The answer is most emphatically no. The director David Slade states in his commentary that they did not have a large budget for clothing. The clothes for Patrick took up all the budget and, because of the colour scheme of the rooms, only red would show up significantly. David states (but may have been exaggerating) that they only had $20 left, and this left the costume designer with only one item on the rack, a hooded top.While there was no initial significance to the red hoodie, a meaning came to it after, with many viewers seeing it as an allusion to Hayley being Little Red Riding Hood. The foreign marketing for the film made use of that allusion by using it in advertising. Japan's website tagline is, "Red Hood Traps The Wolf In His Own Game." Also inspired by the red hoodie worn in the film, a website for online safety and enpowerment was formed. The website is: wear-red.com.The hoodie was originally orange and was changed to red later in post-production. The hoodie actually belonged to Ellen Page.
Given that a random fan posted that, I did a little more digging and the entire internet agrees that, according to the director, the top was completely coincidental.
So what do we think about that, about the fact that we jumped to a fairy tale? Many, many people came up with the same conclusion. Is it a desire to see a fairy tale, a symbol of our childhood, inverted? Or something more? Thoughts?
That FAQ answer is confusing. First it says they bought the hoodie with the last $20 in the budget. Then they say it belonged to Ellen Page. Which is it?
ReplyDeleteIt sometimes happens that visual or other psychological effects of films are unintentional. George Romero has disavowed any of the racial or sociological content of his first Night of the Living Dead film, but it's there nonetheless. Maybe these are happy accidents. But as far as Hard Candy is concerned, the posters and other promotional art seem to be really focusing on that hoodie. It's a fairly pervasive and ingrained image; I don;t see how it can be mistaken, even if it was unintentional.