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The Bunny Ears Prank: A History
Status: Classic prank
Making 'Bunny Ears' behind someone's head has to be the most ubiquitous prank of all time. I can't think of anything that would rival it. In fact, it's so pervasive, so taken-for-granted, that I had never given it a second thought until I read this article by Rachel Sauer in which she attempts to trace a brief history of the bunny-ears prank. She writes: Way back in the early history of photography, back when people had metal rods strapped to their backs and clamped to their necks so they could sit still for the 30 minutes required for exposure, there were no bunny ears. In fact, in those portraits, there were no smiles. It was a very severe time, as though everyone had just received terrible news... It is impossible to pinpoint exactly when bunny ears first showed up in photographs behind someone’s head, though it started happening often in the ’50s. And, oh, to know why they did. ... Why a rabbit? Why not a Statue of Liberty crown with all five fingers? Why not a single antenna? Why not devil horns, with the index finger and pinkie?
So she assumes that the prank only came into existence when people started to pose for photographs. Which makes sense, I guess. Nowadays it's rare for someone to make bunny ears except when a photo is being taken. Though maybe, back in the middle ages, making bunny ears during formal occasions (perhaps as the priest was saying mass) was a popular jest. Who knows? Obviously this is a subject crying out for further research.Sauer also points out that the more formal the occasion, the funnier bunny ears become:
It’s funny when George H.W. Bush makes bunny ears on his wife, Barbara. It would be knee-slapping if someone did bunny ears on the pope, say, or Osama bin Laden. Incongruity makes them funny. But then, it’s not so funny when your idiot roommate ruins every picture.
Since I evidently have nothing better to do, I spent half-an-hour finding interesting bunny-ear photos on the web. Here's what I came up with. (A few of them I could only find in thumbnail size.) They are, from the top left: George H.W. Bush giving his wife bunny ears (from Sauer's article); Muhammad Ali giving them to Billy Crystal; George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg; A British schoolboy gives Charles Clarke, the UK's education secretary, bunny ears during his official visit to the school (this photo caused a bit of controversy as it soon appeared in many British papers, amid allegations that the photographer had egged on the boy to do it); Crosy Stills and Nash giving each other bunny ears; George Lucas earing a stormtrooper; Gloria Steinem bunny-earing herself... a reference to her past as a Playboy bunny, I assume; a nurse bunny-earing a skeleton; Ted Case of AOL giving Ted Turner some ears; Paul Newman being eared by his wife, Joanne Woodward; and finally, Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon. |
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If any of you have interesting bunny-ear photos, email them to me. If I get enough good ones, I might consider adding a gallery of bunny-ear photos to the museum.
Posted By: Alex | Date: Mon Jul 10, 2006 | Permalink |
Total Comments: 26
Category:
Category:
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
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Actually, if memory serves, the original gesture was to mean or imply that someone's spouse was cheating on them. Probably predates the photo.
It's evolved into a more 'I'm making this person look silly'.
Posted by Robin Bobcat in Californian Wierdo on Mon Jul 10, 2006 at 09:38 PM
It's evolved into a more 'I'm making this person look silly'.
>>the original gesture was to mean or imply that someone's spouse was cheating on them<<
So was George H.W. Bush sending a secret message when he bunny-eared Barbara?
Posted by Alex in San Diego on Mon Jul 10, 2006 at 09:44 PM
So was George H.W. Bush sending a secret message when he bunny-eared Barbara?
Winston Churchill did it all the time, however the joke is lost to most people because Hitler is missing in all the foto´s of Churchill making the rabbit-ears.
Example: http://worldroots.com/brigitte/gifs/churchill.jpg
Posted by Unfairly Balanced in Earth on Mon Jul 10, 2006 at 11:04 PM
Example: http://worldroots.com/brigitte/gifs/churchill.jpg
Yeah, I don't know if it's true but I'd always thought - like Robin Bobcat above - that it came from indicating that someone was wearing the horns. Never even heard them called bunny ears till today...
The cuckold origin may well be a myth, but that article reads like Sauer was just making her story up as she went along, too. Anyone know of any very early references to the gesture? What's the earliest cite for 'bunny ears' to refer to the gesture? Could the 'bunny ears' interpretation possibly postdate the gesture, possibly as ssome kind of bowdlerization thereof? Could it have been influenced by association with bunny girls? Enquiring minds want to know.
Posted by outeast on Mon Jul 10, 2006 at 11:48 PM
The cuckold origin may well be a myth, but that article reads like Sauer was just making her story up as she went along, too. Anyone know of any very early references to the gesture? What's the earliest cite for 'bunny ears' to refer to the gesture? Could the 'bunny ears' interpretation possibly postdate the gesture, possibly as ssome kind of bowdlerization thereof? Could it have been influenced by association with bunny girls? Enquiring minds want to know.
Wikipedia discusses a similar (but definitely insulting in origin) use of the corna 'devil horns' sign so beloved of black-clad teens who listen to very silly music. There's no evidence offered one way or the other for whether the gestures share a common heritage, however, even though the article mentions the superficial similarity.
Posted by outeast on Mon Jul 10, 2006 at 11:59 PM
Nobody EVER gave Gandhi the bunny ears! He would have dropped that "pacifism" crap PRONTO and kicked their candy ass!
Posted by Cranky Media Guy on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 12:03 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign
Under an article for the "V sign"
"In United States culture, it is now probably most frequently seen as a gesture of peace, a connotation that became popular during the peace movement of the 1960s. The gesture is also used in a manner similar to the corna, by serruptitiously holding it behind a person's head. This use of the gesture, often called "bunny ears", is usually regarded as a meaningless prank without the corna's implied cuckoldry"
Posted by Archibold on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 02:59 AM
Under an article for the "V sign"
"In United States culture, it is now probably most frequently seen as a gesture of peace, a connotation that became popular during the peace movement of the 1960s. The gesture is also used in a manner similar to the corna, by serruptitiously holding it behind a person's head. This use of the gesture, often called "bunny ears", is usually regarded as a meaningless prank without the corna's implied cuckoldry"
wow I get to mention them two days in a row- Courtney Love gives Kurt Cobain bunny ears, 1993 MTV Music Video Awards.
http://www.livenirvana.com/pics/9309unk/images/vma_60.jpg
Posted by katey on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 04:31 AM
http://www.livenirvana.com/pics/9309unk/images/vma_60.jpg
A little photoshopping....
Posted by Bob on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 05:39 AM
If memory serves me correctly the cuckold concept appears quite often in Shakespeares plays. Bunny ears themselves don't but horns do.
(Benedict "Much Ado About Nothing"
"The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write ‘Here is good horse to hire’ let them signify under my sign ‘Here you may see Benedick, the married man.’"
Spark Notes states: "It was traditional in the Renaissance to imagine that cuckolds — men whose wives committed adultery — had horns on their heads."
So I think what used to mean a man was being cheated on has become a meanless but yet funny joke.
Posted by TWM in US on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 05:44 AM
(Benedict "Much Ado About Nothing"
"The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write ‘Here is good horse to hire’ let them signify under my sign ‘Here you may see Benedick, the married man.’"
Spark Notes states: "It was traditional in the Renaissance to imagine that cuckolds — men whose wives committed adultery — had horns on their heads."
So I think what used to mean a man was being cheated on has become a meanless but yet funny joke.
My brother used to just do that, but only as a peace sign in all his pictures...mostly from about 7-10 years old. Every picture...There we stood, smiley & goofy...and Cully has his 2 fingers in that "V"...usually right near his chest. Sometimes high in the air.
Posted by Maegan in Tampa, FL - USA on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 07:46 AM
I will have to locate and scan in a photo of my youngest son giving his rabbit bunny ears. That was funny.
Posted by Lounge Lizard in El Paso, Tx on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 07:49 AM
Wow, I am impressed with TWM's research. I was going to say that Dan Brown makes a reference to it in the Da Vinci Code. I'm sure he says horns too, although I gave my copy away, so I can't check. Anyway, Shakespeare quotes are much more impressive than Dan Brown quotes.
Posted by Pixie in Germany on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 07:53 AM
Ancient Pagan symbol of fertility. Obviously, it wasn't an insult.
Posted by Magnus in NY on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 08:20 AM
Magnus-
Can you be more specific than "Ancient Pagan"? A individual culture maybe?
Pixie-
Thank you but I really didn't do much research I used to act and I played that role so I remembered the line. After that just a little Google and cut and paste.
Posted by TWM in US sorta on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 10:13 AM
Can you be more specific than "Ancient Pagan"? A individual culture maybe?
Pixie-
Thank you but I really didn't do much research I used to act and I played that role so I remembered the line. After that just a little Google and cut and paste.
And I was thinking they were donkey-ears (at least, as far as I know, they're never called bunny-ears in dutch areas)
Posted by FrostBird in The Old Continent, Chaos Kingdom on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 01:40 PM
When I was a kid we always referred to this same gesture (raised first and middle fingers behind somebody's head just as a picture is snapped) as "giving them Devil Horns." Maybe it's a regional thing.
Posted by Big Gary in Muleshoe, Texas on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 03:53 PM
Pixie sez:
"Shakespeare quotes are much more impressive than Dan Brown quotes."
You ain't just a-woofin' there, cousin!
Posted by Big Gary in Eddy, Texas on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 03:56 PM
"Shakespeare quotes are much more impressive than Dan Brown quotes."
You ain't just a-woofin' there, cousin!
it's obvious what is going on here. everything leads to kevin bacon.
Posted by Mike on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 04:02 PM
The donkey ears thing is interesting - puts one in mind of Nick Bottom, and making an ass of someone would certainly be more in the spirit of the prank as now played. However, while reference to Bottom may have (indirectly?) played a role in bunny ears, horns, whatever getting renamed donkey ears, I'd want to see some pretty firm evidence before accepting donkey ears as the origin - especially since it doesn't seem to be the prevalent moniker for the gesture.
References to the cuckold's horns are common in Shakespeare, incidentally - here's Falstaff in the abysmal hack work 'The Merry Wives of Windsor':
"Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel; it shall hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns."
It's also found in many other old sources in European writing - Moliere, for example, made reference to the horns in both Tartuffe and The School for Wives, I believe. Rabelais, too:
"Tu sera coqu, homme de bien, je t’en asceure: tu auras belles cornes. Hay, hay, hay, nostre maistre de Cornibus, Dieu te guard!" ["Thou wilt be a cuckold, an honest one, I warrant thee; O the brave horns that will be born by thee! Ha, ha, ha. Our good Master de Cornibus, God save thee and shield thee"; note the pun in 'Cornibus'/cornes (horns), which does not come accross in translation.]
John Taylor's 1611 'Satire', from the volume of epigrams 'The Sculler', makes reference to the cuckold's horns, too:
"Panderisme is headed like an Ox"
Panderisme - panderism - is procuring the service of a prostitute; the inference seems to be that he who seeks his sexual satisfaction away from his wife's bed will find that another will fill that place for him. The fact that the reader would be expected to understand the oblique reference certainly shows the expression to have been very well established.
However, all this is OT: the critical point is whether the gesture of bunny ears is actually derived from this tradition, and for that we need some kind of evidence. The true search must be for early references to the gesture itself, I guess - and as to that I haven't a clue where to start.
The claim that it's origin is in pagan fertility symbols, though, is extremely weak - I'd definitely need to see some actual evidence for that before giving it consideration. Most claims about paganism have been made up from whole cloth (or at best from tattered remnants of old cloth sliberally patched with imagination and romanticism) over the past few hundred years. (The link between a horn and the penis is, of course, near-universal, but I'm dubious of the claim that wearing horns has any link to fertility and even more so of the claim that this has been a continued thread from pre-Christian times.)
Posted by outeast on Wed Jul 12, 2006 at 12:15 AM
References to the cuckold's horns are common in Shakespeare, incidentally - here's Falstaff in the abysmal hack work 'The Merry Wives of Windsor':
"Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel; it shall hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns."
It's also found in many other old sources in European writing - Moliere, for example, made reference to the horns in both Tartuffe and The School for Wives, I believe. Rabelais, too:
"Tu sera coqu, homme de bien, je t’en asceure: tu auras belles cornes. Hay, hay, hay, nostre maistre de Cornibus, Dieu te guard!" ["Thou wilt be a cuckold, an honest one, I warrant thee; O the brave horns that will be born by thee! Ha, ha, ha. Our good Master de Cornibus, God save thee and shield thee"; note the pun in 'Cornibus'/cornes (horns), which does not come accross in translation.]
John Taylor's 1611 'Satire', from the volume of epigrams 'The Sculler', makes reference to the cuckold's horns, too:
"Panderisme is headed like an Ox"
Panderisme - panderism - is procuring the service of a prostitute; the inference seems to be that he who seeks his sexual satisfaction away from his wife's bed will find that another will fill that place for him. The fact that the reader would be expected to understand the oblique reference certainly shows the expression to have been very well established.
However, all this is OT: the critical point is whether the gesture of bunny ears is actually derived from this tradition, and for that we need some kind of evidence. The true search must be for early references to the gesture itself, I guess - and as to that I haven't a clue where to start.
The claim that it's origin is in pagan fertility symbols, though, is extremely weak - I'd definitely need to see some actual evidence for that before giving it consideration. Most claims about paganism have been made up from whole cloth (or at best from tattered remnants of old cloth sliberally patched with imagination and romanticism) over the past few hundred years. (The link between a horn and the penis is, of course, near-universal, but I'm dubious of the claim that wearing horns has any link to fertility and even more so of the claim that this has been a continued thread from pre-Christian times.)
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