Pink Floyd (fictional character)

Floyd Pinkerton, more commonly known as Pink Floyd, is the fictional central character of Pink Floyd's album/rock opera The Wall and the accompanying film Pink Floyd The Wall (1982), in which he is portrayed by Bob Geldof.^[1] He is also mentioned in The Final Cut . He is depicted as a schizophrenic (or at least a schizoid) rock star suffering from a mental breakdown.

Character Background

Pink was born at the end of the Second World War, shortly before his father was killed when his bunker was bombed by a German Stuka dive bomber (during the battle of Anzio). Pink had great difficulty in growing up without a father. This was presented as the first 'brick' in Pink's symbolical wall of self-inflicted isolation; he coped with traumatic events by becoming more and more secluded from the rest of the world and from his loved ones. Other 'bricks' from his childhood were the memory of his overprotective mother and his experiences at school with a cynical teacher.

Years later, Pink had become a successful rock star but the traumas from his childhood were still actively undermining his mental health. Furthermore, Pink's relationship with his wife had also gotten out of hand. Pink acted in an almost unemotional and asexual manner towards her and seemed to associate her with his mother. Whenever he calls her on the telephone, she doesn't answer. It is implied she is having an affair.

At the same time, Pink acted aggressively towards a groupie, trashed his hotel room before locking himself inside of it. He retreated into neurotic behaviour and shaved off his body hair. He was eventually found by his manager and a team of medical personnel in a near catatonic state. Although Pink is obviously unable to perform in this condition, a doctor had given him drugs in order to "get you [Pink] going through the show." After the drugs kicked in, Pink believed himself to be a fascist dictator who ruled over his audience while performing, probably a hallucination.

After a while, Pink discovers that he doesn't want to be a dictator and that his dictatorship was only a delusion, and Pink finds himself cowering in a bathroom cell of the concert hall and reading poems from his "little black book" (which turn out to be lyrics for later the Pink Floyd album The Final Cut and Roger Waters' first solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking). He then asks himself whether or not he has "been guilty all this time". He puts himself on trial in his mind and plays out the parts of the judge, the prosecutor, the witnesses and himself. Eventually, he is found guilty and sentenced to be "exposed before his peers." The symbolical wall then comes crashing down.

As The Wall ends at that point, it is not revealed what actually happens to Pink afterwards. The song "The Final Cut" implies that Pink later attempts suicide by almost slitting his throat, but "never had the nerve", and also that he had children (possibly meaning that he made up with his wife and they made their marriage work and he left his childhood trauma behind him, it's also possible he could have had children during the events of "The Wall", although they never appear, and are never mentioned in the album or film). "The Final Cut" may not serve as a reliable way of determining Pink's later life, as it's possible "The Final Cut" may simply be summarizing the events that occurred in "The Wall".

Inspiration

The concept for the album and film was inspired by Waters' personal feelings of alienation. "The wall" represents the walls that people put up to separate themselves from society. The character of Pink Floyd is, like most of The Wall's story and characters, created by bassist Roger Waters. He primarily modeled the character of Pink after Syd Barrett,^[2] one of Pink Floyd's founding members, but he also added other elements to the character such as Pink's childhood, which is similar to Waters' own past. Both Pink and Waters lost their father in WWII and had to go to a boarding school. But some other personality traits are, according to Waters, based on other people in the music industry. In the DVD commentary for Pink Floyd The Wall, Waters names Keith Moon as an inspiration for Pink's trashing of the hotel room in "One of My Turns."

Name

It is uncertain whether Pink is indeed his first name. His last name is Pinkerton, as shown in the film, when the young boy finds the official post-war scroll, notifying the family about the death of his father in battle. His school friends call him 'Pinky' in the train tunnel scene, referencing his last name. He is called "Mr. Floyd" by a telephone operator at the end of "Young Lust". At the end of the song "In the Flesh", the crowd is heard chanting "Pink Floyd" into the beginning of "Run Like Hell". Perhaps Floyd Pinkerton is his birth name and Pink Floyd is his stage name and/or his alter ego.

David Buchanan, a writer for Consequence of Sound, theorizes that the character of Floyd Pinkerton, in becoming a proverbial rock star, utilizes taunts from classmates -- who dubbed him "Pinky" -- to cull "Pink Floyd" as his celebrity moniker. As this practice is common in the entertainment industry, one can deduce that "Pink Floyd" is not just a persona later elaborated upon during "Comfortably Numb" and "In The Flesh", but Floyd's pseudonym in the business.

References