
While Pippi and I had unusual strength in common, it was Pippi’s way of speaking that really distinguished us from each other. Pippi’s mouth always seemed to go a different way then her words. I would spend hours trying to imitate her to my friends and family. It wasn’t until I was much older revisiting my love for Pippi that I realized Pippi was actually speaking Swedish and the English I was hearing had been dubbed over.
Dorothy Snarker: Anne of Green Gables, hands down. Sure, she isn’t “real,” but just try telling that to millions of young girls (and the women they became) who love her.
What made Anne Shirley so amazing was what set her apart. She wasn’t the prettiest. She wasn’t the most well-behaved. She wasn’t the most conventionally “good.” What she was was smart, spunky, spirited and smart some more. And it was all framed by that hair, that red, red hair – carroty in fact.
She made it OK to be different, to be smarter than the boys, to get into all sorts of scapes. She was a queer little girl with a dear bosom friend who was the kindred spirit to other every queer little girl in the world. Also, in the form of Megan Follows, she grew up quite nicely indeed. In fact, she might have helped make me queer in that other way, too.
Mia Jones: Besides former AfterEllen.com blogger Jen Sabella, the red-headed lady singer tattoo on my arm and my first crush at my office, my favorite ginger is Christina Hendricks.
Firefly started it all but Mad Men solidified her ability to make me quiver in my Converse. She may not like talking about her curvaceous body, but I could go on and on about it for days.
thelinster: I’d seen Kate Walsh before Grey’s Anatomy started (she played a lesbian in Under the Tuscan Sun, although she blew it with Sandra Oh), but one look at Dr. Addison Montgomery and I fell in deep, deep lust. That woman is pure sex – and I am a fan of purity.
Kate has this look she does where she cocks an eyebrow over those bedroom eyes and … um … what was the question?
Trish Bendix: My favorite redhead of late is Deborah Ann Woll, aka Jessica on True Blood. At first, I wasn’t a fan of the whiny baby vamp, but she’s grown to become one of my favorite characters. All of the other vampires are skilled and know how to live amongst humans, but Jessica is still learning. She also has some, uh, issues with being an eternal virgin. How annoying!
Heather Hogan: You know how the Mean Girls in Mean Girls have a Burn Book? I have the exact opposite of a Burn Book. I have a book of lists and lists and lists of things I love and love and love. And I am constantly ranking and re-ranking each list to make sure it accurately reflects my favorites at any given time so, I guess, when I die people will know that Ben & Jerry’s Double Fudge Brownie really was my favorite ice cream and not Baskin-Robbins All-Star Chocolate. What I’m saying is: I can tell you my top ten everything in every category you could ever conceive – except red heads, apparently.
My first choice – and I claimed her as swift as lightning – was The Doctor’s new assistant, Amy Pond, because she pushes all my buttons: Scottish accent, time traveler, and she’s got that whole Thomas Hardy secret genius quality about carrying the spirit of childhood into maturity. But then, of course, there’s Ginny Weasley. “The long-suffering Ginny Weasley,” JK Rowling laughed one time because she was – until she bought into the very Fred and George idea that anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve. And then there’s Emily Fitch. I don’t care that her hair’s not really red; it’s red to me. And I don’t care that she can’t navigate the Tardis or work a Bat-Bogey Hex; she’s magic to me too. The real kind of magic. The best kind of magic. The “nothing is too wonderful to be true” kind of magic. (But I wouldn’t mind Bat-Bogeying Mandy, while we’re on the subject. Or something Unforivable. Cruciatus. Imperius. Imperio, Mandy! GTFO!)
OK who’s your favorite?
