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White Girls All Look the Same: A Quick Primer in Differentiating Hollywood's Young Brunettes

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | September 25, 2012 |

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | September 25, 2012 |


There’s a certain type that’s become kind of omnipresent in Hollywood at the moment. I’m not sure exactly how to describe them except to say that they’re brunettes of a certain body type who all look they’d play opposite Michael Cera in a quirky romantic comedy (and some have!) You also have to understand that many among our readership are older, they haven’t seen ALL the shows and ALL the movies, and they have a hard time telling these young ladies apart. I’m here to help.

So, here’s a quick primer, which you may refer to whenever you see a young brunette on your television or movie screen. You may want to put on your bifocals before tackling this post.

Alia Shawkat. You know her best from “Arrested Development.” She plays Maeby, who should not be confused for Ann/Egg. You’ll still see her occasionally as a minor character in quirky indie flicks, like Ruby Sparks. She’s the one with freckles.

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Aubrey Plaza. Aubrey plans April on Parks and Recreation. She’s the dour gothy version of this type. Also, very funny.

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Ellen Page. Page, of course, is the prototype. You know her from Juno. She also played the Exposition in Inception. She doesn’t do a lot these days, having been supplanted by most of the other women on this list. Page is the classy one.

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Mae Whitman. Mae is the one who played Ann/Egg on “Arrested Development,” not to be confused with Ann on Parks and Recreation, who is not played by Aubrey Plaza, but rather, Rashida Jones, who doesn’t look like the women on this post, although she does have freckles, like Alia Shawkat. Mae is now on “Parenthood” and sometimes she wears really big glasses, which kind of freak me out.

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Alessandra Torresani. This might be a little confusing for you because Alessandra also played Ann/Egg on “Arrested Development,” but just one time. You may know her better from “Caprica,” although she’ll also be on “American Horror Story: Asylum” next month, so try and remember the face.

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Anna Kendrick. Kendrick is kind of Ellen Page 2.0. She’s adorable (also from Maine!). She was in Up in the Air and one of my all time favorite movies, Rocket Science. Younger people probably know her best from her minor role in the Twilight films. That’s a shame.

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Ashley Greene. This also might be confusing because Greene was also in the Twilight series, as well as Pan Am, with Christina Ricci, who is kind of the older version of Aubrey Plaza’s goth hipster, minus the hipster. She’ll be in a movie next year called CBGB, about the famous NYC nightclub. She looks a little like Anna Kendrick crossed with Kristen Bell.

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Vanessa Hudgens. She’s the Disney version of this character type. She was in the High School Musical movies and in last year’s Sucker Punch, in which she tried to shed her Disney image, which didn’t work because no one saw Sucker Punch.

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Emily Browning. Also in Sucker Punch, although she was a blonde in that. She’s usually a brunette, however, which is how you’d recognize her from The Uninvited She’s also going to be the lead in Catherine Hardwicke’s (Twilight) next film, Plush.

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Sarah Hyland. She’s the one from “Modern Family.” She’s younger than most of the women here, and fortunately, not a good enough actress to be in feature films, so you likely won’t have to see her in other places, although she’s apparently in an upcoming movie called Gay Dude with Nick Offerman, who stars with Aubrey Plaza on “Parks and Recreation,” who should not be confused for Hyland. Not that you would now that we’ve come this far.

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