It's a Pink, Pink World: Re-soothing an Anxious World?

I don't know if you heard, the Barbie movie is hitting the theatres today?  

Yes, that's right, a movie based on the iconic plastic doll is being released smack in the middle of Plastic Free July.  Ah, the irony or perhaps it's a play on the cluelessness of the dolls.  

And everything and everywhere is coloured pink!  Not just any shade of pink, Barbie Pink!  This is a vivid purplish colour used in the packaging of Barbie dolls.  The colour is Pantone® 219 C.

The timing of everything Barbie pink found in every corner of the malls and retail landscape is much more interesting than just a clever marketing plot.  It's not just plastic dolls dressed in pink or doll house furnishings, it's clothing and shoes for grown ups.  It's a placebo effect for trouble times.  Let's consider that when Barbie was first released in the late 1950s, the doll was a celebration of the ummm, not pink.  

It wasn't until the 1970s that the connection between Barbie and the colour pink took hold.  For those of us old enough to remember the earlier Barbie days, it really wasn't a pink, pink world.  So why the shift to branding pink as Barbie's preferred colour instead of the continuing with a multi-coloured world of the earlier days?  Marketing a happy colour into Barbie's world could be seen as inserting a colour to counter balance an outside world going through anxious times and social change.  

The 1970s was a decade marked by enormous economic and cultural change.  It is marked by the end of the post-war economic boom, record high interest rates and record inflation.  Sounds familiar?  It was a time that divided a country fighting in the Vietnam War.  Environment issues were taking center stage as Earth Day established itself in 1970.  The 1970s birthed the punk movement.  Disco ruled the dance floor.  And let's not forget the Watergate scandal and the Roe vs. Wade decision that helped to define the decade.  

Pink is a highly coded colour that emerged out of Barbie's world in the 1970s.  It happened as a "New Right" movement mobilized in defense of political conservatism and traditional gender and family roles.  

Although, I will argue that orange is the happiest colour, many will argue that pink holds the title of being a bright and fun colour that makes people happy.  And in our own turbulent times with Roe vs. Wade reappearing in the headlines, record global inflation, the continuing war in Ukraine and the ripple effect of the war on global food security couldn't we all use a bit of pink to re-soothe an anxious world?  Or is all this pink everywhere just adding to the anxiety of these current times?