Free Butter Boy and Butter Girl!
On Friday Kellie and I went to the Weisman Art Museum to look at rental art for our office. The images currently hanging in the suite have been there for a while, and our shiny new St. Paul office has motivated everyone over on the other side to spiff our place up a little bit. We narrowed down to a few choices and then browsed the gift shop. While browsing I spotted a perfect going-into-summer purchase: a corn-buttering device. Since it's a museum gift shop the corn-buttering device was not only functional, but fun. I purchased two sets of "Butter Boy and Butter Girl," one for me and one for my friend Amanda, who loves corn on the cob and anything else you care to throw on a grill. (Within reason--she doesn't eat former animals, either.) How could I resist? They are made for buttering corn, are made of bright green and yellow plastic and came in a bright yellow box with a little carrying handle.
Once back at the office I looked more closely at the impulse purchase and was more troubled than usual by its representations of gender. Of course the figures alone--the boy and girl side-by-side, the girl with a bow on top of her head--are heteronormative enough. But in case it wasn't obvious there is a little story on the back of the box to really reinforce the point.
BB and BG "met cute" at the State Fair:
She was there with her father the Kernel, and was the most beautiful gal I'd ever seen. Now, I may be a bit husky but I cobbled together the courage to talk to her. She sure made me smile from ear to ear with her corny jokes. Ever since then we've been as close as a couple of niblets.
Ay ay ay: first under Father's protection, then passed on to the boyfriend (and Dad sounds super-masculine because he's a military "Kernel.")
There's more:
Oh, we have our differences. She loves butter and I secretly love margarine. She likes to salt her corn and I like pepper. She votes Dairy-crat and I vote Republi-corn. Who knows? Soon I may pop the question!
Naturally they are moving towards marriage (the proper narrative closure), though honestly I don't understand what she sees in him. He likes margarine? Ick! I may be biased because I grew up in Wisconsin, where margarine was actually illegal for a while--if you wanted margarine you had to cross state lines and buy it in Illinois. That was way before my time but when I lived in Madison there were still restrictions. You could buy margarine, but unlike butter could not buy it by the stick. I think that rule was meant to promote butter sales. It's still illegal to serve margarine in Wisconsin restaurants and prisons. And no, I am not making this up. Starting in the late 19th century, dairy farmers and producers lobbied to pass laws making it more difficult to sell margarine. Margarine supporters lobbied back and finally were successful in passing the 1996 Margarine Equity Act in Congress. Not that I support their efforts--I always buy butter.
Back to the story: I have a very difficult time accepting "Dairy-crat" and "Republi-corn" as just another cute difference you learn to live with. I vote Dem holding my nose, but as far as I'm concerned it's all hands on deck when it comes to dealing with the Republican party in its current form. Also of note: the Web site is www.thebutterboy.com, as if he's the default device or something.
Anyway, once I saw the extent to which this particular product reinforces gender norms and generally was just yucky, I thought it was time to take action. So I talked to Amanda and suggested a swap--one of us would keep two Butter Boys and the other two Butter Girls. But maybe that isn't going far enough. Maybe we need more drastic action in the form of a BB/G Liberation Organization, patterned after the B.L.O. (Barbie Liberation Organization).
In 1992 Mattel introduced "Teen Talk Barbie," who said incredibly ditzy things like "Let's go shopping!" and "Math is hard." The B.L.O. sprung into action with its "shop-giving" program. They purchased 300 Teen Talk Barbies and 300 Talking G.I. Joes. Back at the laboratory they performed corrective surgery, swapping the voice chips of the two dolls. Now it was G.I. Joe who wanted to go shopping, while Barbie said things like "Dead men tell no lies." The B.L.O. returned the altered dolls to store shelves everywhere just in time for Christmas. On Christmas morning the dolls were given to some very surprised little boys and girls by their very surprised parents.
Butter Boy and Butter Girl are just plastic with no voice chips, so a full-out shop-giving program is not possible. Any alterations would be external and would be noticed right away. But surely something must be done. Is it enough to swap them out and create same-sex couples, or are there more radical options available?
More on the Barbie Liberation Organization:
Hacking Barbie with the Barbie Liberation Organization
B.L.O video news release (I couldn't find actual video)
