(Somewhat astonishingly, this is going to end up in over-the-line raunchy territory — not for kids or the sexually modest — with a celebration of a character who’s both a feminist and a dirty slut, who deserves the right to fellate men “in the bathroom at Acme on a Wednesday” (from Rolling Stone). I’ll issue a warning when it comes up.)
It starts with today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro, with yet another cartoon riff on Magritte’s painting The Son of Man:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page.) That’s a green M&M candy where Magritte’s painting has a green apple (so the doctor’s message is that the Magritte character has been consuming too many sweets, like that piece of candy, and needs to substitute fresh fruit, like an apple)
Two things here. Thing one, this is (by my reckoning) the 9th cartoon riff on Magritte’s painting that I’ve posted about. Thing two, about M&Ms, and the green one in particular, which has its own life as a character in ads: a life as a sexy, seductive woman. So M Magritte (the cartoon character) might well desire to take her body into his mouth and, figuratively, eat her.
The #9 Son. On thing one. For reference, a reproduction of the Magritte original:
(#2) René Magritte’s The Son of Man green-apple painting
— in my 5/13/21 posting “One more time: Magritte and Schrödinger”, #1 there is a Bizarro riffing on the Magritte. With links to 6 more postings:
My 7/1/18 posting “Photobombing Magritte” has [a Bizarro, plus] an inventory of four earlier postings involving the painting; it’s a recurrent subject on this blog. [the four earlier cartoons, in order: a Rhymes With Orange, a Zippy, another Rhymes, and a Bizarro]
Then more recently, #2 in my 1/30/21 posting “Two cartoons on the 30th” is a Zippy play on the Magritte
— and in my 1/18/22 posting “The infested apple”, a Rhymes With Orange cartoon
There’s a lot you can do with #2.
(I note that I’m not proposing to inventory cartoons taking off on #2; these are just the ones that happened to come by me in my comics feeds and got posted about.)
The M&M watch. On thing two. About the candies, from Wikipedia:
(#3) An assortment of plain M&Ms (Wikipedia photo)M&M’s (stylized as m&m’s) are multi-colored button-shaped chocolates, each of which has the letter “m” printed in lower case in white on one side, consisting of a candy shell surrounding a filling which varies depending upon the variety of M&M’s. The original candy has a semi-sweet chocolate filling which, upon introduction of other variations, was branded as the “plain, normal” variety. Peanut M&M’s, which feature a peanut coated in milk chocolate, and finally a candy shell, were the first variation to be introduced, and they remain a regular variety. Numerous other variations have been introduced, some of which are regular widespread varieties (peanut butter, almond, pretzel, crispy, dark chocolate, and caramel) while others are limited in duration or geographic availability. M&M’s are the flagship product of the Mars Wrigley Confectionery division of Mars, Incorporated.
The candy originated in the United States in 1941, and M&M’s have been sold in over 100 countries since 2003. They are produced in different colors, some of which have changed over the years. The candy-coated chocolate concept was inspired by a method used to allow soldiers in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) to carry chocolate in warm climates without it melting. The company’s longest-lasting slogan reflects this: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” [with its touch of an allusion to oral and manual sex]
Then the characters. From a different Wikipedia entry (with the description of Green bold-faced):
Early black-and-white adverts for the candy in 1954 featured two talking, anthropomorphic M&M characters — one plain and one peanut — diving into a swimming pool full of chocolate.
The first incarnation of the characters in CGI was a 1994 celebrity campaign which had the characters interacting with celebrities on which M&Ms candy color is their favorite. This campaign was created by Blue Sky Studios. Concurrent with 1995’s blue M&M campaign, M&M’s introduced second computer-animated “spokescandies” in their television commercials. The depiction and campaign of the M&M’s were made by Will Vinton in 1995. Vinton previously created the clay-animated California Raisins in 1986. Around the time he worked on CGI projects, he made the depiction of the M&M’s as more mature than most food mascots.
(#4) The current lineupThese include the team of the cynical and sardonic Red (originally voiced by Jon Lovitz, thereafter Billy West) who is the mascot for milk chocolate, peanut butter, and crispy M&M’s, and the happy and gullible Yellow (originally voiced by John Goodman, thereafter J.K. Simmons), who is the mascot for Peanut M&M’s (he was originally known as “Peanut” when first introduced). Other mascots include the “cool one”, Blue (voiced by Robb Pruitt) who is the mascot for Almond M&M’s; the seductive Green (her personality is a reference to the 1970s urban legend that green M&Ms were aphrodisiacs) (voiced by Cree Summer and Larissa Murray), who is the mascot for both Dark Chocolate Mint and Peanut Butter M&M’s, and the slightly neurotic Orange (voiced by Eric Kirchberger), who was introduced when Crispy M&M’s were first released and returned when Pretzel M&M’s debuted in 2010. Orange, upon his return, was joined by the second non-M&M mascot, Pretzel Guy, who “supports” him and offers helpful advice as he hates the idea of having a pretzel put inside his body.
Note: Green is one of two women, versus five guys; the recently added Brown (voiced by Vanessa Williams) is the other. Green’s a sex-pot, a temptress, and so on, though very recently she was toned down by having her stiletto boots replaced by sneakers. A move that EJ Dickson (Rolling Stone senior editor reporting on internet culture) slammed fervently in her 1/20/22 piece “Let the Green M&M Be a Nasty Little Slut: Mars Wrigley is trying to make the green M&M wear Larry David sneakers and we will not stand for it”.
This is where we get to the really raunchy stuff; Dickson is a pungent non-mincer of words, with fierce opinions. Savor her rant (or leave now, if you’re a kid or sexually modest):
The recent push to rebrand corporate logos to be more inclusive has, for the most part, been a good thing. Making Barbie more body-positive? Great. Renaming Aunt Jemima syrup? About damn time. Yet in brands’ fervent quest to capture youth audiences and capture the woke zeitgeist, they may be going just a little bit too far. Case in point: the slut-shaming of the green M&M.
Essentially, this is what happened: the CEO of Mars Wrigley, the company that makes M&Ms, announced today that it would be revamping the characters to make them more “current” and “representative of our consumer” (presumably, people united by their willingness to ignore the fact that they’re eating shittier Reese’s Pieces). How do they plan on doing this, you ask? By replacing the characters’ footwear.
This distinction is pretty negligible for the male characters (CNN goes into detail about the changes, but frankly they are men, and thus I don’t really care). For the female characters, however, the changes are apparent and formidable. The brown M&M’s heels have been lowered to a more sensible Alexis Neiers-esque kitten heel, while the green M&M’s signature go-go boots have been swapped out for non-descript white sneakers, the kind that Melanie Griffith’s character in Working Girl changes into at her desk to signal she’s a Girlboss with a head for business and a bod for sin. Let the river run, ladies! (Mars Wrigley did not immediately return a request for comment.)
For those familiar with the iconography of the green M&M, this change is nothing more than tectonic. I imagine it is similar to how the people of Wittenberg must have felt watching Martin Luther nail his 95 Theses of the Protestant Reformation to the church door. But it is also a major error on Mars Wrigley’s part, because the green M&M being a dirty slut, as signified by her iconic white go-go boots, is precisely what has engendered her a devoted fan base, particularly among similarly libidinous women and gay men who have embraced the character. Consider, for instance, [an] ad where she does erotic ASMR for no reason other than to give the male M&Ms a massive boner, then feigns ignorance at the impact her performance has. Can we, or should we, attempt to put a cap on such virulent, untrammeled female sexuality? Can you stop the wind from blowing? Can you prevent a dog from vomiting after eating too much cheese? Can you keep Twitter libs from being self-righteous about adhering to COVID protocols? No, you cannot.
The green M&M has spent decades building her brand as a horny, sexy bitch, and for what? For her creators to give her Larry David footwear in the name of feminism? For Mars Wrigley to give themselves pats on the back and big fat fucking raises at the next corporate retreat in Palo Alto? Guess what: the green M&M is a feminist, and she’s a dirty slut. We are real, and we exist, and we refuse to tolerate this disgusting attempt at erasure. We are given so little, and we have tolerated so much. Let the green M&M keep her go-go boots. Let her get blackout and suck dick in the bathroom at Acme on a Wednesday. This is what we want. This is what we deserve. This is what she deserves.
Yes, yes, she should get to suck dick as much as she wants; if that’s her pleasure, she should be encouraged to, as Paul Morris puts it in his series of gay porn films from Treasure Island Media, Suck Dick and Save the World (subtitle: “saving the world one dick at a time”). Meanwhile, someone — maybe Ms. Brown — should give her a really good ride by going down on her. It’s what she deserves.
Note on ASMR. Very brief summary from Wikipedia:
Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), sometimes auto sensory meridian response, is a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, it has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia and may overlap with frisson.