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Influence of pop culture
Pop culture s influence on society
Jennifer Price’s recent essay “The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History”
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The iconic Plastic Pink Flamingo lawn ornament was launched during 1957 in Leominster, Massachusetts and was sold beginning in 1958. The omnipresent flamingo became a cultural American icon over the years, and the inspiration for films, such as the campy smash success, 1972's "Pink Flamingos," produced by John Waters, and the Disney featured "Featherstone" in 2011. The pink plastic flamingo yard ornament also appeared in the film, "Gnomeo and Juliet."
Let's look closer beyond the simple answer to the question of who invented the Pink Plastic Flamingo, let's look into the story of its legacy...
Sculptor, Don Featherstone (January 25, 1936 – June 22, 2015), of Leonmaster, Massachusetts, was engaged to sculpt a pink flamingo back in 1956 by
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After studying the pictures in the Magazine, and following two weeks of sculpting both halves of the bird to make a plaster cast, Featherstone fabricated the Plastic Pink Flamingo from injection-mold technology.
The perfectly formed Pink Plastic Flamingo arrived into the world at just the right time in the 1950s too... when the color pink was really vogue...as in 'spread like butter' over household appliances, pink colored kitchens and overall, punctuating the fashion world in the most charming ways, and...populating bath and beauty products. Pink crisscrossed traffic conveyances from cars to scooters, and anywhere the color pink could possibly find a nook. What a boon for the pink plastic flamingo!
The Plastic Pink Flamingo further enjoyed success and came into its' own with the post-World War II construction phase...where identical homes in identical subdivisions were hitting the Nation. Its' home dwellers were anxious to grasp at anything to distinguish their homes from their neighbors'... the Plastic Pink Flamingo lawn ornament was the perfect answer. Indeed, the fashion plate Plastic Pink Flamingo fit America's current 1950s societal needs and became...a suburban
Jennifer Price informs the readers about an economy in which a simple bird helped bloom it. For example the inclusion of many hotels and restaurants that utilized the bird as an eye opener. As she said “ a flamingo stands out in a desert even more strikingly than on a lawn.” The bird was used for numerous things including the affluence of a population that had just gotten out of the Great Depression. Jennifer Price also includes the birds magnificent color and how it also helped the economy.
The 1950s was the decade that saw the birth of the 'suburban dream'. It was an era dominated by
Cinderella. Dir. Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske and Wilfred Jackson. Perf. Ilene Woods and Betty Lou Gerson. Walt Disney, 1950. Film.
Suburban life is a paradise full of shopping, colorful gardens, and well-groomed homes. Despite all these benefits, a suburban life is an isolated life. People living in suburbs are rarely exposed to misery in society. One of these conflicts is homelessness. When living in an environment surrounded by homes, individuals often have difficulty imagining not being able to sleep in a warm bed, eat a proper meal, or even receive necessary medical attention.
In 1928, an accountant, Walter Diemer, invented an improved version of bubble gum. The only food coloring he had on hand was pink, so for many years, pink was the common color of bubble gums. Diemer arranged to market the bubble gum in Philadelphia candy stores and the product became wildly popular with children. Fleer Company purchased the recipe, and named the product Dubble Bubble.
"And the Flamingo was pink- a second and commensurate claim to boldness" (Price lines 30-31). American culture is very flashy and bold. By being bold and flashy, it makes Americans stand out from the crowd and be noticed. Pink was the thing to have, it showed wealth and status. "The hues were forward-looking rather than old-fashioned" (Price lines 36-37). The pink flamingos were a way for the Americans to show pride after World War II. The plastic flamingos were the Americans' way of coming back out after the Depression and the war. They are the symbol that marks the beginning of a new era.
The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, also known as the Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, opened in 1857 and is one of the oldest natural history museums in the United States. It has had several locations, but is now permanently situated in a modern building in Lincoln Park as part of the city’s museums-in-the-parks program. There are many different exhibits, aimed mainly at helping children learn about nature. Children can experience the more than 1,000 butterflies in the butterfly haven, bird watch, learn about animal extinction, experience green living, watch scientists interact with spiders and other living creatures, hike the short nature trail, play in the hands-on habitat (toddlers), or enjoy any of the other fun and educational exhibits the museum offers. There are also quite a few daily special events so check the website before you go. If you have been to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, please leave a comment for others to enjoy.
A male ruby-throated hummingbird has a brilliant, fiery red throat, kaleidoscope green back, forked tail with a gray and white underside. The females don’t have such flashy colors, lacking the red throat and their tails are blunt, w...
Interestingly, feathers are not restricted to birds; fossil evidence from Archaeopteryx lithographica showed that feathers originated in pre-avian dinosaurs (Prum, 1999). It is understoo...
These two colors together are a smart idea for any company due to the emotional and psychological value behind them. Pink makes the consumer feel warm and safe while orange at the same time prompts a rush in sale and the urge to buy particularly beverages. As said before when pink is merged with a darker color such as orange it can give off the sense of sophistication, making the company seem more intelligent and upper class. (Russo, "Front End of Innovation Blog: Color Me Creative: A Visual Trip through Color Psychology") This could be argued to be logos, by making a perception of something. These colors are clearly pathos due to the emotional ties they have on a consumer the company hopes to sway in to their restaurant.
In 1956 the corvette received its first major styling update. The major changes are an all-new body style with “scooped out” sides, outside door, handles, roll up windows, and an optional removable hardtop. By this time many corvettes were offered in different colors such as white, red, yellow, and black.
Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions were all considered fever dreams in the Renaissance era, like the equivalent of seeing a futuristic object in a science-fiction movie, but they inspired many actual products of the world of today. Some of the ideas his imagination scribbled in a notebook are the parachute, diving suit, armored cars (like army tanks), and an Ornithopter, a machine made for flight with the use of wings (Lampton Christopher).
TXT: “From the 1920s to the 1940s, the theme of a bird in flight preoccupied Brancusi. He concentrated on the animal’s movement, rather than their physical attributes. In Bird in Space, the sculptor eliminated wings and feathers, elongated the swell of the body, and reduced the head and beak to a slanted oval plane. Balanced on a slender conical footing, the figure’s upward thrust appears unfettered. This sculpture is part of a series that includes seven marble sculptures and nine bronze casts.”
A farmer’s daughter, Miss Waller often observed the antics of the various fowl about the farmyard. The inspiration for the avian sculptures came from such observations. The two compositions, Cockerel, and Fighting Cockerels the V&A Museum acknowledged as the joint work of Vyse and Waller. However, Barbara Waller exhibited a stoneware edition of Fighting Cockerels (RA 1577), at the Royal Academy in 1952. These Vyse/Waller bird studies can be either single composition, such as Cockerel. When two subjects are mounted on a wooden plinth they are titled Fighting Cockerels. The decoration is dependent on the kind of clay from which they are modelled. For instance, a stoneware edition of Cockerels was Celadon glazed, the iron oxide highlights becoming evident after firing to stoneware temperatures. The tin-glazed edition, modelled in terra cotta, has important details picked out in coloured glazes. The realistically coloured, hand painted edition was modelled in earthenware (Fig. 185). According to records, in 1976 Barbara Waller bequeathed the avian studies to the Victoria &Albert
The Scarlet Ibis symbolizes Doodle in the fact that both are out of place and different. The Scarlet Ibis was found in Florida; however, it natively “lives in the t...