In Case Anyone Needs a Way to Procrastinate:

The Power of Neologisms!

A Stepford Reboot

We've come a long way, baby. The ideal woman of the 50s was coiffed, pearled, and aproned—a bastion of motherhood and wifehood, completely fulfilled by the perfection she creates. Snacks on the table when the children walk home from school? Check. Kind words for a child with hurt feelings or scraped knees? Check. Nutritious breakfast to fuel a family headed out the door to experience the day? Check. Perfectly prepared homecooked meal in the oven just waiting for the arrival of a hard-working husband? Check.

In her role as the Beaver's mother now forever preserved by re-runs, Barbara Billingsley serves as the go-to cultural reference of an ideal 50s woman. But looking at her today, we can't help but notice what we did not see: an identity other than that given in service to her husband and sons. At the same time modern women laugh at the idea that a woman could actually want that role for herself, we are also still drawn by the ease with which she fulfills her family's needs. We know that it is only a television show. We know that it represents a very small slice of actual life experienced by women in the 1950s. Yet we have naturalized her experience and it overwrites whatever reality was actually experienced by women of the time. And the efficiency of the system she seems to command is enviable to any modern mother.

Today we enthusiastically celebrate the emancipation (so to speak) of wives and mothers who are now freed to manipulate their own paths and disrupt historical male roles of husband and father. There are ongoing obstacles, certainly, but women have made inroads in every area of male strongholds, including combat and sports. We can have it all, if only we stay organized, exercise, push hard enough, and work as hard as men do. Or can we? For all of the perceptions we have supposedly shed in our journey, the identity of "mother" is still loaded with a powerful set of concepts and emotions. The modern mother, far from progressing, has not changed her traditional identity role, but simply taken on the additional role traditionally assigned to fatherhood. And the modern mother is one who is somehow capable of perfectly blending these roles and if she fails to do so, she merely needs the right organization. Bluntly put: to fail to do so is to admit to failure as a mother.

In the past 40 years, mothers have joined the job force enmasse. This has spawned an entire industry dedicated to a client who is busy, savvy, capable, and bankrolled by her own efforts. Working Mother magazine is one such animal.

Yet for all the promise that the title offers, Working Mother actively works to create an unattainable standard. Recently, Working Mother began featuring celebrity mothers on their covers, whose lives are a far cry from that of the average working mother. "There is no typical day for me. That’s something I realized a while ago," says actress Amy Brenneman, featured in the October 2010 issue. "So we have a terrific nanny who comes in the morning because some days I leave before 5 a.m." And a nanny is a reality for some working mothers. But the article goes on to say that her contract states that her children have their own trailer on set, an idea clearly unrealistic for all but a small minority of women. And the "real" women they profile are highly paid and highly positioned, features of employment millions of mothers do not share. Furthermore, both mothers and children are fluffed and polished to perfection before having their photographs taken in an elaborately staged scene meant to look like their own homes. This further serves to replace the reality of working motherhood and replace it with a manufactured, idealized, Stepfordized image of reality.

It is the Stepford Wives rebooted for the modern age. Instead of mere perfection at home, Stepfordizing requires perfection at work as well.

Finally, Version 2.0

The World as Seen Through a Film of Ethanol

“Keep in mind that the nearest bacteria may be behind you.” – Purell advertisement

In 1997, the hygiene company GOJO introduced the public at large to a new type of clean, and through aggressive marketing campaigns has raised the bar for cleanliness to new, dizzying heights. This was the year that Purell, the first product of its type, hit the markets. Originally designed for use by GOJO's traditional industrial market base in hospital and restaurant settings, GOJO soon figured out how to tap into pre-existing cultural insecurities, weaving their product into the daily lives of people in every walk of life. The underlying assumptions at work in this advertising campaign are two-fold, however. Campaigns rely both on the public's growing germophobia and on older, traditional assumptions of women's roles, place, and purpose.

The surface-level Myth paints a simplified and terrifying version of the world, one where an indiscriminately horrible and alien population of invisible germs must be constantly eradicated for the well-being of humanity. It would be incomprehensible to live in harmony with these things. In addition, there is no room for good bacteria or the body's own natural defenses, and soap and water isn't capable of saving us. Rather, we must rely on Purellifying.

Other, subtler elements of this Myth point to the less obvious, second Myth that Purell relies upon, however. The blending of these two is most obvious in the name of the product itself, “Purell” being a combination of the word “Pure,” and the suffix “ell” (or elle). The first of these morphemes combines notions of something untainted, unmixed, undiluted, and unpolluted, with moral and religious connotations of separation from all things immoral, and sexual abstinence. While these former connotations are already traditionally more associated with the feminine than the masculine, the suffix “ell” leaves no doubt that this is a feminine concept. “Ell” heightens the feminine when used at the end of English words, bringing to mind popular magazines such as Elle, and the now defunct Mademoiselle, and is used to imply diminutive status. In short, the name simultaneously plays on a desire to eradicate all other life-forms from the body, and communicates that a feminine product is needed to get the job done.

Not only is a feminine product necessary however, but a woman to wield it. Although hand sanitizer is mostly touted as a protection from illness, and is at best only capable of killing bacteria rather than removing physical grime, it is also portrayed as a cleaning product – one that will naturally be used by women. This is easily demonstrated by a glance at the scents currently available. Amongst images dominated by women and children, Purell's promotional website offers Spring Bloom, Ocean Mist, Crisp Apple, Cucumber Melon, and Spring Splash, each common name a treasure-trove of Myth in its own right, with an overall ironic theme that connects women to nature. Each name draws on elements of nature that are joined to stereotypical Western femininity throughout the ages: flowers; spring; the ocean and water in general; the overflowing bounty of Ceres herself represented through fresh fruits and vegetables, not to mention the seduction of Eve through an apple. In addition, Purell offers product variations that not only boast these fresh and dainty scents, but also borrow from other elements of culturally required feminine hygiene and upkeep in the form of Moisture Therapy, and Purell with Aloe. With Purell, women will not only be clean, but have soft skin to boot, though one is left to wonder why GOJO sees women as in need of so much more sanitizing than men.

Markers of femininity extend to advertising campaigns as well. Here, it is the woman’s job to protect those she loves, namely children, from a “dirty world”, and the way to do this is through constant use of Purell.

Purell is also happy to provide more details about the world that has given rise to womens' constant need for their product. In short, it is a world that is too dirty, chaotic, and uncontrollable, one where Purell is necessary to gain at least a small amount of control back. For example, recent magazine advertisements shout in bold, capitalized black text on a stark white background: “BACTERIA FOUND IN THESE PAGES INCLUDED IN NEWSSTAND PRICE,” inviting readers to “Think of all the people who flipped through this magazine and put it back on the rack. Fathers on diaper duty. Mothers with runny noses. Cooks who handled raw meat all day. They’re strangers to you but their germs just got pretty friendly with your hands.” This message paints a world that is not only chaotic, however. It also is full of antisocial people who do not value cleanliness. People who don’t care that their actions will lead to a violation of another's person. People that women need to be protected from. On this level, Purell and company also paint a world that glorifies isolation; where even indirect contact with other members of a community equals contamination rather than any sort of beneficial exchange or synergy. Instead, women should strive for Purellity.

In fact, the contamination that Purell warns against is much worse than simple infection or illness. Rather, if women don't guard their Purellity, the filth and chaos of the world will become an inextricable element of their very being. As put by a recent ad campaign, “You are what you touch.” You will not only be weakened and sickened by outside forces, you will become them. You will merge with toilets and trash cans, and you will be chaos incarnate:

Conclusion of some sort...

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like A Myth...

We must put on our best clothing. Our children must be best behaved. We must attend some sort of religious service, even if our shadow wouldn’t darken the door to a religious function under any other circumstances, excepting that of the death of a family member. We must have the most perfectly chosen gifts wrapped in the most perfect way delivered at the culturally appropriate time before the holiday celebration. Forget that the gift went on a credit card. Forget that you spent $75 on the ingredients to make a pound cake that the recipients won’t like. Forget that it cost more than the gift inside the box to mail said present. Forget that you haven’t seen their children in years and have no idea what toys are trending on the opposite coast.

There are few, I would imagine, that would dispute this sort of celebration, no matter the holiday, takes an idea of ideology or theology and profanes it in the worst possible way. Recently, America has developed an attitude that appears to reject this sort of celebration, with cries of “Christmas already?!?” heard in the aisles of Target as the various artificial trees go on display in the days before the celebration of Halloween.

The idea of Christmas as a sacred holiday seems to have become profaned by both the commercialism that we all buy into (even those who regard Christmas as a religious holiday) and the embracing of Christmas as a secular holiday celebrated outside of a religious context. Both of these adaptations of Christmas are denigrated in the minds of those who wish it to remain about the birth of Jesus. But in order for Christmas to “remain” about the birth of Jesus, it has to have been about the birth of Jesus in the first place. And this is simply not the case. Biblical scholars have identified, based on textual clues in the Bible, that Jesus was probably born in the fall or spring. (He wasn’t born in the year “zero” either, but that’s a different story.) Like Easter, December 25 was a pagan holiday that celebrated a reversal of class situations (Saturnalia) in which masters became slaves and slaves became masters for the day. This was an apt choice by early Christian leaders, as Jesus—a simple carpenter—came as a sort of “unking.”

So at its very heart, the only claim that Christians have on December 25 is the renaming of an existing holiday that remotely suggests a correlation to Jesus. December 25, of course, was further strengthened by the celebration of Hanukah by those who practiced Judaism (again, another long side story). But the religious right (or traditionalists) try to assert that Christmas had a stronghold on this time of the year and is the only appropriate holiday that deserves observation. “Keep the Christ in Christmas” and “Jesus is the reason for the season” are two obvious recent examples of that sort of thinking. Yet to claim a season devoted to thousands-years-old celebrations as reserved for only a certain type of celebration is, simply, wrong.

The “tradition” of Christmas that both the sacred and secular share is the giving of gifts. This is actually the only part of Christmas that can be related to the birth of Jesus. Three wise men from the east came to bring gifts that they presented to Jesus. But the nature of those gifts, while holding real material value, were symbolic and held prediction of the future. The gifts we give today are anything but symbolic. At least they aren’t overtly. I do recall a time when my sister and I were shopping for a Christmas gift for my mother. “Let’s get her a wool sweater,” I suggested. “And tell her ‘we wanted to give you something as irritating as you are.’” However, the gifts most people exchange today rarely serve in a symbolic way.

At The Co-op

Here's another try. I think this one might actually be a myth...

Food co-ops maintain their mystique by presenting themselves as distinct from conventional grocery stores. What’s being sold in stores like Whole Foods or the Boise Co-op is atmosphere as much as product. It’s the mist covered produce, smartly designed product packaging and total lack of primary colors, all kept stocked by hip looking employees who each seem to be biding time before their next backpacking trip across Southeast Asia or their band’s next tour. It somehow feels healthy, and responsible, just being there.

The distinctness of the co-op, however, is not limited to product packaging or its choice of employees (the co-op type, all of whom are dedicatedly uniform in their expressions of distinctness). The co-op’s otherness is achieved in part by its appropriation of foods from around the world. The co-op aisles are filled with “ethnic” products which are sometimes intermingled with the more conventional American foods, and sometimes grouped together under generic aisle markers. The presence of this “exotic” food at the co-op is an integral part of the way the co-op locates itself in relation to other grocery stores; this location happens on what I’ll call the Foodtinuum.

Ethnic food in the co-op functions as an exotic form of its other products, which are already distinct from foods at conventional grocery stores: conventional red tomato sauce is bad; organic garlic and basil tomato sauce is better; Thai curry sauce with lemongrass and coconut cream is best. By purchasing these exotic foods, the responsible consumer is not only withdrawing support from the conventional production of food, they are progressing beyond conventional cuisine in general – they have moved from the far right of the Foodtinuum, where processed red sauce comes in a dull red can, to the far left where the product has been exoticized beyond recognition; to reach Foodtinuum nirvana is to purchase a product your friends have never heard of, and whose label you cannot read.

The appropriation of these exotic foods onto the Foodtinuum is problematic considering both the colonial history and economic globalization that enable the red curry sauce to be a profitable option for those who stock the co-op’s shelves. Entire food cultures, and the often troubled stories of how elements of them made it across the world and into fashion in American food blogs, “New American” cuisine and onto co-op shelves are lost in the simple fact that, well, curry is just more interesting than spaghetti (a once exotic food that has effectively crossed the Foodtinuum).

The narrow focus on staple foods from numerous countries acts as a sort of colonization itself; curry from Thailand, kim chi from Korea, egg rolls from China, sushi from Japan, refried beans from Mexico; from vast, diverse and holistic food cultures the co-op distills its selection to the foods that caricaturize each country in the Western mind. These food cultures and their representative staples are mocked by the aisle markers used to organize them: “Oriental,” “Hispanic,” “Ethnic” (the last being a catch all, especially for those foods that have been generalized beyond their origins – i.e. curry powder, an American generic for the various curry pastes used in different parts of the world).

The appropriation of new foods into the spectrum is necessary to keep the exotic sufficiently exotic. This is especially challenging as organics make their way into conventional grocery stores. It is now common to find partial or whole aisles dedicated to “Natural” foods at conventional stores; interestingly, this is also the best place to find “ethnic” foods as well. The co-op must keep up; as staple foods from around the world make their way across the Foodtinuum and into big, warehouse grocery stores, other, less familiar foods must be promoted as obscure.

For example, have your tried Kombucha? It’s fermented tea from Asia; it’s like regular tea but better. You can get it at the co-op.

Skateboarding Gay Style

From appropriation to marketing.

Neomorphus from Animatorio on Vimeo.

A Glee Slam

http://www.celebitchy.com/151008/bret_easton_ellis_watching_glee_is_like_a_stepping_into_a_puddle_of_hiv/