Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Irrelevant Mona Lisa Images

Why is Mona Lisa so frequently parodied in illustrations for news or feature articles when there's absolutely nothing about her in the article? Could it possibly be that the illustrators don't read the articles, only the titles? Could artists and editors so thoroughly lack any imagination? How does a cliche get repeated so frequently? Inquiring minds want to know.
Illustration for an article about guilty pleasures: "Nothing to lose but your guilt"
in the New Yorker.
Illustration for an article about makeup: "Giving Makeup a Slap"
in More Intelligent Life.
Image promoting Doritos Locos Tacos, originally on a Facebook promotion,
used in USA Today obituary of originator of idea.
Total number of times Mona Lisa was actually mentioned in these articles: ZERO. These are only the very recent ones from a long history of missing creativity.

3 comments:

Vagabonde said...

That is true – I have seen so many Mona Lisa – she must be one of the most used images ever.

I just read your comment on my post. I responded but in case you don’t go back – yes, I know Georges Collinet and went with him to Africa many years ago. I listened to his show, every Saturday for years, until they stopped airing it in Atlanta. But I have their website where you can still see and hear Georges. I wrote a post in January last year where I showed his picture when I went to Senegal with him. See it here: http://avagabonde.blogspot.com/2012/01/selecting-travel-destinations-part-two.html.

Here is the site where you can see him: http://www.afropop.org/wp/10850/join-afropop-host-georges-collinet-central-park-summerstage-7-21/ . I bought many CDs of African music that he recommended. I used to find most of them in Paris or London. I’ll have to write a post on that some day. He came to Atlanta once for Afropop and Charlotte and I went to see him. He looks older now but he is such a sweet guy.

Mae Travels said...

Thank you, Vagabonde, for the very interesting links. I hope you eventually do write about your trip to Senegal.

Jeanie said...

I never really thought about that -- but you are right! I suppose it is because she is such an identifiable image that they think she'll bring people in. I love how you find these!