One of the ways in which salt-and-pepper shaker sets humanize the figures they depict who are not in reality human beings is by means of clothing. They have hats on, or scarves, or shoes. I thought it might be interesting to look at some sets in which that happens, in a series of posts beginningContinue reading “Pantlessness”
Category Archives: Stereotypes
Chubby Chef Goes Solo, and Apparently Sings Solo, Too
This not-so-svelte cook is all on his own: With a moustache similar to the gentleman in the set I discussed a couple of posts ago, he seems to be aspring to the Italian-chef stereotype: not just large-tummied and round-cheeked (and cherubically round-nosed), but with a moustache, another perky handlebar moustache. And from the lookContinue reading “Chubby Chef Goes Solo, and Apparently Sings Solo, Too”
Chubby Chefs Cooking for Campbells
Yet another set of chubby-cheeked chefs: This wide-eyed pair works for certain soup company, it seems. They are sitting on their cans. Their cute chubbiness confirms the chubby cuteness cliché. An odd thing about this set is the variant shape of the containers of condiments against which the two chefs lean. He leans against aContinue reading “Chubby Chefs Cooking for Campbells”
Chubby Chefs
Speaking of stereotypes (as I have doing in recent posts about salt-and-pepper depictions of Asiatics): did you notice how chubby all those chefs are, in the set I talked about in my last post? And indeed, not really very much to my surprise, other sets depicting non-Asiatic chefs are equally chubby–like this one: This timeContinue reading “Chubby Chefs”
Chinese Cooking Clones
As I suggested in an earlier post, alongside the exotic aliens, the other major branch of Asiatic stereotypes represented in my salt and pepper shaker collection consists of cooks. Here’s a pair: The standard stereotypical slanty eyes, so slanty that seem to be creepily without any whites, and this time accompanied by jolly rounded cheeksContinue reading “Chinese Cooking Clones”
Non-Specific Exotica
Since I’ve been looking at orientalist stereotypes, evocations of the mysterious East, this seems like a good time to take a look at this set: Not Asiatic, but still evocative of orientalism and the mysterious other. I think these are maybe supposed to represent some kind of Africans–or Polynesians, or Indonesians or native South Americans,Continue reading “Non-Specific Exotica”
More Aesthetic Asians
Just to confirm how typically and conventionally stereotypical the set I described in my last post is, here’s a second set that repeats the same basic characteristics: slanty-eyed Asians of uncertain gender, both dressed in exotic pantsuits, both wearing strange round hats, both sitting on the floor, both engaged in the acts of sensitive aesthetes–thisContinue reading “More Aesthetic Asians”
Perfectly Armless
Some months ago, I did a series of posts about shaker sets that represent women with various limbs, etc., missing. I described this set: And this set: But I somehow managed to forget about this set: Here we have two more versions of what appears to be a certain sort of masculine ideal of womanhood:Continue reading “Perfectly Armless”
Skin or Mask?
Here is another example of a set of shakers that exudes an intriguing ambiguity. It represents a clown, clearly, accompanied by a drum. Why a drum? I have no idea. Perhaps the drum originally came from a different shaker set–although the color tones do suggest these two do belong together. But that’s not the sourceContinue reading “Skin or Mask?”
Binaries as Scriptive Things
Before I head onwards towards a consideration of the novelty aspects of shaker sets as scriptive things, I think there’s one other aspect of salt-and-pepper sets generally that needs to be considered: their implications as a coupled pair. The question here is not just, why salt and pepper, but also, why salt and pepper together?Continue reading “Binaries as Scriptive Things”
Perry Nodelman 