Les Brunes comptent pas pour des prunes
In 1986, Lio (born in 1962) sang Les Brunes comptent pas pour des prunes (Don't Forget the Brunettes), a single from the album Pop model, released by Polydor. The music is by Marc Moulin, the lyrics by Jacques Duvall. In this French hit, the singer and actress pokes fun at the legend of the beautiful blonde to rehabilitate brunettes. The clip, directed by Costa Kekemenis, shows her as a sexy and mischievous pin-up girl of the 1980s in a choreography inherited from Hollywood musicals in which all the girls in the chorus line are wearing the same blond wig. But Lio the brunette ends her clip wearing a blond wig under the hood hairdryer of a hairdressing saloon, winking at the viewers. No hard feelings...
Whether it is associated with the virginal purity of the madonnas of the Renaissance or the artificial seductiveness of vamps in the golden age of Hollywood, blond hair is a beautiful feature which makes a woman into an icon in the Western imagination.
But the dark hair of brunettes, highlighted by many artists, is not neglected. This obscure object of desire, so often described, painted, sung about and filmed, arouses fantasies as profound as those inspired by blond hair. While the cinema claims that Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Lio hits back with Les Brunes comptent pas pour des prunes. The singer reminds us of the seductive attraction of dark-haired beauties, from the enigmatic Mona Lisa, immortalised by Leonardo da Vinci, to the incendiary Sophia Loren, who imposed her Mediterranean sensuality in the cinema of the 1960s.
This colour duality changes blondes and brunettes into eternal rivals. The history of the arts testifies to this fierce competition and shows the ability of these two complementary colours to express all the nuances of femininity. From Mucha to Warhol and from Murnau to Lynch, women with their blond mane and dark hair oppose and reflect each other, offering in turn the face of an angel or a devil.
Through different works, periods and places, they exchange the costumes of the ingénue and the femme fatale, in a merciless struggle. Watching this enthralling spectacle, artists and spectators are torn between blonde and brunette as between light and darkness.
