Summary Of The Plastic Pink Flamingo A Natural History

The consumer culture in America since the 1900’s has become a major issue as certain objects, animals, people, and cultures fall into the “trends” and sell in the market expensively, which not only creates competition and lack of creativity in innovating new products but additionally increases the arrogance within the people who own and proudly showcase their wealth. In the excerpt, The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History (1950) by Jennifer Price asserts the famous plastic “pink flamingo” symbolizes aspects of the modern United States culture; exhibiting fortune. Through her utilization of allusion, imagery, and a contrasting diction, Price provides an analysis of American culture and conveys her distaste for its values in the 1950s. Price

Now, hundreds of years later, flamingos would "inscribe one's lawn emphatically" as a sign of leisure and extravagance. By this, Price points out that the flamingo has become a representative of wealth and mocks important aspects of American culture that it reveals. Prominently, individuals decorated their lawns with plastic flamingos to associate themselves with the prosperous individuals of society, despite the bird being taken for granted and slaughtered in the past. This realization helps the audience understand the correlation of the flamingo with extravagance and luxury in the country with the ignorant desire of Americans to express their status in society. Ultimately, the flamingo became a symbol of Americans' desire to flaunt their affluence and the ignorance of American culture. Price continues by asserting that the flamingo's conspicuous color was appealing to Americans in the 1950s. She describes the extravagant plethora of colors that plastic industries favored including "tangerine, broiling magenta," and hot pink, which remained the dominant color of the