Why Does Pink Have So Much Baggage?
No one has a neutral opinion on pink. Whether you think it symbolizes ditzy femininity or bold empowerment, the color doesn’t fail to bring up variety of emotions and stereotypes.
While today it is most commonly seen as a “girl color,” this was not always the case. According to Britannica, it represented masculinity and was marketed to little boys in the 1920s. However, in the 1940s, baby boomers became the first generation to instinctively wrap newborn baby girls in pink blankets, when blue became the boy color and pink became the girl color. Since then, the color has persisted in popular culture as a symbol of girlhood.
Chicago-based costume designer and educator Raquel Adorno says she loves using pink in her work because “it has so much baggage.” From its range from blush to neon, Adorno says, “It’s a complex color that brings up so many emotions, associations and even trauma.”
Northwestern junior Adrienne Scheide, who is known around campus as “pink beret girl,” works the lively color into her outfits every day. She says it represents joy in her life. “It’s happy,” she added. “It makes me feel better.” Whether it’s used in personal style or costume design, pink is an impactful color with lots of potential. The recent blockbuster hits Barbie and Mean Girls showcase the power of pink, as their female leads embrace the bright color. From the iconic “On Wednesdays, we wear pink” line to Barbie World, filled with pink dream houses, fitted dresses and high heels, they each represent pink in their own ways.
Though she loves both movies, Scheide says they used the color and extremely feminine aesthetics to represent two different messages. She recalls “the whole world celebrating femininity” when the Barbie movie came out. In a personal sense, Scheide also felt that as a really feminine person, she was seeing herself well-represented in a movie for the first time.
Similarly, Adorno said she sees a positive shift in how people view pink in the mainstream. “Pink has become a powerful color once again,” she said. “It has become a color of empowerment and dissent.”
On the other hand, Mean Girls had a slightly more mixed message. Scheide compared it to Wicked, where the Good Witch is always wearing pink, but she’s the bad guy. To Scheide, this shows the negative association in pop culture with the color pink. She viewed Mean Girls with a similar association, where the mean girls are the ones wearing pink. She said, “In a lot of ways, it’s associated with not being intelligent or girl-bullying.”
Nonetheless, Scheide acknowledges that everyone reacts differently to the color and messages of both movies. Though she thought Barbie was an important film and Mean Girls offered an honest look into girlhood, she also thinks, “People will hate on women for anything.” The color pink included.
Pink is such a useful color in storytelling because it has a way of eliciting visceral responses from audiences. “People love or hate pink,” Adorno said. “And even if they don’t think they love or hate it, the minute it comes into the conversation, people have very strong opinions.”