This shaker set is not necessarily ambiguously gay–more like ambiguously gendered. Its two baseball players (who each look a little like stereotyped angry codgers wearing too much eyeliner), might be either both male or both female or a combination of one male and one female. The shaker on the left wears a pink hat, whichContinue reading “Ambiguously Gendered: Batting for Which Team?”
Category Archives: Salt-and-Pepper Sets
Ménage à trois petits cochons
Since I’m on the subject of pigs on top of other pigs (see my last post), consider these: As you can tell from the expression on his/her face, the pig on the bottom either is not happy about being piled on or is so happy about it that it’s put her or him into aContinue reading “Ménage à trois petits cochons”
Ambiguously Gay Pigs and Kitties (or Bears)
And yet more sets of ambiguously gay male pairs! Two more pairs, in fact. I’ll talk about them together here because they are surprisingly similar to each other. First, these are these two: They are pigs, clearly, cute chubby-cheeked smiling pigs. And even though they are wearing pink (a pink jacket in one case,Continue reading “Ambiguously Gay Pigs and Kitties (or Bears)”
Bøsse: In Danish, Both ‘Shaker’ and ‘Gay’
Having opened the possible closet of implication hidden in the all-male sets of salt and pepper shakers I’ve been looking at in my last few posts, I’ve found myself wondering if indeed there are any out and openly gay shaker sets in existence. A little bit of Googling led me to this pair: According toContinue reading “Bøsse: In Danish, Both ‘Shaker’ and ‘Gay’”
Ahoy, Maties
Nor, I now see, are the gay sailors I talked about in my last entry the only completely masculine pair in my collection. There are also these guys: It’s interesting that these two, as stereotyped pirates, should also have a connection to the sea, and should also be old and somewhat timeworn, with a whiteContinue reading “Ahoy, Maties”
Adam and Steve After All
This post stands as a warning about never making a generalization. In my last post, commenting on how salt and pepper shakers represent the gender of the characters they represent, I suggested that “once gender has been signified . . . then it is always, as far as I can tell, one shaker of oneContinue reading “Adam and Steve After All”
The News Is a Woman
In the miniverse of salt and pepper shakers, almost everything is either humanized or genderized or both. Most of the apples and bunnies and fire hydrants and yachts have been given some sort of human characteristic–human eyes or mouths or human smiles on non-human mouths. And apparently objects can’t be represented as somehow human withoutContinue reading “The News Is a Woman”
Breeding Like Rabbits
Sometimes sand-and-pepper sets make clear distinctions between the masculinity and femininity of the shakers they contain without having to resort to putting the animal figures they represent into human clothing. You might guess that this particular shaker represents a female rabbit just because she happens to be pink: But if you place her in relationContinue reading “Breeding Like Rabbits”
Underlining Gender Differences–Especially When We Kiss
One of the things I find fascinating about shaker sets is how their basic purpose–to contain two different condiments–becomes the basis of an ongoing confirmation, not only of the difference between salt and pepper, but indeed, of their oppositeness. They’re not just different flavors. One is black and one is white. Black is not justContinue reading “Underlining Gender Differences–Especially When We Kiss”
Shaker. Sculpture. Shaker Sculpture.
In my last post, after discussing the unsettling disproportion of a shaker set that contains a human figure accompanied by some relatively giant shakers (or perhaps, some normal-sized shakers accompanied by a decidedly tiny human figure, I promised to talk about another set I have that consists of the usual shaker-sized miniature human figure and aContinue reading “Shaker. Sculpture. Shaker Sculpture.”
Perry Nodelman 