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'It's almost like a weapon': How the blonde bombshell has symbolised desire and danger Western culture, she says, has built a whole mythology around female blondeness − from religious iconography and fairy tales, to art and advertising − that has told specific stories about what it means to be blonde. In cinema's early years, comedies such as Platinum Blonde (1931) and Bombshell (1933), starring Jean Harlow, embedded concepts of the dazzling, devastatingly beautiful blonde into the cultural vernacular. "The idea that you're a bombshell, it's almost like a weapon," says Nead. "On the one hand, it is this kind of ideal, but at the same time, it's also threatening."   Before Harlow, there was another − more natural-looking − blonde on the scene: Mary Pickford, whose amber curls helped earn her the moniker of "America's Sweetheart". But while Pickford played the guileless girl waiting to be rescued, Harlow's peroxide blonde ...
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Deadly measles outbreak does little to counter vaccine scepticism in Texas


On an unusually crisp April day in a rural Texas town, dozens of Mennonite community members gathered alongside the nation's top health official, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to mourn an eight-year-old.

Daisy Hildebrand is the second unvaccinated girl from the community to die from measles within two months.

Officials in Seminole town also joined the reception after her funeral to support the family, said South Plains Public Health Director Zach Holbrooks. This time, there was no talk of the vaccine that prevents measles deaths - unlike many of his long days since the outbreak began.

"The focus was on their healing," Mr Holbrooks said. "You never want to see anybody pass away, especially a child that young, from any kind of illness, because there is a prevention for it - the MMR vaccine."

Like other Seminole natives, Mr Holbrooks was not vaccinated against measles as a child. He got a shot in college, and another in February, when his hometown became the epicentre of one of the country's worst measles outbreaks in a decade.

The US has seen more than 700 cases this year. The majority of infections - 541 as of Friday - occurred in western Texas, with 56 patients sent to the hospital. Cases in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas also are linked to the outbreak. Two children, including Daisy, have died - the first recorded fatalities from measles in the US since 2015.

It's not slowing down either, public health experts say. They try to reach vaccine-hesitant residents, but struggle with those who carry on with daily life as usual and with mixed messaging from federal officials, including Kennedy who has endorsed immunization conspiracy theories in the past.

"I wish there were more coming in to get the vaccine," Mr Holbrooks said. "We can put messaging out, but it's up to them to come see us."

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