Maggie's Farm

McWhorter is quite brilliant on linguistics, so I imagine he'll tackle this well. I just put the book on my wish list.

There is another subtle element that I believe had profound effect: the switch from black-and-white photography to color. In a few rapid years, the old world of the 1950's and before was perceived as boring and cartoonish because our record of it was. We were now bright, lively, colorful people. Note that even in McWhorter's paragraph above he naturally gravitates to the idea of a dull, gray world. It is not at all accidental that we refer to it as a time of black-and-white morality as well. It wasn't, but it is comfortable for us to think so, as it makes us seem so much more intelligent and sophisticated now. But it's all just advances in film technology, which we take moral credit for.

As evidence I submit the explosion of garish color in popular culture in the 60's - 70's: psychedelic, day-glo, Carnaby St. We wanted to show that we weren't those awful old-fashioned people.

It is still used in film and art today, portraying the 1950's as black-and-white, rigid, and dull by filming them in B&W.