- The new black
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This article is about the catch phrase. For the album by Strapping Young Lad, see The New Black.
"_____ is the new black" is a snowclone used to indicate the sudden popularity or versatility of an idea at the expense of the popularity of a second idea. It is the originator of the phrasal template "X is the new Y". The phrase seemed to have started in the 1950s or 1960s and became very popular in the 1980s. Since then it has often been used for ironic or humorous purposes.
Contents
History
An early popular culture example of popularizing a particular color as the new "in" thing appears in the 1957 film Funny Face, in which editor Maggie Prescott (inspired by the Vogue editor Diana Vreeland and played by Kay Thompson) extols the color pink.[citation needed]
A closer early approximation of the phrase is Vreeland's pronouncement, quoted in 1962, that "I ADORE that pink ... it's the navy blue of India." Vreeland meant that in India the color pink was the functional equivalent to blue in the USA, that is a common foundation or basic, much like navy blue was the base color of most ensembles in New York City.[1]
The earliest use of "the new black" seems to be in a March 1983 Los Angeles Times article, and apparently attributed to Gianfranco Ferré: "Colors are slated to be somber and muted, say most of the designers who previewed their collections for Fashion83. For example, Ferre says gray is the new black."[1]
It was used repeatedly in the 1980s to indicate that other colors (frequently brown, navy blue, or grey) were temporarily displacing black's position in fashion or industrial design as a versatile staple that complemented all other aspects and was generally unobjectionable. The phrase quickly became a cliché, lampooned for its simplistic nature. Because the phrase is so familiar, it is now sometimes used in absurd contexts as a signifier instead of as a metaphor.[citation needed]
The phrase is an example of the snowclone "X is the new Y", where the standard may be almost anything ("the new rock and roll" is a common variant). It is so widespread that the British satirical magazine Private Eye chronicles the over-use of the phrase in its column "Neophiliacs". In 2008, Lake Superior State University included "X is the new Y" on their annual "Banished Words List", stating, "The idea behind such comparisons was originally good, but we've all watched them spiral out of reasonable uses into ludicrous ones and it's now time to banish them from use."[2]
Contemporary examples
- (2001) The phrasing was used to humorous effect in the movie Josie and the Pussycats, with increasingly referential claims that, "Pink is the new red", "Orange is the new pink" and "Heath Ledger is the new Matt Damon."
- (2001) "Big is the new small," referring to the supposed cool factor of a gigantic cell phone, as used in a 2001 episode of Saturday Night Live. It played off the phrase "small is the new big", indicating that small electronics were more expensive and modern than larger electronics, and therefore the smaller your cell phone the better. However, that phrase was cast in opposition to the still-earlier concept that "bigger is better".[3]
- (2001) Norwegian folk-pop duo Kings of Convenience named their debut album Quiet Is the New Loud.
- (2002) During an episode of Gilmore Girls, Lorelai and Rory attend a baby shower where all the gifts are green because "green is the new pink." Later, Lorelai mocks this idea, saying, "Oh, and lots of cars stopped at a blue light on Garvey Avenue. Why a blue light? Well, ‘cause blue’s the new red."
- (2003) Carson Kressley from Queer Eye once declared, "Gay is the new black." It is unclear whether he intended to mean that gay fashion was now extremely hip and versatile, or if being gay was trendy (implying the exploitation of gay culture along the same lines as blaxploitation in the 1970s), or both. The phrase has also been used by other authors around the same time as the launch of Kressley's show, and it is unclear who was the originator of the phrase.
- (2003) In the musical Wicked, Galinda sings to Elphaba that "black is this year's pink".
- (2003) Funeral for a Friend's song "Red is the New Black" from the album Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation
- (2004) The tagline for the 2004 film Ocean's Twelve, the sequel to Ocean's Eleven, was "Twelve is the new eleven."
- (2005) "The New Black" is a single from Every Time I Die's third album, Gutter Phenomenon.
- (2005) One of the catchphrases for Apple's iPod shuffle is "Random is the new order", which may be a double play on words.
- (2005) In The New York Times of May 23, Stuart Eliott stated that "So in a trend-conscious industry, economizing is the new black." The phrase was not used in quotation marks or in an ironic context, and the metaphor is incomprehensible without a familiarity of the history of the phrase.[4] Black has a meaning in accounting: "in the black", financially sound.
- (2005) Australian musician Ben Lee's album Awake Is the New Sleep.
- (2006) A movie review of Brokeback Mountain opined that "Gay cowboys are now the new penguins"[5]: a double reference to the surprise success of the love story (which supplanted the previous year's dark horse, the documentary March of the Penguins) and to the publicity given to gay penguin couples in zoos, which had recently been in the news.
- (2006) Strapping Young Lad's album The New Black.
- (2006) Janis Ian's album Folk Is the New Black.
- (2006) Chris Stephenson of Microsoft, on the color of the Zune packaging: "Brown is the new black is the new white."
- (2006) An article on terra preta soil in Nature magazine was subtitled "Black is the new green."[6]
- (2007) An episode of The Apprentice 6 was entitled "Pink is the New Black", in reference to the color of men's swimsuits.
- (2007-8) "Black is the new white" was said by a number of commentators referring to the election of Barack Obama.[7][8][9]
- (2007) Jonathan Byrd's album This Is the New That.
- (2007) The bonus disc of Radiohead's album In Rainbows contains a track called "Down Is the New Up".
- (2007) Fake Shark - Real Zombie!'s track "Wolf Is the New The"
- (2007) "Humans are the new dinosaurs."[10]
- (2007) Field & Stream magazine featured an article on hunting feral hogs titled, "Hogs are the New Deer."[11]
- (2008) "Bitch is the new Black." Said by Tina Fey on an episode of Saturday Night Live, referring to then Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign. Three weeks later, on the same show, Fey's 30 Rock co-star Tracy Morgan retorted: "Bitch may be the new black but black is the new president, bitch."[12]
- (2008) The movie WALL-E features a disembodied female voice telling humanity, who are all dressed in a similar red outfit, "Try blue. It's the new red!"
- (2008) "Winning is the new losing." [13] [14]
- (2009) Black is the New White, autobiography of comedy writer Paul Mooney. [15]
- (2009) "Level is the new ahead" Carol Bartz (CEO, Yahoo)
- (2009) "Saving is the new Spending" UBank, a division of National Australia Bank [16]
- (2009) "30 may be the new 20, but Green is definitely the new black" slogan used by Vitamin Water
- (2009) "Red is the new black" says Bliss in The Goode Family, meaning Native Americans and African Americans
- (2010) Helena Andrews entitles her memoirs "Bitch is the new Black", after Tina Fey's SNL statement above.
- (2010) Tom's Shoes comes out with a new line called "Love is the new Black."
- (2010) As a reverse example, one of the tracks from Super8 & Tab's album "Empire" is titled "Black Is The New Yellow".
- (2011) Lady Gaga sings that "Jesus is the new black" in "Black Jesus † Amen Fashion", a track featured in her third album, Born This Way.
- (2011) House MD - episode 16 - House says "Peeing blood is the new black" after Cuddy and his patients show the same symptoms.
References
- ^ a b Zimmer, Benjamin (2006-12-28). "On the trail of 'the new black' (and 'the navy blue')". Language Log. University of Pennsylvania. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003981.html. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
- ^ "Lake Superior State University". 2008 List of Banished Words. http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php. Retrieved 1 January 2008.
- ^ "SNL sketch with 'big is the new small'". Snltranscripts.jt.org. http://snltranscripts.jt.org/01/01bjeffreys.phtml. Retrieved 2010-03-01.
- ^ New York Times article
- ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2006-02-02). "usatoday.com". usatoday.com. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2006-01-25-brokeback-humor-cover_x.htm. Retrieved 2010-03-01.
- ^ Putting the carbon back: Black is the new green, Nature magazine, August 10, 2006
- ^ Jill Singer: Now, it's Go Bro!, Herald Sun, December 6, 2007, “When Oprah Winfrey says her choice is above politics but is about something new, we hear her meaning -- black is the new white.“
- ^ WARRENGATE: OBAMA'S FIRST FUCKUP AS PRESIDENT ELECT? Black is the new white, LA Weekly, December 23, 2008
- ^ Black is the New White for 'Men's Vogue', Portfolio.com, November 16, 2007
- ^ [1] Alan Hindale, Only magazine.
- ^ Harper's Bizarre But GQ Banal Washington Post, April 2, 2007
- ^ Gregory, David (2008-03-18). "'Race for the White House with David Gregory' for March 17". NBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23691635/. Retrieved 25 November 2009.
- ^ Kids’ sport should not just be about winning, Punch
- ^ Winning is the new losing, Blogspot, November 3, 2008
- ^ Mooney's Merories, National Public Radio
- ^ UBank USaver (2009-08-22). "Saving is the new spending". TV Commercial (TVC). YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSoQ76mOqJE. Retrieved 2010-02-01.
External links
Categories:- Snowclones
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