Look at the redheads you grew up watching and you'll notice a pattern. They're rarely just normal characters. They're a type.
The rebel
Anne of Green Gables (1908) hates her red hair and has the temper to match. Pippi Longstocking (1945) has red braids and lifts a horse. Merida in Brave (2012) refuses to be married off. The message is always the same: red hair means stubborn.
Fun fact: Ariel from The Little Mermaid (1989) was almost blonde. Disney animators made her a redhead partly so she would not look like Daryl Hannah's blonde mermaid in Splash (1984), and partly because red is the complementary color of her green tail.
The seductress
Jessica Rabbit (1988), Poison Ivy, Black Widow. Here red hair signals danger and desire. It's the modern version of a very old idea: in medieval art, red hair marked traitors and outsiders, from Judas to witches.
The sidekick
Ron Weasley and the whole Weasley family: funny, loyal, a bit of a mess. Lovable, but rarely the hero.
Why it matters
When red hair on screen always means "fiery" or "sexy", people carry those ideas into real life. A 2014 University College Cork survey on bullying of redheads suggested that negative portrayals in movies and cartoons may contribute to anxiety and depression among redheads.
I'm not a character. I'm just a girl with orange hair.
Sources
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