Love is in the air.
Red has a longstanding, widespread association with love and romance. The connection between red and romantic/sexual desire can be seen in red cosmetics (commonly lipstick or rouge); red dresses and lingerie, (which women may wear to appear more attractive); red Heart Symbols; red roses given to a crush or romantic partner; red Valentine's Day decorations (which are normally either hearts or roses); and red light districts. The technical terms for this phenomenon are the red attraction effect, red dress effect, red romance effect, and romantic red effect.
This is Truth in Television, to an extent. Red is connected to fertility signals, heightened arousal, and increased blood flow for many animals—humans frequently blush red when they experience romantic or sexual pleasure, and the infamous red bottoms that female baboons have are known to be indicators of sexual readiness. In India, red is the color of love, often worn by brides on their wedding day. Red (red clothing, in particular) also signifies confidence, desirability, and power, the last of which is connected to Red Is Violent.
Since red is also the color of blood, as well as the fact that Vampires Are Sex Gods, this tends to overlap with vampire fiction, particularly with darker shades of red. There's also likely to be symbolism involving red roses and blood in such works.
Super-Trope to Lady in Red, Pink Is Erotic (since pink is a light shade of red), Sexy Santa Dress, and Something about a Rose, all of which may overlap with this. Might also overlap with Rose-Tinted Narrative. Related to Cardiovascular Love, Heart of Happiness, and Redheads Are Ravishing, the former two of which may overlap with this. The Power of Love and The Power of Lust might be colored red. Fire Is Red mixed with Flames of Love can have this effect, as can Fiery Sensuality. The association of red and romance also manifests in the symbolic color of the "string" in the Red String of Fate (although in many Asian cultures, red is also simply an auspicious color that symbolizes happiness and good luck more generally).
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: The table of contents in each volume features chibi versions of the titular girlfriends each holding a large red heart.
- Chihayafuru: Discussed. As Chihaya attempts to recruit Kanade to the karuta club, they discuss the meanings of the poems that make up the game. Because Kanade is a history buff who loves her heritage and native history, she's able to tell Chihaya about the history of each of the 100 poems that make up the game. This leads Chihaya to a conclusion about her namesake card, Chihayafuru.
Chihaya: My new friend Kana taught me something. Chihayafuru is a poem about a love that burns deepest red.
- Digimon Adventure: The Crest of Love is colored red, and Sora, as the holder of this crest and whose character arc revolves around love, has red as her Color Motif.
- The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World: Hot-Blooded Red is normally associated with The Power of Friendship as a Stock Shōnen Hero. However, he later unlocks a new Bond Armor (Kizuna Red: Burning Blood) that's strongly associated with love instead. This form comes with a blazing red-and-gold Scarf of Asskicking and is representative of his Relationship Upgrade with Yihdra. In addition to boosting his speed and firepower, it arms him with a powerful energy bow invoking the image of Cupid's Arrow.
- Sonic X: Just like in the games, Amy is obsessed with Sonic and romance. She usually wears the same mostly-red Iconic Outfit that her counterpart wears in the modern games, and the head of her Piko-Piko Hammer is still mostly red. She also has a swimsuit that’s mostly red (with tiny yellow hearts on it), and she wears a fancier red dress and red heels in "That’s What Friends Are For."
Films — Live-Action
- American Beauty: Red is heavily used to exemplify lust and passion, especially in scenes involving the red dress and red rose petals.
- Back to the Future Part II: In 1985-A, the sleazy and perverted Biff seduces women in a pink, purple, and red home.
- In the Mood for Love: Chan and Chow — a duo with raging Unresolved Sexual Tension — rent a room where they go to engage in chaste creative collaboration on a martial arts serial. They are NOT having an affair, but they didn't rent office space intended for creative professionals — they rented what looks like a love nest set up for a tryst. It's a red room with gauzy curtains, mirrors, and a bed. The room looks sexual, and the set design says plainly that which the leads refuse to say.
- The Matrix (1999): The woman in the red dress during the Agent Training Program exists as a deliberate attempt to distract the trainee and to make a point about how everything inside the Matrix is an illusion. Later on in the movie, Mouse offers to arrange a "date" for Neo with the woman, which causes the rest of the crew to mockingly call him a "digital pimp."
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Jessica Rabbit is a sultry, voluptuous toon human who works as a lounge singer. She wears a red-and-pink outfit and has a way of impressing men.
- The Woman in Red: Charlotte (Kelly LeBrock), the "woman in red" herself, is sexy, free-spirited, and very notably introduced wearing a red dress. The color of her dress isn't the only thing that catches the protagonist's eye, but it's noteworthy (and symbolic) enough to give the movie its title.
Literature
- In The Divine Comedy, Beatrice dresses in red at the top of Purgatory to represent her mastery of the virtue of love.
- Holiday Heroes: Lin/Miss Cupid is the Holiday Personification of Valentine's Day and has the ability to make people fall in love by using pinkish silver/silvery pink love arrows tipped with red hearts (her bow and quiver are also red). Her superheroine costume includes a pink shirt emblazoned with a red heart and thigh-high magenta boots. Additionally, she normally wears makeup in shades of pink and/or red.
- A Red-Hot Paradox: Scarlet's a redheaded Latina who's wearing red glasses, red lipstick, a red sweater, and partially-red sneakers when she falls in Love at First Sight with Jermaine after meeting him in a grocery store and blatantly flirting with him (calling him cute, booping his nose, running two of her fingers across his chest).
Live-Action TV
- The Basil Brush Show: In "Mean Genie", Stephen has a fantasy where he goes on a date with his crush, Ramira Blug, who's wearing a red dress and a red rose choker necklace. Later in the episode, he has another fantasy where Ramira is seemingly naked in a bathtub filled with red rose petals. This fantasy has a pink filter over it, showing what kind of fantasy this is.
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: In "The Potion Notion," the monsters use a Love Potion to cause chaos in Angel Grove. The love potion is red, the monsters use a red bubble-gun to spray people with the potion, and every time the potion makes someone fall in love with another person, a red heart briefly appears above the victim’s head.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In one episode, Sisko starts crushing on a mysterious alien woman in a red dress. When describing her to Odo, Sisko says dreamily "She was wearing...she was wearing red!"
Music
- "The Lady in Red": In this Chris de Burgh song, the narrator sings of his love for a beautiful woman (presumably his wife, as the song was inspired by de Burgh's real-life wife) who has caught the attention of every man in the room, but is dancing with him...and is, of course, wearing a red dress.
- Taylor Swift: "Red," in which the color symbolizes the passion she felt during a relationship that is now over. The song contrasts the fiery "burning" red with other, muted colors, that represent more negative feelings.
Losing him was blue, like I'd never known
Missing him was dark gray, all alone
Forgetting him was like trying to know
Somebody you never met
But loving him was red
Loving him was red
Theatre
- The Vagina Monologues: The play details various discussions about the vagina (related to sex, menstruation, pubic hair, etc). Promotional images for the play often feature a lot of red and pink, evoking imagery of the body.
Video Games
- Bully (2006): Downplayed. The flirt interaction is represented by a pink heart, and Jimmy has to provide flowers to achieve a kiss. When he passes all art classes, the heart symbol changes to a passionate red as he's now able to seduce girls without needing to provide flowers.
- Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: Zacchino. If the player is controlling Charlotte, Zacchino will kneel, offer a rose, and emit a red Heart Symbol while saying "I love you!"
- Dark Deception: The hospital in Torment Therapy has a pink-and-red interior, and the level enemies are seductive nurses. This level is designed to represent Doug's lust for other women and sexual misconduct.
- Grand Theft Auto V: The Vanilla Unicorn is a strip club that possesses a neon pink and red aesthetic.
- Hades: Zagreus' platonic relationships are tracked via red hearts, with a separate (more ornate) heart used if the relationship becomes romantic.
- Hitman 3: In the Seven Deadly Sins DLC, Lust's level is decorated with pink and red.
- King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow: Alexander meets the White and Red Queens, who ask him which of them should be able to give their piece of coal as a wedding present. The Red Queen says that she should be able to give it because red is the color of love.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: The game uses this trope on occasion as a source of visual humor due to hearts being the series' long-standing recovery items:
- If Link talks to the fangirls outside the clawshot game in Castle Town after winning at least once, they will squeal in excitement and produce a cluster of red cartoon hearts. Said hearts will fall to the ground as health pickups.
- The reunion of the yeti couple after a quick bout of possession results in a huge mass of red hearts shooting out of their loving embrace, the largest being a health-boosting Heart Container.
- Pokémon: The Legendary Pokémon Enamorus is a Love Goddess who's associated with The Power of Love, colored pink, and decked out in red heart symbols.
- Puyo Puyo Chronicle: Ally is a Love Freak who has red hair.
- Saints Row: The sex stores all have a mix of red and pink.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy Rose is a hopeless romantic who’s madly in love with Sonic, and she makes countless attempts to win his heart. In the modern games, her Iconic Outfit includes a red hairband, a mostly red dress, and boots that are partly red. The head of her Piko Piko Hammer is also mostly red.
- Spelunky: A heart icon is used for the player's Life Meter. Said life meter can be restored by getting a kiss from a damsel, which is shown with a floating red love heart.
Web Animation
- Teen Girl Squad: The Valentine's Day Episode is drawn in red ink rather than the series' usual black.
Webcomics
- Homestuck: Trolls have four different types of romances, each represented with playing card symbols. Matespritship, the trolls' closest equivalent to human romance, is represented with a flushed red heart. The other "red" romance, moirallegience, is more platonic and represented with a paler red diamond.
Western Animation
- Close Enough: In "Where'd You Go, Bridgette?", Pearle decides to help Bridgette lose her addiction to her phone. However, Alex, Emily, and Josh assume Bridgette's gone missing because of her lack of phone activity. According to Emily, Bridgette has a very specific photo to use if she ever went missing. The photo is of Bridgette posing seductively while wearing pink and red lingerie.