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Land o' Lakes and a sense of loss



I can't look at a package of Land o' Lakes butter without feeling a sense of loss. 

Four years ago,  the company dropped Mia, the "butter maiden," from its package design. Mia had been around since 1928. She was a young indigenous woman, kneeling in stereotypical garb and clutching a Land o' Lakes container. The container had ... an image of Mia on it, clutching a Land o Lakes container.  

An inquisitive youth without enough to occupy his time could spend much of it staring at the design wondering how many regressions there are, trying to count the boxes nestled within one another. 

How do young people today first encounter the notion of infinite recursion, without Mia? 

What is worse: there has been no NEW package design.  The old design of a serene lakeside view has been retained unchanged, except for the absence of Mia.  That big "O" in the center of the product name that once framed her face now frames ... nothing.  Literally, it frames white space. It is as if the new designers were too lazy for a re-working so they just went with an erasure.


Yes ... I know and sympathize with the reasons for a change in packaging. A straight-up erasure? They could have done better. Heck, the Cleveland Indians became the Cleveland Guardians, a name that honors old Art Deco sculptures that are themselves part of the town's self image. 

The Indians did not become the Cleveland Blank White Spaces.

Just sayin'. 

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Comments

  1. HenrySeptember 13, 2024 at 8:26 AM

    Why was Mia's picture and why was the Cleveland Indians' name deemed offensive?

    ReplyDelete
  2. ChristopherSeptember 13, 2024 at 10:43 AM

    In the case of the cleveland indians, the problem was more the childish maniacally grinning image as a logo. The name was retired as collateral damage with the image. In the case of Mia, it was more a generic objection to the use of generic Indians as corporate mascots, a practice activists see as dehumanizing.

    ReplyDelete

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