History Color Me Impressed
posted by December 27 at 12:40 PM
onIt bugs me that the picture on the front of today’s Seattle Times of Gerald Ford is in black and white. Yes, the 1970s were a stark, gloomy decade of malaise, but they were not in black and white. They were full color: Kiss, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Evil Knievel, Disco, Three’s Company, Jaws, Dr. J, Queen, Vietnam, Farrah Fawcett, Love American Style.
Black and white stops in 1965. And so, black and white is evocative of the mid-60s and earlier. It occasionally works to conjure late 60s stuff because most people still had black and white TVs up through the early 70s. (So, for example, LBJ works in black and white.) But the Ford era? 1974? 1975? 1976 (in particular)? They were gaudy color, man.
Sucking the color out of the ’70s bugs me because it’s an attempt to soften history. To make it quaint. To deny that it happened. To make it irrelevant. People were pissed when Turner Broadcasting started colorizing golden-era Hollywood movies. This is the same thing, in reverse.
Comments
it's spelled: gaudy.
Ha! I thought my spelling (gawdy) was gaudier. But thanks. Changed it.
Josh, the Seattle Times made up for it a little bit with their online version of a Gerald Ford photo, complete with unbelievably loud gold curtains. That says '70s to me.
If it's the same b/w photo that was posted earlier today in SLOG, then I actually liked it. I thought to myself that it looked very artful. With a photographic background, I appreciate the artfulness of b/w photography.
Different strokes, and all that.
B&W is just an arbitrary aesthetic for cover photos that's used to this day, usually for more poignant issues. Lady Di cover?
Mountains, molehills, etc., Josh
Uh, I think the only thing they were attempting to do there was print the photo they have in their archives. Life was in color in the seventies, but newspapers absolutely were not.
FNARF,
Yes, yes. I know it's a file photo. But a pet peeve of mine is how mass media tends to blur and confuse history. The Seattle Times is playing to the treacle, rose-tinted view of the recent past with its black and white blow up of Ford.
It's not a big deal. But it bugs me. And unfortunately for you, I've got Slogging rights.
I know I wouldn't have said a thing had it not been for the knockout "This is colorizing IN REVERSE" line, which made it seem like it did more than just bug you.
Matthew Fisher Wilder,
Ackkk. You're right, actually. It is important to me. Yikes.
KISS? Black and white. Bowie? The Thin White Duke. Alice Cooper? The inventor of corpsepaint. Evil Knievel? Sure, some red and blue, but mostly white. Three's Company? Very white. Dr. J? Very black. Love American Style? Wonderbread.
Well, geez, Josh, get your story straight: Is it black and white, or is it rose-tinted?
There are 15 photos of Gerald Ford on MSNBC.com, 14 in b&w and one in color. I don't think a web site/cable channel that was launched 1996 would be limited to an archive of only black & white photos.
Vive le B&W
That b&w Ford photo in the Times basically ruined my entire year.
Scatman @14:
If you consider your year to be ruined only now, then you are truly blessed and I envy you.
@15
I was spoofing Josh, who made a mountain out of a molehill in his original post.
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