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Notes -
Over time one would expect the red headed population of the United States to decline (excepting further mass immigration from Scotland and Ireland), surely?
I'm failing to see the relevance. The decline of the total red headed population in the country would not need to have any bearing on how Hollwood casts a comic book character drawn in the 1950's. If anything it would seem like a great opportunity to represent a desperately underrepresented minority.
Are redheads actually underrepresented? I think there was a brief period in the mid-20th century when a combination of Irish and Jewish (both have disproportionately red hair for whites) overrepresentation among actors, coupled with a desire to cast striking or diverse-looking (but still white) characters led to a huge overrepresentation of redheads. This was the phase where you might want to cast a group of three (white) girls, for example, but you didn’t want two blondes or two brunettes so the audience didn’t get confused, so you’d cast a redhead even though only 2% of the population had it (and even fewer had the really ginger phenotype).
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