Joss Whedon

Hoban Washburne - Firefly

Colour: Strawberry blond.

From a bottle? Nope.

There’s a trope in popular culture which, rightly or wrongly, implies that redheaded women are extraordinarily sexy, combining the colour of their hair with their allegedly “fiery’”nature. Some of these women are admittedly on this list, but we omitted characters like Jessica Rabbit because she lived up to the stereotype a little too much (she can’t help it, though, she’s drawn that way).

By the same token, there’s another trope for male redheads to be geeks, losers or the victims of bullying. And so we proudly present Wash to disprove that idea.

…Okay, we admit he’s a geek. In that respect, he lives up to the stereotype. But he’s also the pilot of a spaceship, the funniest person on said spaceship and is happily married to the spaceship’s hottest and baddest female character. It’s good to be Wash. Well, up until that bit in Serenity where his leaf-blowing abilities come to an abrupt end, anyway.

Honourable mention 1: Alan Tudyk as Alpha on Dollhouse. Nobody plays a psychopath quite like him. We’re not quite sure where the redhead stereotype stands when it comes to being serial killers, though.

Honourable mention 2: Christina Hendricks as Saffron, the redheaded tease who so brilliantly duped Mal and the crew in two episodes of Firefly. She’s a prime example of a redhead written to be sexy, a la Jessica Rabbit… though thankfully there’s more to her than that.

Felicia Day - The Guild

Colour: Auburn.

From a bottle? Natural, although topped up with dye to give it oomph (from what we can tell).

She’s become the poster child for geeky women everywhere, a spokesperson for an entire generation of nerds and a bona fide international internet treasure. The fact that she’s ginger probably isn’t important when you take that into account, except for if you see her as a role model for redheads. Which she is.

Her most notable acting stints include a Potential Slayer in Buffy‘s seventh season (by which time she was rocking the short red hair look, while Alyson Hannigan’s Willow as rocking the long red hair look), the adorable Penny in Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, two guest spots in Dollhouse where she nearly stole the show from the main stars and a repeated role in Eureka. And – of course – she’s the brains behind The Guild.

In short, if redheads ever wanted to take over the world, Felicia Day could be their leader.

Willow Rosenberg - Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Colour: Ginger.

From a bottle? Natural, with occasional additions.

A TV show which starred a blonde cheerleader who kills vampires in her spare time was always going to have fun playing with stereotypes and conventions. And so, while elsewhere in this feature we’ve discussed how redheaded women are often cast as sex bombs, in Buffy we found a redhead cast as a quiet, shy nerd who would simply explode from embarrassment if anyone ever called her “sexy”.

Which, of course, actually made her sexy in her own way. Bravo!

Honourable mention: Seth Green as Oz, a fellow redhead who hooked up with Willow and created possibly the most adorable couple on television at the time. (Shame his fur when he was a werewolf wasn’t bright red as well.) And Mr Green himself has gone on to prove his geek credentials in many ways, not least with Robot Chicken.

Click on the link for more :

http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/08/25/top-10-sci-fi-and-fantasy-redheads/7/