5 times pink was powerful on screen
Forget what you think you know about pink’s pretty, precious connotations: these movie moments confirm it’s a color charged with rebel spirit. By GEORGIA SIMMONDS
Echoing with history, politics and gender controversy, the color pink brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘style statement’. Now, with a new exhibition at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, it’s finally getting its dues. From the origins of the divisive ‘pink for girls’ commandment to Janelle Monáe’s mesmerizing ‘vagina’ pants from her 2018 Pynk music video, Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color is an ode to this most contentious and powerful of shades. Here, we remember five times it stole the scene on the big screen.
The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014
The visually stunning hotel itself – an unforgettable confection of pastel pinks nestled in the mountains of the fictional Republic of Zubrowka – sets the palette for Wes Anderson’s film. Add to that the rose-toned backdrops and the candyfloss-hued pastry boxes of Mendl’s Patisserie, and you realize the film is so awash with pink, it’s easy to stop seeing it – proving that pink is almost definitely the new black.
Grease, 1978
With their matching rose-hued jackets and sharp tongues, the Pink Ladies remain the in-crowd every teenage girl wants to be a part of. Ringleader Rizzo summed up the group’s edgy, matured-beyond-their-years vibe by declaring of squeaky-clean Sandy: “She looks too pure to be pink!” The Pink Ladies made their own rules when it came to the color, repositioning it as one for women with enough attitude to rival their T-Birds counterparts.
Pretty in Pink, 1986
In this John Hughes-scripted film, smart, confident high schooler Andie, played by Molly Ringwald, is known for her ‘volcanic’ fashion ensembles. Pretty, sure; powerful, most definitely. Her unconventional, now iconic prom dress, rendered in the rosiest of pinks, subverts the color’s cutesy connotations.
Mean Girls, 2004
In Tina Fey’s film about the joys and devastations of high-school female friendships, the ‘Plastics’ used the color pink to parade their sisterhood and its strength – at a glance, just like the Pink Ladies before them, it’s clear they’re a force to be reckoned with. And their appeal has endured: who among us hasn’t announced “On Wednesdays, we wear pink” on hump day?
Lady Bird, 2018
Over thirty years after Pretty in Pink, Greta Gerwig’s film again demands that we reconsider the colors princess-y associations. Lady Bird’s unapologetic confidence (executed with brilliance by Saoirse Ronan), combined with her highlighter-pink arm cast, the rosy wash on her messy bob and her fuchsia prom dress, reinstates pink as a color for courageous spirits.
See Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color at The Museum at FIT; September 7, 2018–January 5, 2019