In the movies and such, black is usually the color of evil, such as is worn by the bad guy. Or a place is called “Black” something to suggest that it’s bad. How did this association of the color black with evil come about? Is it just as simple as black=night=bad stuff, or is it more complex?
I will be interested in folks with more well-researched examples (in other words, what follows is a WAG):
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the whole black=night=bad stuff aspect you referred to
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culture - in Western Europe, black = death (as opposed to other cultures who wear white for mourning - Japan I think - or Yellow - India, perhaps - sorry if I got this wrong). And while mourning isn’t Death, per se, it gives you a sense that different cultures use colors differently.
I also wonder if, again in Western Europe, the plague, aka “The Black Death” had something to do with it. There are other “deaths” - the Red Death (don’t recall which disease from Poe’s book), the Yellow Death (malaria?) the White Death (tuberculosis?). But maybe since bubonic plague is the scariest mostly deadly of all, its name, the Black Death, became the winner and cham-peen. Again, just a WAG.
I think it probably is as simple as night = scary and bad. Basic human psychology; if you can’t see it, you don’t know if it’s a threat or not, and therefore it’s safest to find it frightening. The other day, I was working on the bathroom sink, and had cause to pull out the stopper thingie and look down the drain. There’s no reason I should find the narrow opening disappearing into darkness creepy, but I did. Again, basic lizard-brain psychology.
The counterexamples are interesting, though. Chow Yun-Fat wears white in a lot of his 80’s action movies, I’ve heard, because white is associated with death in southeast Chinese culture.
Zorro was black.
I read (yeah, yeah, I know) that it took off in Western Europe around the time of the issuance of the King James version of the Bible, which relied heavily on the black=evil equation. This is also around the time Africa was starting to be explored to any great extent(?), so the one influenced the other and vice versa, or so the story went. All completely unattributed and unverified ('cause I’m not going to go looking right now) recollection.
Actually, the Bible talks about how we need to be light because deceitful things happen in the dark. That could very well be why black is evil to us.
The Red Death is probably smallpox.
I’m in the night=danger camp.
Re-The Red Death
I doubt very much Poe was referring to any actual disease. The red death has less than 24 hours from initial symptoms to death. Bubonic plague, malaria, smallpox, etc generally take several days to kill.
I produce a human light show that is done in the dark. I have been sitting with the question of why the dark represents evil or death. My read on it is our hairy caveman ancestors quickly learned that going into the night or dark cave with no lit torch could mean you never came back. Though we speak of death and darkness together, people who have near death experiences speak of ‘going towards a light.’ Hmmmm?
No Zorro was Spanish, he wore black. Big difference.
I’d heard that the general metaphor of black=bad white=good really took off during early films. In black and white only, the contrast is more striking. Later films, where the good guy could wear black, but ornamented with other colors, and other background colors wash out the contrast, leave that behind.
In times past people have lamented the film connotation black=evil white=good. It was Muhammad Ali who said how films always showed the guy in the black hat as evil, or the black car stalls and the white car crossed the finish line. Many people reuse his metaphor as a problem with media depictions. But hey, like many in this thread have said – its scary at night when its dark out. Aren’t people from Africa afraid of the dark? Lions, muggers, slave raiders, whatever, depending on the time period and actual location?
Arkcon made a good point.
I’m curious about something similar.
Desert folk must love the shelter night brings, so do they have positive associations with black?
Also, the most adored relic in the world, the Kaaba in Mecca is black.
Also, in accounting, being in the black is a ***good ***thing
Ask the Pope. It’s a Catholic thing that has become a cultural standard in the past several hundred years.
First thing I thought of, upon seeing this Thread, was the very first scene in which Darth Vader appeared on Leia’s ship.
Besides the other reasons mentioned, I think one reason is because it is a stark and extreme color; like white that is the kind of concepts it lends itself to; death, strength, authority. Not just death. Look at all the authority figures that wear either black or white, like judges and priests and popes.
Also, black objects are enigmatic, their details hard to see; that lends itself to creepiness.
Also death is serious, and black is a serious color. The monolith in 2001 just wouldn’t have had the same presence if it had been pink or purple.
That really pisses me off when I hear pseudo activists whining about bad connotations of black and how White Man rigged the game, even on the semantics level. With total disregard to how black is often used to mean authority, or bad ass, or elite, or uber classy. And on, and on…
Good point.
It makes sense that, in a “good vs evil” type of film, the two “sides” would be identified by different colors (as in chess) or wear different “uniforms” (as in sports), and in a black and white film, black and white are the only contrasting colors available.
Except there are also a bunch of folks who look a lot like Vader, except white, and they’re all bad guys too.
“Invictus” may have had something to do with this.
Compare this picture with this picture
