Yellow Ribbon

[jo_beth]

I need some help here.

I got done with one of my classes here at the college and they were talking about the "yellow ribbon" and what it signifies. There was nothing in the book about the meaning of the yellow ribbon to the military and their families.
My search has been slow going, can anyone help me out?

[thedrifter]

jobeth see if this helps.....

Yellow Ribbon

"Tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree ..... I'm coming home, I've done my time"1 say the lyrics of a popular seventies song, once again invoking the symbolism of a yellow ribbon as an emblem of something or someone looked for again or remembered (or perhaps not). In other words, the a subject of a discardation story. The fact that the singer is to be released from gaol strongly suggests Saturnalian associations.

Whilst the yellow ribbon was worn as part of uniform by the US cavalry, it is undoubtedly the intention of Ford to play on the symbolic meaning of this emblem in "She Wore A yellow Ribbon", where he tells the discardation story. Nathan Brittles remembers his dead wife, buried underground. Brittles himself is discarded and looked for again - recalled by the military for further service as a scout.

As suggested by the reference to knots harnessing evil and the gaol thematic the associations of the yellow ribbon go further than this. The injunction to tie it around an "old oak tree" corrsponds to those traditions to do with knots harnessing evil that mcKenzie relates in Myths of Crete and Pre-hellenic Europe It is not just a symbol of discardation and searching but also of the harnessing of "the beast" - nature, thus a signifcant colour when worn by those charged with harnessing a wilderness - the US cavalry.

The livery colour of the Union Pacific railroad has always been yellow. It is a part of the transcontinental railroad that is described in Ford's The Iron Horse as "The Buckle in the Girdle of America" - a most important link in the harnessing of the wilderness.

In King Kong Carl Denham goes looking for his female star in a Yellow cab - the film deliberalety showing us the words "yellow Cab" on the door (the film is in black and white). It demonstrates that King Kong's director, Merian C. Cooper,Ford's co-producer on the cavalry trilogy) already knew of the significance of the colour yellow to the harnessing of the wilderness.

Yellow is a predominant colour in Jaws - and the barrels used to keep the shark at the surface are yellow. The noose around the neck of the sacrificed young bull in Apocalypse Now is yellow. In Silent Running too, the colour yellow occurs regularly. The image of Saturn on Freeman Lowells jacket is yellow.

Whether the choice of yellow for the cabs in New York ( ) or the livery of the Union Pacific railroad, or the choice of yellow as the colour for the line down the centre of roads in the US, was in anyway influenced by occultism I know not, but that it has been seen as significant by film makers I am in little doubt.


http://www.colinmj.com/cinema/yellow.html

http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/boo...pchap/4677.asp


Sempers,

Roger

[jo_beth]

That was the one of the examples in the book, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree, sung by Tony Orlando and Dawn.
I'm looking more for the military traditions behind the yellow ribbon.
Thanks for the sites, I'm ckn them out as I type.
I plan on writing a short paper on this for the young'ns to read to see there is also another reason behind the yellow ribbon, besides the popular 1972 pop song.

[SHOOTER1]

Damm Shaffer, and Roger, you guys are just walking encyclopedias,remind me to pick your brains at a later date, I would have just went with , well you remember the song , Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree, and VietNam, that would have been the extent of my knowledge, I like your style guys.