We Need to Talk About the Color Red February 21, 2016 Aatia Davison In The Handmaid’s Tale, the title character and all of the other women in her position wear red. In the west, we have our own clear understanding of what the color red implies. Or do we? One of my favorite instances of the color red is in Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993). The whole movie is a masterpiece, crystal clear cinematography, a beautiful score and a fantastic cast of a-listers.I can’t seem to forget that image of Liam Neeson lounging around in that sharp suit, smoke obscuring his stern face. There is something so wonderfully old-Hollywood about those party scenes. It makes the reality of the film that much more chilling. To have to go from Casablanca in one shot to, well, Schindler’s List in the next is shocking and unexpected. The black and white puts some much needed distance between the movie’s horrific events and the audience. But the color red does appear, and not where you would expect. Remember the little girl in first half of the movie? You might not, as she comes and she goes and she’s never given a name. This little Jewish girl wears a brilliant red peacoat and in one scene, she wanders around amidst the dead and dying unnoticed by the Nazi officers. When I first watched this movie, with my mother, she told me that red was the color of the innocent. That blew my mind. Red has been always a sexy, scandalous color. The Scarlet Letter, the Lady in Red, Jessica Rabbit were the kinds of objects that came to mind when discussing the color red. Red is the color of sex, passion, blood. Isn’t it? I took some time to reconsider. Dick and Jane play with a big red ball. Dick and Jane cart around Spot in a little red wagon. Spot goes wee on a little red fire hydrant. When I really thought about it, my mum was right. Red is a child’s color, or at least it can be. Bright, simple, primary red can be so many things. It makes you wonder what the hell we did to the color red in all of this time to give it such dirty connotation. Who decides that green means go and red means stop? I hate to keep coming back to the Hitler (maybe it’s fitting, considering the nature of our reading material!) But it is true that the colors and their hidden meanings or connotations do come from somewhere. During the Holocaust, Hitler persecuted homosexual people and forced the men to don little pink triangles on their chest. Up until then, pink had been considered a strong, virile color suitable for growing boys. Hitler decided one day that the effeminate wear pink, and the idea has just stuck with the world, it would seem, ever since. When the Handmaid’s wear the color red in the story, they are marked both by their duty and their shame. Red is all at once the color of an illicit act and a rare kind of honor and distinction. Red is controversial. Red is complicated.
