By John Custodio
In mid-January, Mars Inc. announced that the well-known M&M anthropomorphized mascots would be getting an update to be “more inclusive” to modern American values and woke culture. There are two main problems with this. The move is simply a dumb advertisement, but also a distraction from child slavery lawsuits against Mars, Nestle and Hershey that were popularized online recently.
As Washington Post columnist John Paul Brammer said in his opinion article about the M&M debacle, “if you want to make a man more progressive, you adjust his personality. If you want to update a woman, evidently, you give her new shoes.” Although the mascots are animated chocolate-and-sugar candies with no anatomical male or female characteristics, the two feminine-presenting characters are given new shoes, with the green M&M swapping boots for sneakers, and dropping the “Ms” title before their colored name. No longer “Ms Green”, simply “Green,” they are accompanied by the masculine-presenting candies who have been given entirely new outlooks on their advertisement lives. “Red” is nicer, “Yellow” is no longer a bumbling idiot, and “Orange” panders to the younger generations with the M&M marketing team saying he “is one of the most relatable characters with Gen-Z, which is also the most anxious generation.”
While some older ideas and mascots are in need of desperate redesign or removal, such as the Washington Redskins or my hometown’s Native American “Warrior” head, this is simply a dumb ploy to give popular loudmouths like Tucker Carlson something to complain about. While negative stereotypes are constantly played up for commercial purposes, I doubt the harm done to women by having a green candy created over 80 years ago wear heels in advertisements will the thing that undoes all feminist movements. It seems like a cheap and large advertisement to get talk show hosts to discuss not only the change, but the arguments about “wokeness” and changing old mascots. The argument continues and continues, bouncing from shows like InfoWars on the right to Hasan Piker on the left and at the heart, it is just a corporation trying to sell more slave labor chocolate.
The change is simply a clever distraction from allegations of child slavery made by six African men that was shut down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the decision, with the court ruling business decisions made in the United States had no impact on forced labor. The men claimed they were tricked into joining the workforce before being trafficked from Mali to the Ivory Coast, with one man working for two years without pay at the age of 11. While the lawsuit was ruled 8 – 1 in favor of the corporations, the marketing teams of these supercompanies can never rest and have to remind first world countries to think of the chocolate and lovable characters, not the actual lives used, abused and tossed aside to bring it to them.
Instead of human rights violations taking center stage in the debates on Fox and the Today Show, Mars Inc. pits both sides against each other instead of agreeing on the true enemy: massive corporations profiting from human suffering, and the 1%.
Image via Flickr
