Anyone else reach the end of the thread and then waddle (thanks, quarantine) off to make buttered toast?
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I avoid the entire racist controversy by only buying Kerrygold butter, and as far as I’m concerned they could put the Lucky Charms guy on the tub or a Celtic cross. I’d still buy it.
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I mean, yes, that’s exactly what they ought to have done. Unfortunately a decision was likely made by panicked executives more worried about corporate image than doing the work of looking up the history of their own package art. Okay, stupid but honest late-stage capitalist mistake, and probably not malicious. Now that they know they screwed up, the ball’s in their court to learn from it and make it right or try to brush it off with corporate boilerplate BS.
Ideally they’d commission new art from a current day Native American artist based on the original artist’s design, make sure both artists are recognized for their work and make up any inequities to the estate of the original artist. Not only is that the ethical solution, it’s good business.
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That’s… a great fucking idea!
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I’m not sure why accuracy even matters here?
It’s a woman in a subservient pose handing you butter. She’s also native. The fact that her native dress was drawn accurately by a native (years after the original creation, which wasn’t accurate) doesn’t change the fact that the message being conveyed is “here’s your butter, sir”.
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Here’s an appropriately nuanced perspective:
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This is exactly why I think the removal has actually improved the packaging and the brand. The name is Land-O-Lakes and it’s got a pretty picture of a lake and some trees. It’s perfectly fine and I could easily imagine it having been that way from the beginning. By comparison, it just seems weird having a person there.
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I’m sure there was a torrent of butter emails.
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…and? Seems like he might be a tad bit biased in this.
The dairy farming town of New Salem, ND, has- or at least had- the “Wrong Side Up Monument”. Allegedly, when the town’s founder started ploughing, a Native man came up to him, put one of the sods he had turned over back in its original position, and said “wrong side up,” and this incident led him to switch to dairy rather than arable farming.
The monument was put up in the early 1930s- perhaps because, while ploughed fields further south were blowing away in the Dustbowl, the grazing lands didn’t because the prairie grass held the soil together.
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Fair enough – that single-character branding had unavoidable plutocrat semiotics – but the way they did it sure seems like a boob to me.
Of course they want to keep the brand recognition, but keeping the wordmark and the colorway was plenty. By keeping the framing and removing what was previously framed, their brand is now “a picture of no Indian”. The stingingly obvious move would be to pan 45° to the side to show a more dynamic, asymmetrical composition which didn’t happen to include the maiden,* but without commenting on whether she is still present out of shot.
* fun detail that we know that about her somehow
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That’s set off my internalised homophobia
I’ve deleted that post.
Thanks for posting an Indigenous perspective from an Indigenous news organization! Needed
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Misread your comment as:
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The box design was full of references to “Song of Hiawatha” by Longfellow, but because of the substandard US education system, nobody knows what that is anymore. They’re not building a poetry factory down the street, so nobody has to learn that stuff anymore. Maybe if the box design was about HVAC repair it would be allowed to stand.
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Yeah, I haven’t seen 50 gallons of butter in a barrel on Amazon (yet).
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Haha, I did a spit-take on the screen. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Put that on a butter tub! I’m buying!
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Explain please? I had always been told that the Native Americans did not have domesticated cattle or dairy products until the European settlers. A Native American commenting further up this thread said as much. Do you have any special knowledge on this subject that we don’t have? Please enlighten us.
And welcome to boingboing!
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Would have been better had you taught them to share…
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