Land 0'Lakes Butter lady: It's amazing how my perspective changed once I learned some facts
I was pretty neutral on the symbolic "Indian removal" act by Land O'Lakes. While I dislike the archaic and demeaning use of ethnic minorities as stereotypes for pushing consumer products (the Cleveland Indians' Chief Wahoo being the most egregious, but hardly the only example), I don't think I'd put the butter mascot (who I've found out has a name, "Mia"
in the same category. Her artistic depiction was culturally specific, but didn't seem demeaning. It seemed random to have an American Indian represent butter, the manufacturing of which is not particularly a traditional Indian cultural practice.
So when I read this editorial by the son of the Ojibwe artist who designed the current version of the late icon, it cast the blink-and-you-miss-it controversy in a very different light. The tl;dr on it reads:
"In my education booklet, “Rethinking Stereotypes,” I noted that communicating misinformation is an underlying function of stereotypes, including through visual images. One way that these images convey misinformation is in a passive, subliminal way that uses inaccurate depictions of tribal symbols, motifs, clothing and historical references. The other kind of stereotypical, misinforming imagery is more overt, with physical features caricatured and customs demeaned. “Through dominant language and art,” I wrote, “stereotypic imagery allows one to see, and believe, in an invented image, an invented race, based on generalizations.”
I provided a number of examples. Mia wasn’t one of them. Not because she was part of my father’s legacy as a commercial artist and I didn’t want to offend him. Mia simply didn’t fit the parameters of a stereotype....
With the redesign {of the label's artwork in 1946}, my father made Mia’s Native American connections more specific. He changed the beadwork designs on her dress by adding floral motifs that are common in Ojibwe art. He added two points of wooded shoreline to the lake that had often been depicted in the image’s background. It was a place any Red Lake tribal citizen would recognize as the Narrows, where Lower Red Lake and Upper Red Lake meet.
With this awareness in hand (and I encourage you to read the full article), it recasts the same newspaper's applauding of the company's disappearing of Mia in a very different light. In their editorial page, they wrote:
So we have to assume that the company realized times have changed and so (thankfully) have sensibilities about the use of Native people as mascots, logos and other adornments. We wish the company had been more candid, but what is important is that it recognized the harm caused by its Indian stereotype. Others should follow suit....
There was, of course, predictable blowback from critics who saw the company as caving in to political correctness and from some consumers who fondly recalled the iconic logo as part of growing up."
There's plenty of room for disagreement here. Certainly there's an inherent white cultural triumphalism involved in using Indian imagery as a short hand for "all-natural" or "from the earth" idea in corporate branding. On the other hand, bleaching cultural specifics from American shelves doesn't really serve the ideal of America acknowledging and embracing its diversity. Mia is presented no more harmfully or exploitively than Betty Crocker or Cap'n Crunch, artistic expressions of whiteness that no one objects to. But more to the point, the Washington Post editorial staff revealed its own non-fictional triumphalism by simply assuming there was "harm caused by its Indian stereotype" where the artist himself clearly drew nothing of the sort. They saw a Indian woman depicted in art in traditional dress and chose to read stereotype into that image. But that seems to be a function of the WaPo staff's lack of cultural awareness.
= new reply since forum marked as read
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213366214
Since WaPo maybe paywalled to some DU'ers, another piece on the history of this Ojibwe artist who is now having a piece of his legacy erased is discussed in this thread:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213366240
https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/there-s-another-story-behind-that-land-o-lakes-butter-box-v-QWAwVzCUCmHEs3OmHTdA
“My dad’s artwork has been out there for so long, and there's so many people that just don’t even know about his beautiful artwork,” DesJarlait’s daughter Charmaine Branchaud said. “There’s a story behind that man. It’s a part of history. Now, we are making history again with Mia. She’s disappeared, but that doesn’t mean my dad’s artwork is going to disappear. She was just a little bitty part of it. He had a lot of accomplishments in his life.”
Infected them with what?
Common processed food products include this guy:
Did that inspire generations of anti-Quaker prejudice somehow?
Or what about this girl:
These people:
My goodness, take a walk through a supermarket. Even the arm in Arm & Hammer is white.
So the idea is that all human food mascots must be white. Is that it?
Colonel Sanders - white.
Wendy's - white.
Ronald McDonald - really, really white.
You tell me what it "subtly infects" a child's mind with when they notice that among human food mascots, they are all white?
Why is "Whites Only" preferable ?
She's just a name on a spoon now.
But, it's okay....ever since Lucille Ball married Desi Arnaz, some Latins are okay in a "whites only" world (which, really, often makes me wonder how the American television audience dealt with that).
My Irish friends love this!
At least they didn’t depict him as a drunk.
But hey! What’s with that Geico gecko having a Cockney accent? My dad was raised in London, pure Cockney...I bet he’d be offended.
We're not all drunken brawlers
reduced prices for the thrifty consumer!
They were accompanied by a winking guy in a kilt giving the thumbs up!
Because, we all know how tightfisted Scottish people are!!!
(another oppressed people against whom the English practiced genocide)
Brand loyalty starts early, and even before literacy.
For that and a couple of other reasons, putting a face on a product associates that product with “the stuff we had in my house growing up” in the pre-literate mind that grows to trust and recognize that face when they see it again. That face communicates a message in a very basic and primal way, and typically has been associated with feelings of love, comfort, caring and family since before that consumer could even speak.
Compare these two logos:
Which one do you trust?
Which one triggers a reflexive fond feeling, before you can even really think of why?
Which one has you thinking of some childhood memory?
The point is to make the brand seem to be an old friend. And one that stands out in a crowd.
Who doesn’t love Miss Chiquita? Her smile adorns fruit products that were the best part of how many lunches, breakfasts and snacks - even though you knew, or even especially because you knew they were good for you.
It’s amazing. How do you “brand” raisins?
But I buy whatever it is Trader Joe's sells. 
To me, she didn't look like a Native American. She looked like a white woman in Native dress. I guess that's just the way I look at it!
Question: is it ever appropriate, then, to use a generic Native American in an advertisement? I didn't see the Indian maiden on Land O Lakes as being particularly offensive - certainly not along the same lines as the Redskins or other assorted "warrior" images. On the other hand, I also didn't know what an Indian had to do with butter.
Back in the late 70's or early 80's I remember Mazola corn oil using Indians in their commercials. "You call it corn. We call it maize." 
Last edited Thu Apr 30, 2020, 09:28 PM - Edit history (1)
That’s why food mascots work. They are more than brands. They are your friends. You invite them in your home, and odds are your parents did too. You knew them as a child, and they are always associated with positive feelings.
We must be the same age!
Now I gotta go try and find that commercial... was that tidybowl or some such? Completely forgot about him. He was white, right? Or did he have a Caribbean accent like the guy in the 7up commercials?
I’m so confuzzled. 
