A couple caught up in a street riot in Vancouver kiss, seemingly obvious to the chaos around them. Photo / Getty Images
A couple caught up in a street riot in Vancouver kiss, seemingly obvious to the chaos around them. Photo / Getty Images
From first love to the ultimate betrayal, Joanna Wane looks at some famous kisses that have made history.
THE APOCALYPTIC KISS
In 2011, crowds rioted on the streets of Vancouver after the city’s pro ice hockey team lost a big game in the national championship finals. Australian Scott Jones andCanadian Alex Thomas were caught up in the chaos on their way home from a friend’s house and knocked down by police. A photograph of them locked in an embrace, in the middle of what looks like a war zone, went viral. “It was a very intense situation,” said Jones. “I just kissed her to calm her down.” At last report, the couple were still together, raising a family and running a craft beer bar in Perth. A picture of them locked in an embrace in the middle of what looks like a war zone, shot by local photographer Richard Lam, went viral.
Photo / "Kissing The War Goodbye", Victor Jorgensen
These days we frown on a man putting a woman in a headlock and giving her an unconsensual smack on the lips, and rightly so. Spain’s head of football, Luis Rubiales, learnt that the hard way after forcibly kissing one of his players, Jennifer Hermoso, after the team won the Women’s World Cup in August. But the famous image of a US Navy sailor swooping on a total stranger in New York’s Times Square on VJ Day, when the surrender of Japan brought World War II to an end, captures a euphoric moment in history.
There are two versions of the shot — this one, by photojournalist Victor Jorgensen, is titled Kissing the War Goodbye. Greta Friedman, then 21 and dressed in her white dental assistant uniform, later expressed mixed feelings about the encounter and said it wasn’t her choice to be kissed. “It was just somebody really celebrating. But it wasn’t a romantic event.”
Macaulay Culkin and Anna Chlumsky in the 1991 film My Girl.
THE FIRST KISS
Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin won the 1992 MTV Movie Award for “Best Kiss” in the sweet coming-of-age film My Girl. And who doesn’t remember their first kiss? I’m looking at you, Ian Cox, Havelock North Intermediate, circa 1974. Although I mainly remember being self-conscious about his lips getting snagged in my braces. “We just wanted to get it over with,” said Chlumsky, who was 10 when they filmed the scene.
Photo / Joanna Wane
THE POLITICAL KISS
Street art in Bethlehem on the separation wall, which divides the West Bank from Israel, depicts an unholy alliance between then US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bebe” Netanyahu after Trump’s controversial decision to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Formally recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — a status disputed by Palestinians — the move in 2018 led to a major escalation of protests. The ramifications are still being felt today.
Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in the 1939 classic Gone with the Wind.
He was considered a hottie back in the day but Clark Gable had a full set of false teeth by his 30s and notoriously bad breath. Vivien Leigh, his co-star in the iconic 1939 film Gone with the Wind, hated kissing him and said his dentures “smelled something awful”. No wonder she won the Academy Award for Best Actress the following year.
The Kiss of Judas, by 15th-century French painter Jean Bourdichon.
THE JUDAS KISS
A case of being stabbed in the back by someone who’s supposed to have your back. How much choice Judas Iscariot had in the matter might be up for debate, given his betrayal of Jesus to the Roman soldiers had been divinely foretold, but his treacherous kiss remains both a source of artistic inspiration and a pop culture reference more than two millennia later.
