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This weekend I got drawn into the world of irony and soft-core pinups by a box of fish nuggets.
The adventure started in the frozen-food section of a local grocery store. Here's the package of fish nuggets in question, scanned into my computer and made into a jpeg:
The irony isn't just that fish people are encouraging you to eat their own kin, advertisers have been doing that for centuries; it's also funny to see Flounder, Ariel's best friend, look upon the fried carcasses of his brethren with such glee. He'd make any self-respecting cannibal blush.
Something about the image of Ariel dancing over the slaughter, flowers in her hair, tickles my darkest funny-bone.
You can almost hear King Triton telling Flounder: "So you see, if my daughter hadn't whored herself out to Disney, you would be on this plate too, my little yellow friend."
I was planning dedicate a blog entry to satirizing the way American Pride Seafoods depicted the Disney characters on the package. But then something else piqued my interest:
Take a look at the lower right-hand corner of the box. It reads: "FREE TATTOOS INSIDE".
Sure enough, there were two temporary-tattoos; one of Flounder and this one of Ariel here on the right. (I scanned the temporary-tattoo into the computer and enlarged it, that's why it may look a bit grainy.)
This pose looked familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then, while I was doing some *ahem* research on the internet... it occurred to me: A red-headed women with her legs in the air is one of the most common themes in old-school, soft-core pinups!
Here is a quick Google-search of three relatively family-friendly images. There were more, but they are NSFW:
I'm not saying that Disney is encouraging pre-teens to pose as future pinup models, or claiming there is some evil cabal of executives telling each other: "Let's teach little girls that their bodies have the same value as frozen fish. Bwhahahaha!"
All I'm pointing out here is that the objectification of our food and our bodies is connected. Exactly how is difficult to explain, and I'm not convinced there is much we can do about it anyways.
Even if you think I'm a bit far-fetched to see a connection between a temporary tattoo of a Disney character, and sexual imagery; you don't have to be a sociologist to appreciate that an objectified pinup-image, that is supposed to be placed on the bodies of children, packaged with a processed meat product, has to have deep psychological and cultural implications.
I'm not making a value-judgement here. I'm just sayin'.
So go and buy your family a package of Disney fish nuggets. I can attest that they are tasty. The dark irony of the box's cartoons and the sexual innuendo behind the temporary tattoos is an added bonus. I suggest eating them with Beaver Brand tartar sauce.
What?
What???!!!
Read counterpoint here.
Tags: fish nuggets - Disney - American Pride Seafood - Little Mermaid - food - tattoos - pinups - innuendo
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