Mandy Moore’s Nonblond Ambition

Mim Udovitch of the New York Times profiled the darkening hair used by singers such as Mandy Moore, Christina Aguilera, Pink, and briefly by Britney Spears — mostly focusing on Moore with her new movie ‘How to Deal’ out. Udovitch says, “As a teenage pop tart, Ms. Moore was, as it turned out, too much of a natural to actually succeed. In her Neutrogena commercials, her interviews, and especially in her videos, including one directed by Gregory Dark, a porno veteran, she came across not as a girl Pinocchio, but rather a real little girl. She did not seem subliminally furious, and she did not seem to be trying to remap the geopolitical landscape with nothing more than her abdominal muscles and a stylist. Rather she seemed intelligent, slightly awkward and sincere. She appeared as uncomfortable in the parts of her videos that called upon her to be a pouty sultry nymphet as, well, a 15-year-old.” Read more.