Considerations about Pink - August Indie Web Carnival

2025-08-23

Thank you to Marisabel for hosting this month's Indie Web Carnival! I had a great time thinking about what the colour pink means to me. I've enjoyed reading everyone else's entries so I wanted to participate in it for the first time.

Pink of My Childhood
Colours are such a sweet part of childhood. One of the first stereotypical questions children ask each other when they meet is "what is your favourite colour?". It is a simple and definitive question that we lose into adulthood. Why don't we know our new friend's favourite colour? Is it because it doesn't matter once we reach adulthood? It may be the case where our wardrobes gravitate to greyscale tones.

As a child, I usually ended up wearing pinks and purples. This was usually a by-product of matching with my sister. She took the blue clothes and I took the paired set but in the other colour. I honestly didn't mind it and still don't mind. We bought jackets for the entire family recently and she got a blue/teal while I got a purple one! Though, there are more colours in the mix now, I have a red jacket and she has the matching one in white.

Pink's Internet Myth
In our current society, pink is associated with girls and blue is associated with boys. However, there is a prevalent internet myth that says pink is for boys and blue is for girls for the longest time until there was trend towards the opposite due to consumerism advertising. Whenever you find articles that bring this fact up, it is always sourced to the Earnshaw's Infant Department trade publication. I think that's the bit of parroting that kickstarts these internet myths. If all these news sources say it, surely it's true? We can see that this association is untrue as a pivotal trend where there is a wiki page dedicated to finding sources that state both sides of the colour designation. Ove 200 years of published European history, we see that there is evidence of both colour designations. This was most likely based on current societal trends and seasons. Moreover, it was more acceptable that children wear white or neutral tones as it does not need to be dyed as a cost saving measure. There was no single widely accepted colour associated with children at the end of the day.

Protagonists Wear Pink
That being said, society has really hammered in significance of pink in media and specifically its association with femininity. When I think of childhood, I think of the pink protagonists. Shows for children are often used as a marketing ploy to encourage them to buy the associated dolls and accessories. And it definitely worked on me. When I think of these shows, they emphasize fighting back with the power of friendship. Even more, the main leader is almost always pink! I think this is because when there is a rainbow cast, red/pink stands out as first in the ROYGBIV scale and the most eye catching. It might play a part in pink = for girls marketing as well, but in a sea of pink, studio execs probably should have made their protagonist a different colour to stand out in the wash.

The main message of these shows and movies are to fight injustice or to make a world a better place. You can't be angry at that! Nothing exemplifies it better than Magical Girls. They fight off evil with the power of friendship and conveniently have friends all in the different colours of the rainbow and have big outfit transformations to stop evil. Japanese media popularized the concept but we see it in Italy with Winx Club's fairy transformations, and France's secret identity transformations with Totally Spies and Miraculous Lady Bug.

In the West, I would consider Barbie to be a magical girl. In the span of a movie, she tries to correct an injustice and undergoes a final dress change when all is right in the world (some examples include but are not limited to: cursed to be a swan, committing regicide to become a new ruler, solving the kidnapping of major political figures, "your sister is a horse?"). What I find interesting is that Barbie was dressed in a mix of blue and pink in the early Barbie movies but quickly shifted to more pink marketing when they moved away from the traditional fairytale inspirations. Barbie is Pink and will reman pink forever more. As an aside, I blame this shift on Mattel reorganizing the movie branch to focus on more "fashion forward films" . They were creatively bankrupt when they remade Princess and the Pauper to Princess TWICE in three years with Princess and the Popstar AND Princess and the Rockstar (Rock N Royals). Really spit in the face of the "arranged marriage to save your kingdom" and "freedom from being an indentured servant" plot in the original Barbie Movie, may Mark Twain roll in his grave. There was something really special about introducing original ballets and classics to revive attention in them. I attribute my interest in classical music, specifically Tchaikovsky, to Barbie's Swan Lake and the Nutcracker.

Pasted image 20250824190637.png

From a critical standpoint, pink is a disarming colour where it explores coming of age stories for young girls. In Magical Girl Retires it states that "magical girls exist because justice does not". These girls are role models and show watchers that they can be empowered to make changes in their lives and self advocate. It is surprising the lengths that these girls will take to try and solve their problems. From resolving communication issues to advocating for endangered animals, they show the power of action. Even more, they have physical fights but may use non-traditional weaponry such as bells, brooms, and fans. It signals that being a girl, fighting like a girl is powerful.

If we look at other women in pink that aren't magical girls or princesses, we see multi-dimentional characters as well. My favourite being Chihiro from Spirited Away. She starts off the movie being hopeless and sad about her move to a new town. Her personal autonomy is at an all time low as she has no choice in the matter. Her family is moving because her dad got a better job elsewhere. She gets transported to a new world, her parents go through a very pink transformation (they become pigs!!), and she becomes an employee at Yubaba's spirit bath house in her new pink uniform. It was my favourite movie as a child and I'm sure it still holds up to this day. I still remember the bravery she faced as she gained autonomy to solve her own problems and win the freedom of her parents. She runs across a drainage pipe that breaks under her feet in order to break into Yubaba's lair in the last third of the movie. It was a breathless sequence that still makes my palms sweat just thinking about it. Leaving the spirit world causes her to "detransform" into a white and green shirt and a loss of memories this ever happened, but I like to think she retained her confidence and brought it to her new home.

To cap off this section, I can say that pink, maybe even rose coloured glasses tinted my childhood and I'm appreciative of all the media that exist today because of it!

A Few Host Questions