Yellow, a unique and bright color, has a fixed meaning in our country. Anti pornography, pornographic films, pornographic jokes... As long as they are related to pornography, they can't do without porn. Encyclopedia king always thinks sometimes, how to explain this matter with foreign friends? They want to break their heads and wonder how yellow equals pornography?
However, most Chinese don't necessarily know the answer to this question, so we need to explore why porn is not called black film blue film... But yellow film.
Yellow magazine
In 1894, a magazine named Huang magazine was founded in England. A group of novelists, poets, essayists, painters, etc. who had literary tendency at the end of the century formed a literary and art group called "decadent group" around the magazine. Their works, sometimes a little pornographic, but not obscene.
On April 3 the following year, however, O. Wilde, the then famous British playwright, was arrested for being gay. And an episode in his arrest damaged Huang's reputation. At that time, the newspaper said that Wilde had a yellow magazine under his arm when he was arrested, so people took it for granted that the magazine was just as unclean as Wilde. The next day, someone demonstrated in front of the publisher of the Yellow magazine and smashed the window glass with stones.
In fact, on the day of Wilde's arrest, the book under his arm was the novel "God of love" written by the French writer bill Middleton Louis, which happened to have the same yellow cover as many cheap novels in France at that time. This kind of novel is called 'yellow book', and it is also considered to be not elegant. "Yellow magazine" or "yellow book" make "yellow" connected with sex, pornography, vulgar and other concepts. But at the same time, the American newspaper industry on the other side of the ocean has another "yellow" scene.
At that time, the newspaper of the world and the daily newspaper in New York were competing wildly for circulation. First, J. Pulitzer bought the news of the world, winning the largest circulation of newspapers in the United States with colorful and sensational reports and attacks on political corruption. In 1895, W.R. hurst, the son of the mining magnate, bought the daily newspaper, the rival of the newspaper of the world. His method was even more drastic. He even dug up the painter who drew the popular comic strip yellow boy for the Sunday world. At that time, the two newspapers used a wide range of techniques, such as full column headlines, color comic books, and a large number of pictures, to cater to the readers. This period is known as the 'yellow news' period.
Socialization
The word "yellow" has become a pronoun of pornography, which is directly related to "yellow news". But the meaning of the word in China from sensational stimulating news to parochial obscene pornographic news is not realized in journalism alone, its final socialization is also the result of the word "yellow" after jumping out of Journalism and spreading to many other cultural fields.
As early as the middle and late 1930s, this kind of cross domain cultural interaction with "yellow" as the link has appeared little by little. For example, in 1935, some people called "orange news" the news focusing on describing every move of female stars, and explained that "orange is a mixture of pink and yellow. '
Here, pink has the meaning of traditional pornography, while yellow highlights the modern meaning of news excitement and sensation. It can be seen that the confluence trend of the two colors has emerged. In the same year, the movie star Ruan Lingyu committed suicide. For a while, plays such as the story of Ruan Lingyu's death have sprung up. Ruan's emotional entanglement has become a selling point. The exaggeration and exaggeration of the drama's revealing of people's privacy and inside stories are obvious. Therefore, the time said: "if you follow the example of" yellow news ", it can be called" yellow new drama ". However, the Western meaning of 'yellow' here has not changed completely. In 1939, a reader sent a letter to movie news, denouncing the "yellow" color of Shanghainese: "I like reading the words like" bean curd "and" seeking happiness "in the middle of war news. Such pornographic magazines are emerging in Shanghai. The 'yellow' here is not only used to describe bad magazines, but also the social atmosphere and cultural atmosphere of a city.
However, the phenomenon that 'yellow' words were borrowed to other fields of social culture on a large scale took place after the middle and late 1940s. It is in this process of social diffusion that the obscene meaning of "yellow" is gradually highlighted and strengthened, and finally finalized.
Around 1946, the word "yellow" has been widely used in general social journals, music, film, literature and other major cultural fields. The words "yellow journal", "yellow music", "yellow film", "yellow literature" and other familiar words have appeared one after another. This can be said to be a typical manifestation of the generation, spread and stereotype of the obscene and pornographic meaning of the word 'yellow' at that time.
As far as the "pornographic journal" is concerned, it is easy to transfer directly because it has strong homogeneity with the news and its understanding is very similar to the "pornographic news". In 1946, in a short treatise entitled "on the prohibition of 'pornographic publications', the term' pornographic publications' appeared. However, the author listed 'contents and words, obscene and obscene, or fabricated rumors, slander others' as the basic characteristics of' pornographic publications'. Although it is not limited to the scope of obscenity and pornography, it has clearly pointed to the low taste and revealed the meaning of 'obscenity in the first place'. In the next year, watchman Shen defined the content of the Yellow journal as follows: 'the Yellow journal is all inclusive. There are stories of karma, stories of love, mandarin ducks and butterflies in chapters or non chapters, novels of triangle, quadrangle and multi angle & hellip; there is this & lsquo; fantastic man & rsquo; and that & lsquo; Marriage & rsquo; this & lsquo; back & rsquo; that & lsquo; act & rsquo; this & lsquo; steal & rsquo; that & lsquo; Probe & rsquo; hellip; hellip; '
In a word, pornographic publications are a collection of rumor and pornography. '
Almost all of these explanations can be found in people's understanding of "yellow news". However, at this time, when people use the word "yellow publication", quite a number of users have begun to extract from the mixed meaning and emphasize its meaning of "obscene, pornographic". For example, in 1946, Hong Kong's "yellow tabloids" were accused of talking about the moon, being obscene and full of pornography.
Although it is not clear in more articles, this meaning is also revealed in the lines. For example, some people say that "yellow publications" are overflowing like "the Yellow River burst" & hellip; & hellip; soft and light dried beancurd Publications & hellip; & hellip; the east one & lsquo; meat photo & rsquo;, the west one & lsquo; meat Photo & rsquo;, or "Stimulation & lsquo; sexual function & rsquo;'s lust and emphasis & lsquo; eroticism & rsquo; The yellow books' and so on. According to an article called "talking about pornographic publications again", people who enjoy such publications are "addicted to pornographic drift", "obsessed with Hu Hu Hu all day long, do not distinguish between black and white, ignore their own life, only appreciate & lsquo; thigh"; "Ah Q, like that, loudly called on all walks of life to abandon this kind of" obscene and shameless thing "together. The pornographic meaning of the" pornographic publication "is very obvious.
In fact, the word "yellow" only represents a kind of color. Because of some historical problems in the process of social development, yellow has become an indecent word. In this way, people think of yellow as something 'obscene or pornographic'. Not everything named yellow is bad. For example, there are some shopping websites named yellow. These websites only deal with goods with yellow color. Therefore, as a knowledgeable modern man, we can't generalize all the misinterpretations, otherwise it will cause some social unfairness. We should face up to the purpose of these words, not to misinterpret the meaning of these words, and be 'kidnapped' by traditional ideas.