Why Does ‘Yellow Filter’ Keep Popping Up in American Movies?

[ralfy]

https://matadornetwork.com/read/yellow-filter-american-movies/

There's a phrase for this distinct color palette: It's called yellow filter, and it's almost always used in movies that take place in India, Mexico, or Southeast Asia. Oversaturated yellow tones are supposed to depict warm, tropical, dry climates. But it makes the landscape in question look jaundiced and unhealthy, adding an almost dirty or grimy sheen to the scene. Yellow filter seems to intentionally make places the West has deemed dangerous or even primitive uglier than is necessary or even appropriate, especially when all these countries are filled with natural wonders that don't make it to our screens quite as often as depictions of violence and poverty.

[chainsaw midget]

Seems like you answered your own question. 

They WANT things to look uglier, more primitive, or just desolate in general because that's the kind of movie they're making.

[ralfy]

Yellow filter seems to intentionally make places the West has deemed dangerous or even primitive uglier than is necessary or even appropriate, especially when all these countries are filled with natural wonders that don't make it to our screens quite as often as depictions of violence and poverty.

An example shared in the same article:

https://twitter.com/NetflixFilm/status/1252070903359303680

[zombie no.one]

Watched YOUNG GUNS (1988) for the first time yesterday.

It's the yellow-filter-est film I've ever seen!

[Trevor]

I always assumed that the cinematographer and the people doing the lights didn't know what the F they were doing exactly