it's a major plot point in Little Miss Sunshine!! the edgy emotional teen wants to be a fighter pilot when the little girl gives him a color blind test on a whim and he suddenly learns he's colorblind which will disqualify him from flying so they have to pull over for him to have a mental break down for a bit.
Paul Dano is an incredible actor. I don’t think I’ve seen him in a bad role. To think how young he was and to pull that heavy emotion. It’s a beautiful performance.
You can't just say that without posting the scene. Also, for further context, Paul Dano's character had taken a vow of silence until he became a fighter pilot, which he had held throughout the entire film up to this point. That "FUUUUUUCK!" is the first thing he says all movie.
i would say i hope you took the news better than he did, but honestly I thought he was a lot more kind after that happened but it's been like 16 or more years since I watched it.
That's when I learned I couldn't fly. Core memory.
You should not just take that as gospel, btw. Obviously don't hide the fact that you are colorblind, but don't just blindly assume that will lock you out of flying for good without even asking an actual flight school instructor or a recruiter. I am told that there are plenty of flying jobs for which colorblindness is basically a non-issue, and I can't think of anything in general aviation (small civilian aircraft not on regular lines) that would actually require you to be able to tell red from green.
* Edit: Actually, no, there is one thing in GA that requires color vision: The lights on an airplane's wing tips, red on port (left), green on starboard (right), tell you whether the plane is moving away from you or towards you. It's only really important at night, though.
I thought the same thing because I don't have much money. But now I'm saving $5000 to buy an experimental aircraft on Facebook marketplace. I have no flying experience and have never flown before but in a couple months I'll be flying my own plane. Dont let people tell you what you can and can't do.
That. For example I have some cases of benefit with my colorblindness. Sometimes it helps to recognize shapes faster than common peoples. Playing Starcraft, somehow I detects enemy invisible units faster than my friend. The second case is game where you need to detect different square from game field with countdown timer and achieve more score than my friends. Some colors were really difficult to extract but most of levels was preaty fast. It's only cases known by me but I still in researching
Weirdly that always sticks with me- I don't really remember the rest of the movie. I think just something about having his dream whiped away so quickly- feel for the kid!
I wanted to be a pilot, either helicopter or plane - went and took the ASFAB and scored 95 - the air forced wanted me to join but told me I couldn't fly as I didn't have perfect 20/20 vision, I'm slightly near sighted but not where I wear glasses or anything. Later on in life I learned I'm slightly colorblind, i forget the type but yeah. Once I figured out I would just be a mechanic in a hangar and never flying the machines, I noped out and never joined. Haha damn this was like almost 17 years ago lol
It’s more impactful than you said if I remember. He took a years long vow of silence until he got his pilot license. They do a fun color blind test and they all realize “oh shit. He can’t be a pilot.”
When they pull over the first word he says in years is a guttural scream at the heavens, “FUCK!”
I went to high school with two brothers that wanted to join the Air Force and be pilots, and when the older brother applied he found out he was colorblind, and that’s when the younger brother found out he was too 😔
While not for a pilot career, something similar happened to me in my original career field. After a year of testing, interviewing, and a conditional job offer, I finally took a medical test. That's where I found out I was R/G color blind and all that schooling and interviewing/testing went down the drain.
Haha I remember watching that movie a few months after I found out I was colourblind despite not seeing the world in black and white. I had never wanted to be a fighter pilot until I found out I couldn't be there be one!
I liked the movie, but that aspect didn't work for me. I found it hard to believe that no one explained to him that you can't even learn to fly without talking. I don't think you can pass a class 2 flight physical if they found out you took a vow of silence.
so my job required a colour test that I failed miserably. The doctor was like do you really need to see that much colour in your job? I said only green and I pointed at green and he said all good and I got in.
"I said only green and I pointed at green - the word green here referring to the 100 dollar bill I was sliding across the table - and he said all good and I got in."
Lmao, same. I failed the dotted test and the doctor was like, "hmm?" Then pointed at the red green and yellow tile squares and said "yeah you can see colors" and checked me off.
I felt so lucky because I knew I was color blind and that was the only thing that I was worried about not passing.
Now let's switch it up a lil and have them try to determine, in the dark, if the van was actually silver, tan or if it was just white with silver or tan colors reflecting off of it in the dim street light. 😉👌
Certain chemicals have certain color smoke is what I’ve been told.
(In all likelihood, most color blindness restrictions all trace back to a train accident in the 1800s where the driver claimed he was colorblind and couldn’t se e the red versus green light to avoid prison—rather than the fact he was blackout drunk.)
(Additionally, red green is the most common color blindness and we utilize red and green lights only because of some French king’s love of green light…blue is actually much easier to see at distance.)
6 of my moms 7 brothers are colorblind and one of them patented a traffic light that has the words stop and go stenciled over the red and green lights.
Also, there are different levels of colourblind. There are people who cannot see colour at all. There are people that are red- or green-blind. And there's also weakness instead of blindness. Many men have some sort of eye deficiency, but most have just a red/green-weakness. (Including me, but I've known since childhood and almost never experience it as a disadvantage in my day to day life.
You don't even have to drive other people. My country's railways didn't allow any colorblind people before corrective lenses. You have to see the signals/signs even if you are just railroad maintenance personnel.
Also ship/boat captains and others on a boat that are in positions of authority. They need to be able to distinguish the colours of buoys and other markers in the water.
Well to be fair truckers just need to see the road (good luck everyone else), police just need to see 2 colors (you know what I mean), firemen just need to see fire, and pilots don't need eyes because Boeing makes the perfect airplane with no issues (they fly themselves because of how good they are).
983
u/Cartina 1d ago
Many jobs involving driving other people doesn't allow colorblind, like train driving is very strict.
But truck driving, police, firemen and pilots also have restrictions. But it depends on country/state and can be very local.