“Plastics for the Lawn.” An American Kitsch icon.
From old
Florida post cards, Miami Vice to The Bird Cage, the nauseating colour, gaudy hot pink instantly recognisable impressions of a creature we
have no actual association with.
Icon of unsophisticated
pretences of glamour and style...
Beginning in the 50s USA and I
reckon a major resurgence in the 80s with all that hot pink & baby
blue.
The existence of Lawn Flamingos and all subsidiary iconic
association with.... Blagh, has stirred my curiosity.
A cursory search of the internet revealed that contemporary
culture as expressed through our attachments to pulp icons like the
lawn flamingo shows that the peculiar phenomenon tells a story of us
that lurks beneath politics, fashion and personal identity.
One book I'd like to read 'Flight Maps' by Jenifer Price, makes a
point of using the Lawn Flamingo to highlight the disconnect between
a suburban working class Baby Boomer generation and the natural world
from which they were in every practical way, removed. “...very
urbanised and suburbanised needs, discontents, and desires for
meaningful, yet artificially constructed connections to nature.”
The phenomenon is expressed perceptively in the song by
Radiohead, 'Fake Plastic Trees'.
I don't know where I am going with this idea except to make an
attempt to explore the idea, and depending on where my questions take
me, to wage war on the cult of the Flamingo or to embrace the whole
bombastic abomination.
LOL... to my own consternation I have taken to noting the presence of
flamingos in public spaces, media, art and lawns. Flamingos however
they are represented or on display with the question... Why?
A good article to get the ball rolling is 'From Kitsch to Park Avenue: the cultural history of the plastic pink flamingo
(by Anne Dell'Aria for The Conversation)
