The online culture war, with its manufactured “sides” (each producing publicity and clicks for the companies at its center), allow us to outsource our need for human connection, for moral certainty, for justice and ontological stability in this broken world. Our substacks, our cable and streaming shows, what tote bags we sport or where we shop for groceries have become our political and social identities. The culture wars have long since transformed from a battle of moral hunger on both sides into a clash of commodification. “Woke capitalism” - the mashup of corporate interests and social-justice language for the purposes of cornering a prestigious, progressive millennial market - is an established phenomenon. Profitable for the media ecosystem, which lit up with all the hot takes about how woke culture is killing childhood and about how representation in children’s toys is the first step into wider gender equality. Potato Head for the first time in decades. Profitable for Hasbro, as people are thinking (and talking) about Mr. Surreal as it may seem, the drama over Potato Head’s gender gets more surreal when we consider that the increasingly ridiculous narrative of “culture wars” is profitable. No doubt, they were happy for the publicity, bad and good: The LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD praised the move, saying, “Hasbro is helping kids to simply see toys as toys, which encourages them to be their authentic selves outside of the pressures of traditional gender norms.” Inclusivity was part of the point, but the primary reason for the change seems to be Hasbro’s hope to expand the Potato Head franchise beyond Mr. POTATO HEAD aren’t going anywhere and will remain MR. Potato Head, tweeting: “While it was announced today that the POTATO HEAD brand name & logo are dropping the ‘MR.’ I yam proud to confirm that MR. Potato Head might next identify as a squash.Īfter the initial outcry on Twitter, Hasbro was quick to emphasize that it was not, in fact, canceling Mr. Potato Head has been canceled.” Radio host Erick Erickson attributed the change to the demands of “Woke-o Haram,” punning on the African Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, and Ben Shapiro joked that Mr. Mark Dice, a YouTube conspiracy theorist and pundit, complained that “Mr. and gender-unspecified potato products - was swiftly greeted by Twittering conservatives as another Horseman of the Cultural Apocalypse: woke progressives so intent on abolishing the gender construct that not even a beloved children’s toy could be allowed to retain his title. Potato Head to the more gender-neutral Potato Head - in part to allow for a broader and more inclusive variety of Mr., Mrs. The toy company Hasbro’s minor rebranding of Mr. I thought at the time we’d reached the nadir of late modernity. Peanut: the monocle-sporting Planter’s Peanuts mascot (his death, it turned out, was greatly exaggerated). (RNS) - Every now and then I wonder about the cultural historians who will have to - presumably straight-faced - write a history of the past few years in America.Ī little over a year ago, I wrote a column for this very website about the death of Mr.
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