Originally published at: "Crying Indian" anti-pollution ad to be retired for good | Boing Boing
…
9 Likes
The guy was Italian anyway. I’m amazed to learn it’s still in use.
Same here. It lasted a lot longer than “That’s a spicy meatball!”.
21 Likes
(with Martian native …martians the tear always emerges from the left eye)
6 Likes
3 Likes
I maybe maybe saw this as a kid in 1980, but I haven’t seen it used as a PSA in decades.
5 Likes
To be fair, the United States was basically paradise before the Europeans came over. Camping, hunting, hiking, fishing…forever. With not a car, road, building, billboard, taxes or a job anywhere to be found. The first nations people trod very lightly on the ground.
2 Likes
I hope that’s sarcasm.
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm
Although few textbooks today use the word “primitive” to describe pre-contact Native Americans, many still convey the impression that North American Indians consisted simply of small migratory bands that subsisted through hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants. As we shall see, this view is incorrect; in fact, Native American societies were rich, diverse, and sophisticated.
…During the thousands of years preceding European contact, the Native American people developed inventive and creative cultures. They cultivated plants for food, dyes, medicines, and textiles; domesticated animals; established extensive patterns of trade; built cities; produced monumental architecture; developed intricate systems of religious beliefs; and constructed a wide variety of systems of social and political organization ranging from kin-based bands and tribes to city-states and confederations. Native Americans not only adapted to diverse and demanding environments, they also reshaped the natural environments to meet their needs. And after the arrival of Europeans in the New World, Native Americans struggled intently to preserve the essentials of their diverse cultures while adapting to radically changing conditions.
23 Likes
Wait, Retired??? Past memes and references they are still showing it?!?!!?? The hell?
4 Likes
9 Likes
For all the weird cultural baggage this ad carries, it did make me well up with shame and sadness and a profound disgust with pollution when I was a kid.
16 Likes
Same here – and i think about it and feel guilty every time i see a piece of garbage by a roadway to this day, which makes it a very successful campaign. i know the portrayals are thoroughly stereotypical, but i still feel the basic premise of the ad – that we were (are) ruining what once was a much more gorgeous place before colonization – is fair and true.
11 Likes
Racist and inappropriate as it was, that ad was effective. If you weren’t around then, you can’t recall how common trash and litter were everywhere in the U.S. back in the '60s and '70s when I was a kid. Roadsides literally looked like landfills. It genuinely had an impact on people’s behavior.
12 Likes
Yes, by shifting the blame from mass producers of plastic waste on to individuals. The ad was funded by them afterall.
13 Likes
Well, back then plastic wasn’t quite as ubiquitous-- a lot of the roadside trash was paper and glass and aluminum as well.
But that also illustrates your point: the plastics industry pushed for everything to be in plastic, including stuff that was perfectly fine in glass or metal before. Paper, glass and metal break down in the environment a lot better than plastic.
9 Likes
Indian country’s biggest intellectual fraud, Jamake Highwater.
It’s been going on a long time.
Complete phony, but he seems to have been sincere about his conservationist message.
7 Likes
Also, Sacheen Littlefeather…
6 Likes
Littlefeather and Grey Owl had it in common that they weren’t publicly exposed until after their deaths.
“Doubts about Grey Owl’s supposed First Nation identity had been circulating and stories were published immediately after his death. The North Bay Nugget newspaper ran the first exposé the day of his death, a story which they had been holding for three years.”
6 Likes
Lots of pretendians in academia. This one still holds an esteemed professorship.
Also disappointing in that she’s actually done some good work.
8 Likes
I was skeptical of your assertion, so I did a little googling. You were right. We were all dupes. I still think the ad had a good overall effect concerning litter, but it did deflect and distract from the core issue of manufacturers being responsible for the waste they create. I’d argue the problem is far worse today than it was then.
10 Likes
