Here are some great World War II-era comic book (graphic novels! Whatever!) covers and/or posters (all found at Superdickery’s Propaganda Extravaganza page, thanks to Krystal-lynn M.). They all combine patriotism, pro-war sentiment, and racist images:
The Black kid on this next cover is named Whitewash:
Thanks, Krystal-lynn!
Even in an era when children’s obesity is a significant problem (though a commenter points out that this is contested), the ever-upping of serving sizes at McDonald’s doesn’t appear to be skipping kids. Stephen W. took this picture at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania this week.
Now McDonald’s doesn’t just offer Happy Meals, but Mighty Meals. Mighty Meals include a double cheeseburger instead of a hamburger or cheeseburger or a 6-piece McNugget instead of a 4-piece.
By the way, a Mighty Meal with a double cheeseburger has 780 calories.
And, really, what kid doesn’t want to be mighty? McDonald’s will sink pretty low for a few extra pennies.
Thanks for the tip and the picture, Stephen!
These ads, for a “fashion brand for teenagers” (according to Adverbox), use the trope of colonial taxidermic collection, to promise death to the tween love of Hello Kitty, Snoopie, Minnie and Mickey Mouse, teddy bears, unicorns, Bugs Bunny, Pinnochio, and more.
As a kid who hated Hello Kitty more than life itself and as an adult who just doesn’t get a life-long love of Disney, these ads appeal to me. As a sociologist, their colonial trappings disturb me. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
This Halloween, in Maryland, sex offenders who had been released from prison were required to put this sticker in a front window (news story here).
I can’t say it better than Gwen, so I quote her from this post:
I find the intense stigmatization of child sexual abuse, compared to other crimes, fascinating. With other crimes, once you finish the terms of probation, you’re pretty much done with the criminal justice system. Only with sex crimes (and generally only if they were against children) is there a requirement that the ex-felon register with law enforcement every time s/he moves even once probation is over, sometimes for a certain number of years, sometimes forever, depending on the state. I mean, you don’t have to do this if you murder someone, or even lots of people (or even if the victims were kids). Our culture currently defines child sexual abusers as unique, particularly horrific criminal who can never really be rehabilitated or reintegrated into society.
I wonder, though, to what degree this law makes children safer. It seems like a false sense of security–if you just know who the convicted sex abusers in your neighborhood are, you can protect your kids. Yet most child sexual abuse is committed by people known to the child and his/her family, not a stranger who just moved in to the neighborhood, and very often they have no criminal record, so these types of programs would be useless.
Marc sent in a link to some sexist vintage ads found at Blog of Hilarity [note: I had an actual link to Blog of Hilarity, but commenter LillyB pointed out that when she clicked on it, she got warnings from her AntiVirus about the site; I just had the same thing happen, so I decided for safety’s sake to remove the link]. Some of them I’ll be adding to other posts, but I thought these deserved their own post.
This one, for Love’s Baby Soft, is so creepy I can hardly stand to look at it:
The shape of the bottles, the sexualization of young girls…ick. A teddy bear? Really? The text below the bottles:
Love’s Baby Soft is that irresistible, clean-baby smell, grown-up enough to be sexy. It’s soft-smelling. Pure and innocent. It may well be the sexist fragrance around.
Notice it’s not grown up…it’s grown up enough. Jean Kilbourne uses this, or a similar Love’s Baby Soft, ad in her documentary Killing Us Softly 3 when she discusses how young girls are sexualized and adult women are encouraged to infantilize themselves.
Here’s an ad for Kellogg’s PEP vitamins:
I know I always look super cute when I’m scrubbing the kitchen.
Finally, this Trix ad seems sort of creepy to me, and I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s the way the girl is staring at the camera, or that her pupils seem fixed and dilated:
The text isn’t exceptionally interesting, but it does use the word “gay” in the original sense of “happy,” something a company would certainly not do today.
Thanks, Marc!
Click to enlarge:
I think it’s interesting that the National Federation of State High School Associations defines cheerleading as a sport.
(Image by Chris Uggen. Data from the National Federation of State High School Associations.)
Mary K. took this picture of two magazines covers side-by-side in a magazine holder in an acupuncturist’s office. The one on the right is for parents and the one on the left is for women going through menopause.
Mary writes:
The cover of both is donned with females at very different points in their life trajectories with the exact same pose. I couldn’t help but think the woman on the left was socialized just as the baby on the right is currently being. My first reaction was definitely not “Aww how cute. Look at the baby pretend to model.”
Neat find, Mary!
Click here for a nice gender and race analysis of a range of Halloween costumes for adults and kids by our blogger, Wendy. We’ve also highlighted two costumes in particular: the Sexy Scholar and Anna-Rexia. And, of course, just a few days ago, we posted about the Halloween display that includes a lynched Sarah Palin and a screenshot of an Obama mask found by searching for “terrorist costume.” And don’t miss our jack-o’-lantern tribute to Max Weber. See also, if you like, my Huffington Post about the race, class, and gender politics of Halloween.
To our newest Halloween material:
Andrea G. scanned in an entire Halloween costume catalog and offers some global observations about the breadth of costumes made available. You can check out her flickr account here or scroll down for the images and some of Andrea’s commentary.
The Cover and Back:
Boys’ costumes:
Boys’ costumes (continued) and girls’ costumes:
Girls’ costumes (continued):
Women’s costumes:
Plus women’s costumes:
Plus women’s costumes (continued) and adult men’s costumes:
Plus men’s costumes:
First, Andrea notes how gendered the costumes are. Women overwhelmingly are supposed to look sexy, while men are supposed to look funny or scary. Note that this doesn’t vary much by age. The costumes for adults and children are strikingly similar.
Second, Andrea points to how often men’s faces are covered by masks and how infrequently women’s are. She writes that “5 out of the 198 costumes categorized under “female” or “girls” were masked (2.5%)” and “96 of the 180 costumes categorized under “male” or “boys” were masked (53.3%).” Andrea thinks: “I think this touches on the double standard American society holds for females/girls to be attractive and beautiful, while males/boys do not have to cater to this social rule, for the most part.”
Third, Andrea notes that there are costumes designed to make men look fat, but not women. For example, this “Freshman 15” costume:
Thanks Andrea!
