The below contains spoilers for Succession, up to and including season four, episode three.
When Willa appears on screen in the season four premiere of Succession, she’s with her fiance, Connor Roy, at the Waystar patriarch’s birthday party. She looks softer, dantier. Her hair is blonder than it has ever been before. The lush,long blonde coif is controlled and polished without faltering into ‘try hard’ territory. The buttery hue stands in stark contrast from Willa’s first appearance in the show—season one, episode two—when she had deep red hair similar to Lindsay Lohan circa Mean Girls. I asked Karrin Vasby Anderson, Professor of Communication Studies at Colorado State University, what she thought about Willa’s hair color shift. “[Willa’s] had to prove that she could visually fit into his world in ways that she definitely didn’t in the first two seasons before he could announce his candidacy and move forward politically.”
Connor’s knowledge that he needed a female counterpart to run for president is baked into his proposal to Willa, when he asks her to make him “the most bulletproof candidate in the world.” As a member of a family that owns a publicly-traded business, Connor is acutely aware of how important the appearance of a tight-knit family is to stakeholders (or, in this case, potential voters). “The presidency and the First Lady is unique among political offices because the presidency is both a ceremonial role and a political role,” explains Dr. Anderson. In the US, this means that the first family takes on the performance of the ‘ideal typical American family.’ Most modern US presidents have been married with kids. While Connor doesn’t have any children yet, having a wife who looks the part is the next best thing he can do to place himself in the political imagination.
What does a First Lady look like? If you look at photos of Hillary Clinton from 1995 and 1996, you’ll see pastel suits and purposeful blonde waves. “There was a very intentional transformation of her look to be more feminine and more blonde,” says Dr. Anderson. “She played up her identity as a mother and that was very much telegraphed in how she dressed and did her hair.” Michelle Obama also emphasized her role as a mother when President Obama was elected. “She coined herself ‘Mom-in-Chief…[it] was the label she took on for her persona because she wanted to signal to the press that she would be prioritizing her children and their privacy during Obama’s tenure as president,” explains Dr. Anderson.
Willa’s blonde helps to evoke this image of the traditional American family. It’s long but not too long. It doesn’t read as sexy; it’s the type of blonde that is a member of the local country club, wears a Cartier Juste Un Clou, summers in Mustique, and sends lengthy emails to school teachers. Her new look also slots perfectly into the Fox News anchor universe (or the world of ATN, whichever you prefer). The idea of what makes an ‘ideal political spouse’ is becoming different for Republican and Democratic candidates. “Even though [Dr. Jill Biden] is a blond woman who wears floral dresses, that wasn’t the aspect of her femininity that the Biden campaign played up,” explains Dr. Anderson. “[They really emphasized] her career as an educator; that’s very different from Melania Trump.” Many conservative politicians have what we might derisively call ‘trophy wives.’ “Even if they do have their own careers, when they’re out front next to their husbands they take on this role that Willa clearly is trying to fit herself into,” says Dr. Anderson.
Justine Lupe, the actress who plays Willa, was the one who came up with the idea for the character to go blond. “I think it really helped her with her character and she felt like she was becoming a presidential candidate’s wife,” says Angelina Deangelis, head of hair and makeup on the show. “As her relationship developed with Connor, her hair got blonder, the clothes got better, basically everything got nicer.”
For a redhead to be transformed into a blonde, it takes about three to four sessions, says celebrity hairstylist Jenna Perry. Malibu CPR, a pigment remover, is used to lift the color and each session takes anywhere from three to six hours. Perry’s high-profile clients usually come in every six weeks for a root touch-up with a highlight. Typically, in New York City and Los Angeles prices range from $300 to $600 per appointment. Because blonde hair is expensive—in time and money—to upkeep, you can usually spot those who try to cut corners. Frayed ends, brassy color, grown in roots.
In Professor Tressie McMillan Cottom’s essay about Dolly Parton, she writes that blonde has the power to filter “for white without acknowledging whiteness. It also filters for gender, a very binary gender code.” To be blonde is to be a well-behaved American woman. Red holds a very different place in our cultural imagination than blonde does. Women with red hair are seen as sexual, passionate, and deviant. In “A History of the Redhead,” art historian Jacky Colliss Harvey explains that artists have used red hair to suggest promiscuity and deviousness. Botticelli’s Venus has flowing red hair. Reformed prostitute Mary Magdalene is typically depicted with red hair. It makes sense that she’d want to get rid of a color reminiscent of her past as a call girl. She isn’t of this upper-class, uber-wealthy world that Connor has brought her into; her new hair color is a signifier that she belongs.
Connor and Willa go through with their wedding, even after Willa reveals that “money and safety” both factor into her decision. She also promises not to leave him. At least, “not today, anyway.” And that’s enough for Connor. Theirs is a relationship where each partner willingly plays the role in which they’re cast. It is an exchange. And, at the end of the day, isn’t that what marriage is all about?
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