Iconic Images or Visual Clichés ?

Icon and iconic ought to be words used sparingly, but nowadays they're attached in some places where a word carrying less gravitas would be a better fit. I got to considering this when starting a scribble about ....well... icons. Cultural icons - kind of but not exactly. Legendary images in their own way, but really they're visual clichés. The images I have in mind are of things which didn't set out to be iconic but which have caught, and kept a place in, the communal memory of the public.

What set me on this track?

It was Alan Moore's birthday on Monday, he wrote V for Vendetta. Post about Alan Moore is here. The mask from the movie version of the tale has become well-known even to those who haven't seen the movie or read the graphic novel. Representations of that mask are now used by the Anonymous group.

The mask has become "iconic" or a visual cliché.
Wikipedia:

The Guy Fawkes mask is a stylised depiction of Guy Fawkes, the best-known member of the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up the House of Lords in London in 1605. The use of a mask on an effigy has long roots as part of Guy Fawkes Night celebrations.

A stylised portrayal of a white face with an over-sized smile and red cheeks, a wide moustache upturned at both ends, and a thin vertical pointed beard, designed by illustrator David Lloyd, came to represent broader protest after it was used as a major plot element in V for Vendetta, published in 1982, and its 2006 film adaptation. After appearing in Internet forums, the mask became a well-known symbol for the online hacktivist group Anonymous, the Occupy movement, and other anti-government and anti-establishment protests around the world.

Another example springs to mind as possibly the best ever visual cliché : Marilyn Monroe standing over a grating, white dress billowing up.
Wikipedia:
The dress is regarded as an icon of film history and the image of Monroe in the white dress standing above a subway grating blowing the dress up has been described as one of the iconic images of the 20th century
(See my old post about this)





Others?

How about John Travolta's white suit pose?

From The Guardian

The most famous white suit in the world, a classic example of the finest 1970s polyester tailoring, has been tracked down by the Victoria and Albert Museum after an international search.

The three-piece suit was as much a star of the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever as John Travolta who played Tony Manero, or the Bee Gees, who provided the soundtrack for the story of a young man who disco-dances his way out of the ghetto.

Bought off the peg in a cheap men's clothes store in Brooklyn, the suit was last seen in public 17 years ago, when it was sold at a Christie's auction to an anonymous bidder for $145,000 (£93,000), three times the top estimate. The curators of this autumn/winter's exhibition on Hollywood costume were determined to find it and put out an international appeal. To their surprise it has turned up in London, in immaculate condition, and the owner has agreed to lend it to the museum.

And "I'm Spartacus!"? I've heard or read this phrase used more and more recently in very different situations from the original (naturally!) It could be described as a catch phrase too, but whenever I hear it, my mind's eye sees the scene from the movie.

Any more?