Marlene Dietrich, as ‘Bijou Blanche’ in a feminine version of a Navy officer’s uniform from the 1940 motion picture ‘Seven Sinners.’
Before you watch this sixteen-plus minute training video put out by the Navy in 1967, you’ll need a little background on this vintage piece of sexist “how to.”
How to Succeed with Brunettes’ is one of nearly 3000 training films produced by the U.S. Navy during the 1960s that range from topics such as “good hygiene” to how women enlisted in the military should “conduct” themselves around their male counterparts. It’s also said that the film was lampooned by the television news program 60 Minutes in its early days and that the show even presented the Navy with a “faux Oscar” for How to Succeed With Brunettes for being the most “unnecessary” and “fiscally wasteful” film on record for the time. For you see, back in 1966 it was tax dollars that covered the $64,000 tab for creating this cringe-worthy film.
There are SO many things wrong with the advice in this training film—even when they try to present the viewer with the “correct” way to be successful with brown-haired girls—it makes you wonder how any man enlisted in the Navy who ever saw it was able to reproduce, never mind getting a second date with a brunette. Or any woman with hair on her head for that matter. Since I really don’t want to give any more away about this US government-produced masterpiece, or the follow-up smash Blondes Prefer Gentlemen, I will leave you to watch both videos below. If after watching them you’d like to see more (and I’m sure you will!), check out the US National Archives YouTube channel.
‘How to Succeed With Brunettes’,’ 1967.
‘Blondes Prefer Gentlemen.’
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Frank Zappa wants you to ‘vote like a beast’
‘From Rugs to Riches’: Jonathan Winters in a wonderfully goofy carpet sales training film