Tuesday, April 7, 2009

The Demise of Jemima....

After Anne's presentation I decided to do a little casual research c/o everyone's dear friend, Google. It seems we aren't the only ones cognizant of the racial controversy surrounding Aunt Jemima's past. In fact, some people felt so vehemently about the issue that there's actually a petition that has been drafted for 'The Demise and Removal of the Aunt Jemima Icon", addressed to the President/CEO of Quaker Oats. 


But, since we're on the topic of icons........Isn't the Quaker on the Quaker Oats logo a little bit offensive too? I mean, granted, it's not suggesting degrading societal roles, quite as blatantly as the old Aunt Jemima advertisements did. Yet, could it be considered offensive to modern-day Quakers that their religion and spiritual belief system is automatically linked to a jolly looking Puritan man? Or is that just how the 'prototypical Quaker' is considered to look? Admittedly, there are a lot of Quaker meeting houses and Quaker schools in the area that I grew up in, and I've never seen any practicing Quakers look quite like this guy. 











Am I reading too much into this? Or could both of these logos be considered a little bit controversial? 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Being Quaker and going to a Quaker School from K-12th I never really felt offended by the Quaker Oats guy. Some of things that get under my skin is how people still couple Amish people with Quaker people--they are not the same--they will never be the same.
On different note a few years ago I heard the best Quaker pick-up line a few month ago

Guy:Hey Girl, what's your religion?
Girl: Um Quaker
Guy: Oh. Can I see your inner light?

(I don't know if the above is blog friendly, but the first time I heard it I couldn't stop laughing.)