In Jennifer Price’s “The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History”, the history of the popularity of pink flamingos in the United States’ culture is explained. Price’s historical knowledge of the pink flamingo and examples of its use in American culture reveals her view that Americans brighten and pizzaz the already beautiful in order to make money and exploit its beauty. In the first paragraph of the essay, the author describes the growing popularity of flamingos in the United States. Price utilizes historical details to convey this acclaim of flamingos. This shown in the name of “Miami Beach’s first grand hotel, the Flamingo” and the fact that “developers built hundreds more modest hotels” for the middle class so that they could experience the newfound pizzazz of flamingos. Americans are shown to almost worship wealth because of the want to appear as affluent as possible. As soon as flamingos became synonymous with wealth, everyone and their brother wanted to stay in a flamingo hotel or have the new playful Art Deco style.
The next paragraph continues down the timeline of the flamingo while also exploring the dark side of the nature of its popularity. Price reveals the fact that “Americans had hunted flamingos to extinction in Florida in the late 1800s.” This historical detail illustrates the irony of the flamingo’s sudden …show more content…
She points out that other countries and cultures appreciated the real flamingo and some still do today unlike the United States. “In ancient Egypt, it (the flamingo) symbolized the sun god Ra”, and in both Mexico and the Caribbean, the flamingo “remains a major motif in art, dance, and literature.” This list of examples provides evidence of appreciation of the natural flamingo in other cultures. American culture doesn’t admire real nature in general like many other cultures do; we only value what we can reproduce and make a profit off