Queries about phrase 'Vanilla Sky'

[ianzin]

I’m pretty sure that until about a year ago I’d never heard the phrase ‘vanilla sky’.

Then the Tom Cruise movie comes along, and Tom’s character describes some painting as featuring a ‘vanilla sky’. He doesn’t amplify or explain this phrase, so I gather he / the scriptwriters feel it’s a sufficiently well-known phrase as to require no clarification.

Then I’m listening to a song called ‘Crush’ by Jennifer Paige in which she complains that her suitor is envisaging ‘vanilla skies, white picket fences’.

So, here we go.

Q1 Have I been living under a rock for most of my life and you all think this is a well-known phrase, or do you find it as unfamiliar as I do, or is it maybe another Yank / Brit language thing?

Q2 What, then, is a ‘vanilla sky’ exactly?

Q3 While waiting for the answer to Q2, I’m guessing that skies have no taste and so this phrase denotes something visual… so when did ‘vanilla’ come to mean a hue or a shade rather than a flavour?

Q4 Where does the phrase come from?

[Realhoops]

*Originally posted by ianzin *
Q2 What, then, is a ‘vanilla sky’ exactly?

Q3 While waiting for the answer to Q2, I’m guessing that skies have no taste and so this phrase denotes something visual… so when did ‘vanilla’ come to mean a hue or a shade rather than a flavour?

I was never particularly familiar with this phrase before the movie, etc. either. Can’t answer most of your questions, either, sadly.

However, the answer to the above two might be that the word “vanilla” is used oftentimes to refer to something that is just very plain and ordinary; something everyday, if you will. I’ve heard it used to refer to a myriad of things, from symphony performances (… “they seemed uninspired and gave a very vanilla performance”) to particular actors (… “he’s ok as an actor, but not very memorable… all in all pretty vanilla”). So I would guess that a “vanilla sky” is a plain ordinary sky you might see anytime you look up. And it doesn’t really refer to a hue or a shade, per se, as much as the “ordinariness” of the sky.

I could be full of shit, too. Wouldn’t be the first time.

[cmkeller]

When I watched the movie, it seemed to me that “Vanilla Sky” was the name of the painting you refer to, though I’m not certain why the painter (Monet?) named it that.

[Tradnor]

From an article written by Cameron Crowe, director of Vanilla Sky:

The title Vanilla Sky comes from a nickname David Aames has given to the painted clouds in an original Monet left to him by his mother. In ways he could never imagine, that sky returns later to help define who he is. The title always felt right for our adaptation. Vanilla Sky is a feeling, a state of mind, a dream of a life that may or may not actually exist.

Okay, I just like the way the words sounded.

Fun fact: Crowe had previously considered using that title for his movie Almost Famous.

[Marley23]

It’s definitely not a language thing. It seems to be just an idea/image that Crowe was really fond of and wanted to work into a movie.

[ianzin]

This is getting even more interesting than I thought it was. The Cameron Crowe quote clears up most of my OP, but it doesn’t explain the Jennifer Paige lyric, and that song came out a long time before the movie. Weird.