Where did "bunny-ears" when taking snapshots come from?

[B.Serum]

You know what I mean?

That ubiquitous action when you hold two fingers (ala “peace” or “victory” signs) behind the head of some unsuspecting shmoe.

What was that originally supposed to mean?

[GaryM]

Devil Horns!

[stuyguy]

Bunny ears? No. They’re devil horns.

And you don’t use your “peace fingers,” you use your pinkie and index fingers. Been around since at least the 50’s or 60’s.

[Amp]

I remember then as the peace sign behind someone’s head. Never seen the devil horn one.

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

An earlier thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=116902
Although we didn’t get very far in it, either.

[Olentzero]

In all probability the gesture stems from the old hand gesture for cuckolding/Satan, which is an extended pinky and index finger, with the thumb held straight up between the knuckles of the two other fingers (as demonstrated here). The human propensity to get a laugh at someone else’s expense - particularly when they don’t notice it - being what it is, we arrive at the point where you want to goof on someone in a photograph without implying that their spouse is unfaithful or that they worship the devil. Hence the peace sign, or bunny ears.

[toadspittle]

Gotta second the bunny ears. “Devil Horns” are signs you make at heavy-metal concerts. I’ve NEVER seen anyone stick them behind someone’s head. It was always the “peace fingers.”

[CalMeacham]

I like the Gary Larson cartoobn where he has one soldier giving the “bunny ears” to another in the Civil War photo.

Of course, back then photographic portraits were serious business. Everyone is always serious and grim, not even smiling, let alone goofing off. I’ll bet the bunny ears (I agree that it’s first and second-finger bunny ears, not first and pinky devil’s horns) are a twentieth century affectation. But I couldn’t tell you when it started. I’ll bet it was at least as early as the 1940s, if not earlier.

[ElvisL1ves]

As soon as exposure times got low enough that the pose could be comfortably held?

There’s a reason everyone in those old daguerreotypes looks grumpy - they had to sit there without twitching a muscle for several minutes on end. Photographers’ chairs even had neck restraints.

[Cervaise]

For your consideration, Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, act five, scene one:

(Situation: The “rude mechanicals” are presenting a play. The onstage audience, including Demetrius, has been commenting on and making gentle fun of the show. Someone playing “Moonshine” enters and delivers his first line.)

Moonshine: This lantern doth the horned moon present–

Demetrius: He should have worn the horns on his head.

…Which is to say, because he has horns on his head, he’s been cuckolded, i.e. his old lady has been sleeping around. For whatever reason, the Elizabethans found it absolutely hilarious to suggest that somebody has horns; Demetrius’s comment provokes riotous laughter among his companions.

Lots of references to this show up in Shakespeare and other works of the time, and it’s always intended to be either insulting or immediately fall-down hilarious. It’s kind of the fart joke of its time, I think.

Similar examples from Shakespeare:

from Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V Scene V:

Falstaff: Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands.

(In other words, if I’ve been cuckolded, I wish the same on your men.)

From Much Ado About Nothing, Act II, Scene I:

Leonato: Well, then, go you into hell?

Beatrice: No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, “Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here’s no place for you maids.”

From As You Like It, Act IV, Scene I. Orlando is apologizing to Rosalind for his late arrival.

Orlando: Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

Rosalind: Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I had as lief be wooed of a snail.

Orlando: Of a snail?

Rosalind: Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings his destiny with him.

Orlando: What’s that?

Rosalind: Why, horns (i.e. the snail’s eyestalks), which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife.

Orlando: Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.

From Love’s Labours Lost, Act V, Scene II. Longaville and Katharine are arguing about words, as happens so frequently in this play; specifically the discussion is about whether or not “veal” means “calf.” Longaville takes advantage of the bovine imagery to make a pun, and Katharine zings him back.

Longaville:
Look, how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!
Will you give horns, chaste lady? do not so.

Katharine:
Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.

(i.e., the older you get, the likelier you are to be cuckolded, so you might as well die young.)

Given all of this, I’d be very surprised indeed if coming up behind somebody and putting “horns” on his head wasn’t a humorous gesture five hundred years ago. I have no direct evidence, but knowing people, I suspect this strongly. Over the centuries, of course, the original meaning of the gesture can have been lost; similarly, how many people are conscious that they’re invoking the Christian Cross when they cross their fingers for luck?

[Max_Torque]

Bunny ears? Devil horns?

Am I the only one who does “moose antlers”?

[Kn_ckers]

So, working from Cervaise’s (excellent) illumination, looks like the index- and middle-finger “Bunny Ears” is probably a bastardization of the original (index-finger and pinkie)“Devil Horns,” huh?

Mighty interesting.

But it’ll always be “bunny ears” to me.

[stuyguy]

I have a theory. In the 40’s, but more so in the 50’s, there was a sort of embryonic graffitti movement. Think “Kilroy was here” and such. Unlike the wild spraypainting that would earmark the 70s and 80s, it was nurtured by the advent of original Magic Marker and meant to be mischievous, not really malicious (or, shall we say, “artistic”).

One of the CLASSIC, albeit brainless, techniques was to draw devil horns and a beard on the faces appearing on ads, billboards and posters. (Other ones included adding black eyes and cheek scars.)

With all those schoolboys painting horns on faces, it was an easy jump for them to sabotage their kid sister’s pose in the family snapshots around the Christmas tree. Once one kid figured it out it spread like wildfire.

[Hail_Ants]

Well, this is all news to me. My whole life I thought they were donkey ears, i.e. you were making the person look like a “jackass”.

[raisinbread]

Well you forgot the one from Othello. Act 3, Scene 3.

Othello: I have a pain upon my forehead here.

One of the more subtle references.

So why did Elizabethans find it so damned hilarious for someone to have horns upon their head? Yes it’s a hijack.

[jkirkman]

*Originally posted by Cervaise *
**similarly, how many people are conscious that they’re invoking the Christian Cross when they cross their fingers for luck? **

A Minion of the Master speaks:

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mfingercross.html
Speaking of Minions and Masters

The association of horns and fertility (and implicitly or explicitly, sex) is ancient. I’ve seen arguments that it is depicted in cave art in France, but it was certainly true by the Cretan Bull, Baal, Pan, et al. 'Tis no coincidence that one of the modern fall harvest festival symbols is a good old pagan, horned, fertility symbol–the horn of plenty (conrnucopia).

The horns seemed to have crossed over to being a symbol of the Christian Devil about the time Pope Clement and King Philip got into their feud with the Knights Templar, and characterized their use of Baphomet as a ying-yang fertility thingy (I love being technical) as idolotry. Well, I DID try to look this part up to refresh my memory, but YOU try using “templar” and “baphomet” in a search engine and see how many nutjob web pages YOU get :eek:

If anyone else is in the moooood to take this particular bull by the horns and do some more research, we might spawn some fertile discussion.
Hey, at least I didn’t do any Papal Bull jokes

[yabob]

*Originally posted by toadspittle *
**Gotta second the bunny ears. “Devil Horns” are signs you make at heavy-metal concerts. … **

Or to signify support for sports teams at the University of Texas. Make what you will of the synchronicity.

[dtilque]

I always thought they were intended to make the other person look like a Martian. But then I first encountered this practice about the same time I first saw My Favorite Martian with his TV rabbit-ear antennae.

[CalMeacham]

There’s a reason everyone in those old daguerreotypes looks grumpy - they had to sit there without twitching a muscle for several minutes on end. Photographers’ chairs even had neck restraints.

But people continued to look grim and deadly serious long after the need for neck braces and the like. Looking that serious was clearly a cultural thing that has not survived to the present day.

Sheila Easton wore a neck brace for the close-up shot of her lips in For Your Eyes Only, yet managed to sing and look sexy at the same time (I learn this from the audio commentary on the DVD). If people wanted to smile in those old pictures, they could have. Even with a neck brace. They didn’t.

[BMalion]

*Originally posted by Hail Ants *
**Well, this is all news to me. My whole life I thought they were donkey ears, i.e. you were making the person look like a “jackass”. **

I second this, we always refered to that “double-digit mockery” as “donkey ears” since I was a nipper in northeastern Ohio.