The Land O'Lakes Butter Lady Has Been Canceled. RIP to an Important Part of My Childhood
Source - The image of the Native American woman who has been the face of a popular brand of dairy products is getting the heave-ho.
Land O’Lakes is removing the racially charged imagery that has appeared on its containers of butter and margarine since 1928.
Instead, the company announced that future packages will showcase photos of real Land O’Lakes farmers and co-op members, along with the phrase “Proud to be Farmer-Owned.”
For years, the image has rankled many in the Native American community.
North Dakota state Rep. Ruth Buffalo called the image racist, telling The Grand Forks Herald it goes “hand-in-hand with human and sex trafficking of our women and girls.… by depicting Native women as sex objects.”
Farewell, Land O'Lakes label Native American woman. As you die, so dies another remnant of my past. An important part of my development into manhood.
If you've come here expecting a rant against PC Culture or a lecture from some Boomer about how everything back in my day was pure and good like I'm Terrance Mann talking about baseball on Ray Kinsella's farm, you might as well keep moving because I'm not going there. LOTS of things from my childhood and before are objectively, patently offensive. For proof just to go Disney+ and watch "Dumbo" where one of the jazz playing black birds was literally named Jim Crow. Or "Peter Pan" where there is a song called "What Made the Red Man Red." Or try "Song of the South." On second thought, don't bother. It's been wiped from the culture's database because at some point in the last half a century we sort of figured out just how disturbing a slave singing happy songs about talking animals and beautiful days to white kids truly is.
So yeah, some white kid from Massachusetts who grew up watching "Go Go Gophers" is not about to pull that thread. Or pick a fight with Ruth Buffalo about what she should and should not find offensive. If Land O'Lakes wants to make that business decision, that's what capitalism is all about.
What saddens me about this though is the same thing that's going through the mind of every guy I grew up with. Including one of my brothers who called this morning to break this news to me as I was already at the keyboard about to post this. With Miss Land O'Lakes passing, we lose the Miss Land O'Lakes bewbs trick. There wasn't a boy among us who didn't do this at least a half dozen times a year. (Note: We ate a lot more butter than my kids did. As my cholesterol medicine will attest.)
It's not a huge loss. Growing boys with normal levels of curiosity about the female form have all the resources they need to find out what they want to know. A 7-year-old Jerry Thornton, his 9-year-old brother Jim and all their friends had cartoon breasts on a butter box. And now all we'll have are the memories. RIP.