How products become icons
For those who think our consumer choices are just that — mere preferences — consider a toy, a candy and a garment. In recent weeks, each has undergone a transformation from mere product to cultural icon, becoming part of the larger conversation and sparking heated political debate.
When Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, used the Etch A Sketch as a metaphor for how the governor might reinvent his campaign, he knew exactly who he was speaking to. First introduced to the North American market at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1960 by the Ohio Art Co., the mechanical drawing toy, with its shake-clear screen and Tv-set appearance, remains one of the most fondly recalled playthings of that generation. When asked during a CNN interview whether pressure from the right might force Romney to alienate moderate voters, Fehrnstrom replied, “You hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.” Warm and fuzzy though the image might be for Romney’s followers, the response from his opponents has been to wave the toy as a sort of flag at political rallies — a signifier that Romney’s political views are written in sand and redrawn at whim. The larger message, of course, to be drawn is that politics is just a game and the American people are his playthings — a sentiment underscored by the cold reality that the workers at the shuttered Ohio Art Co. in Bryan, Ohio, might have profited from the renewed interest in their product had the company not moved its manufacturing offshore to Shenzhen, China.
Skittles are the most popular candy in America among young people, and the late Trayvon Martin was no exception. Gunned down on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Florida, by self-appointed neighbourhood watchdog George Zimmerman for looking suspicious, the 17-year-old turned out to be armed only with a bag of Skittles and a bottle of Arizona Iced Tea.
Since then, the candy has been carried in rallies, piled into makeshift memorials, sold by activists to raise money for the Martin family and mailed by the case to the Sanford police department by an increasingly incensed public as Zimmerman, citing self-defence under Florida’s repugnant Stand Your Ground legislation, has still not been charged.
What makes Skittles a particularly poignant symbol of this injustice is their contrasting bright and shiny innocence. From the name, which sounds like something skipped, or the name of a pet turtle, to their rainbow-bright hard-candy shell, Skittles are happy and hopeful as youth itself — the promise of which was lost one night when a black kid in a hoodie was shot and killed on his way home from getting candy at the store.
Geraldo Rivera saw it as a fashion problem. “I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters to stop them wearing hoodies,” the absurd Rivera said on Fox and
Friends. “The hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman.” Rivera has since apologized. But the hoodie, a fashion statement whose origins might lie in “ghetto chic” but is now a wardrobe staple in Jcrew catalogues and the closets of soccer dads, has emerged as a symbol of the persistent problem of racial stereotyping. On the floor of the House of Rep- resentatives, Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush removed his jacket to reveal a grey hoodie that he pulled ver his head. “Racial profiling has to stop,” said Rush. “Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum.” This week, supporters of Trayvon Martin were encouraged via social media to don a hoodie in protest. Photos of people dressed in hoodies and holding bags of Skittles began appearing on Facebook. As the Million Hoodie March descended on Florida’s Seminole County grand jury, it was clear that a fashion statement and a bag of candy had quickly become a statement of something else. Sometimes nothing says it as well as something with nothing to say. Apparently, in a consumer society, when we are searching for a way to express complex ideas about our culture and its political dynamics, all we have to do is go shopping.