More and more these days, I find myself needing distractions from the ridiculousness coming from the more conservative side of our country.
The group that jumps at any opportunity to call progressives “snowflakes” who are too emotional and easily offended have been going off the rails lately about pop culture moments that are killing their childhood memories and making our youth appear weak when compared to real men like a shirtless, horse-riding Vladimir Putin or a blue-collar worker with big manly hands like Donald Trump.
In the crosshairs of the right’s outrage recently were the brightly colored mascots of M&M’s. After announcing a rebranding of the iconic candy, Mars — the company that manufacturers M&M’s — said they were changing the appearance of some of its cartoon mascots to give them a more modern look. This included changing the shoes of the two female-presenting brown and green M&M’s, something that sent Fox News “journalist” Tucker Carlson into a frenzy.
After saying that the changes to the brown and green M&M’s made them “less sexy,” Carlson said “M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous. Until the moment you wouldn’t want to have a drink with any one of them. That’s the goal. When you’re totally turned off, we’ve achieved equity. They’ve won.”
Putting aside the fact that these are cartoon characters and do not live in the real world, why would someone who has one of the top-rated “news” programs in the U.S. take a whole segment of his show to complain about how M&M commercials aren’t as arousing anymore? I guess America won’t be great again until Tucker Carlson is able to ogle over every female cartoon character and grab her by the you know what.
Then just a week later, Disney hopped on the desexifying bandwagon when they premiered Minnie Mouse’s new pantsuit look created by British fashion designer Stella McCartney, sending conservative gabber Candace Owens into hysterics.
“They’re trying to destroy fabrics of our society, pretending that there’s issues so everybody looks over here,” she said on, you guessed it, Fox News again. “Look at Minnie Mouse … the world is going forward because you got her in a pantsuit.”
While Candace Owens ranted about the fall of western society, because Tucker Carlson had yet another cartoon character he apparently couldn’t wank to, she forgot to include that pantsuit Minnie Mouse was one of several new, temporary designs for the iconic rodent created for the 30th anniversary celebration of Disneyland Paris.
But even if this was a permanent change to Minnie’s look, it wouldn’t be the first time. Minnie Mouse’s current red dress with the polka dot skirt, matching bow and yellow high heels was not what she wore when she made her debut in 1928. In her cartoon appearances in those early days, Minnie wore just a plain colorless skirt (the cartoons were in black and white back then) with no shirt, and sometimes she wore heels and sometimes she had a hat. Her look has changed time and time again over the near century she has been around, many of which put her in pants, coats and sensible shoes.
These pop culture-driven temper tantrums from the snowflakes on Fox News seem like more than just anger about androgynous cartoon characters. If the Tucker Carlsons and Candace Owens of the 24-hour news cycle can fill up the time with meaningless arguments like these then they don’t have to talk about real issues going on like voting rights being taken away, state legislatures making it a crime to talk about race or LGBTQ issues with students in school, or how the U.S. ranks last in health care among the world’s wealthiest countries. You know, things that actually matter.
As we get closer to the midterms this year, my hope is that more people will start opening their eyes and seeing the distractions for what they are. And also, that no cartoon character makes the mistake of getting in a situation where they are left alone with Tucker Carlson.
In this issue, we look at voices more inspiring than those on Fox News. Poet Bryana Saldana spotlights five Black queer authors you should be reading.
We also talk with Broadway legend and LGBTQ icon Audra McDonald, and highlight two shows in Orlando: Valencia College’s production of “Angels in America” and Creative City Project’s latest immersive show “Dragons & Fairies.”
