Bernie Boston's Flower Power

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Recommended: Ideology in media

Flower Power
By Arkia Toufan
Background/Context:
 This is an image of a protest, in which the focal point is the young, longhaired, male protestor; who is placing carnations inside of the rifle barrels of the National Guardsman.
 This piece was taken on October the 21st 1967. When Bernie Boston took the photo and showed it to his editor he didn’t really see the importance of this image so he just put it aside. However Bernie Boston placed his image in photograph and won many competitions, which was how this image earned recognition.
 This photo was taken during the 1960s and during this time there was major social protest within America. The youth of America were trying to create a “new America” by challenging many of the different laws …show more content…

 There are no direct parodies of this image.
Allusion:
 Definition: An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.
 Allusion is therefore not really used between this image and another. However this image does draw allusion to another text. This was an essay written in the November of 1965 called How to Make a March/Spectacle, by Allen Ginsberg. This is through the handing out of flowers to all people around, policemen, spectators, etc. Which was done in order to reduce the amount of fear, anger and the amount of threat that the people felt.
Appropriation:
 Definition: Appropriation is taking an image, character or technique from one context and placing it in another.
 This can be like a form of juxtaposition, which is shown throughout this image. The fact that a “hippie” type character who is stereotypically peaceful, calm, happy, close to nature, etc. Is then next to armed national guards, which are meant to be seen as tough, strong, scary, mean, etc. This is really meant to show us the “Good vs Evil” in society and could possibly help to show the people how calm and peaceful the good side can be and how aggressive and mean the evil side can …show more content…

This is because we can more easily express our opinions, we can more easily receive other people's opinions which therefore allows our people to more easily communicate with one another.
 The same text can often portray different ideas, or symbolise different things. in this image for example it can be seen to represent different purposes. It can be used to show that the government will overpower the people, it can be used to show how the people want a peaceful approach to difficulty whereas the government takes aggressive means to the end, it can be used to show how power can make the party “evil” or forget about what they are there for. This image, due to photojournalism, can be therefore be used to represent different purposes.
 However these images can be open to interpretations. This image for example can be seen as the government not taking the same path as the people as they are supposed to, or this can be seen as the government trying to protect the people from issues in which they may not know the best path

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