Pink Plastic Flamingo

          After the fierce and long-lasting WWII had been gone, Americans could enjoy the sense of freedom from the pressure of wartime experience. With the recovery of economic abundance in domestic level, the American 50s are now remembered as the time of flourishing. Price, in her recent essay, took her peculiar approach to this era of productive social atmosphere with the figure of pink plastic flamingo, especially in cultural context. Using proper diction to draw the lively sketch of 50s and hiring apt examples for the detailed images of the period, Price tried to explain the meaning of pink plastic flamingo in the writing. Moreover, she also pointed out the ironical etymology of the term to catch the impact and meaning of it, which eventually supports her idea quite efficiently.

           The first important feature of Price’s writing is the usage of appropriate dictions. From the very start, she used “splashed” and “boldness,” in which contain the remarkable impact of pink plastic flamingo. Through this terminology, her essay gives the hint of what this newly rising trend in 50s influenced on the American society-she is indirectly saying the huge impact of pink flamingo. Also, at the example of Miami beach’s Flamingo hotel in 1910s and 1920s, Price mentions “wealth and pizzazz” as the example of pink flamingo’s popular social image in old America. While the Miami beach story focus on the meaning of flamingo itself, the quote from Tom Wolfe effectively conveys the nuance of “pink” to the readers. The “sassy pink” color was one of the ‘electrochemical pastel’ hues produced under the idea of forward-looking, rather than old-fashioned. Together, these dictions she used imply the background atmosphere of 50s, when there was a compensation psychology of Americans about terrible wartime experiences through the fashioning of pink flamingo.

           While Price’s vocabularies give readers the social nuance of pink plastic flamingo, the anecdotes she quoted produce the minute phase of American 50s. She wrote about the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, in 1946. It says, when the pink flamingo was located in the middle of desert, the impact of this ‘sassy’ symbol became even more striking. Furthermore, Price wrote about the motels, restaurants, lounges and other building with the pink flamingo concept. These examples show the reason behind such great popularity: pink flamingo was the symbol of brightness and freshness after hard war, and American people in 50s already accepted it as an emblem of productivity and wealth. The most fundamental question under her anecdotes and examples is nothing but straightforward. “Why pink plastic flamingo became the symbol of American 50s?” And Price answered to the question by herself, providing the significant social evidences from history. She took some historical images of flamingo as the sun God Ra of Egypt, and flamingo in Mexico and Caribbean. Emphasizing the specialty of flamingo itself, there are enough examples in her essay which support socioeconomic trend of flamingo in American 50s.

           Lastly, Price questioned the irony of the terminology itself. “Why it’s ‘pink’ flamingo, as if they could be blue or green?” This is very curious point indeed, since every flamingo is pink naturally. Additionally, she focused on the fact that plastic flamingo products are even more pinkish than the actual one, while the real flamingo itself is already quite noticeable in color. Through this ironical situation, Price emphatically conveying the meaning of pink to Americans in 50s. As she mentioned, the bright sassy pink became popular trend for the Americans who experienced Depression and WWII. Maybe the hard times they went through are the strongest reason for putting ‘pink’ in front of the word ‘flamingo’, which is already pink-so to produce brighter image from it. By pointing out the etymology, Price explained why the richness and ampleness of pink color had such huge social context in 50s, like Elvis Presley buying a pink Cadillac, not blue or green ones.

           In conclusion, we can understand from Price’s writing that social atmosphere of 50s created the tempting image of pink flamingo, and brought the syndrome all over the States. Through the usage of diction, examples, and question to basic etymology, Price successfully crafted her essay, making her readers notice the social relationship between American 50s and pink plastic flamingo.

03 08 2011 Chang Woo Jung
AP Lang @ KMLA