Color Me Confused: Non-Political Symbolism

Post Reply New Topic

Color Me Confused: Non-Political Symbolism

One thing is red;
Its rival is blue.
Political subtext?
I say it's not true!

Red and blue are very popular color motifs of opposite forces in several pieces of media (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedOniBlueOni), but they aren't always used for the sake of a political agenda, even though they could be misinterpreted as doing just that. Assuming otherwise might prove to be an interesting thought experiment, but the problem with this line of thinking is that red and blue mean different things depending on where you live. Whereas red means conservative and blue means liberal in the US, it's the other way around in other countries, like Canada and the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states). I thought I would bring up some examples of red/blue rivalries in US media and explain why politics likely did not shape the color scheme:

- TMNT's Raphael and Leonardo (The turtles' bandana colors went from just red to mixed during the 1980's, and this scheme has been used in all adaptations ever since. However, their bandana colors were added for the franchise's first animated series and collectible merchandise so younger viewers could better differentiate between the heroes.)
- Mario vs. Sonic (Both gaming mascots were made in Japan, where red and blue have a different symbolic history.)
- Marvel's Iron Man and Captain America (Both superheroes were created in 1963 and 1941, respectively.)
- Disney's Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck (Both classic cartoon characters were created in 1928 and 1934, respectively.)

Can you guys think of other red-blue pairs of things? What about other political color pairs and examples of things with those colors that weren't intended to be politically-charged?

Bloods vs. Crips, man.

In the post war TV era they liked to use the colors of the flag to represent election results on the big maps of the nation: red for one party, blue for the other, and white for undecided. But which party got red, and which party got blue, differed by network, and by local news.

Old footage from the Sixties often shows the anchorman pointing to maps with red meaning Democrat.

Maybe in the 80's the news networks fell into lockstep with the current convention of red=GOP, and blue = Democrat.

Then in the polarized early Nineties it became common lingo to talk about "blue states, and red states".

In the Ukraine the two main parties are blue and orange. So their newscasters use those colors for their precincts. And the map of the country on election night TV news tended to split east-west between blue (west) and orange( east) . And now the Ukraine is in danger of splitting in half along the same geographic lines as their election colors.

My sources says that the flag of Ireland has green and orange stripes to represent the Gaelic tradition of Ireland and followers of William of Orange, respectively (with white representing neutrality/unity). The US, which is home to many descendants of Irish immigrants, has traffic lights for pedestrians where orange means stop and green means go. Coincidence? Probably.

The three *I* countries each have flags of orange, white, and green:Ireland, Italy, and India.