Here’s an addition to my series of posts on animals in human clothing that introduces a new hat but begins with a memory of some old ones. Some time ago, I wrote a post on this blog about these lobsters and their participation in their own death by boiling (see earlier post here): Back then,Continue reading “A Lobster Dressed for Lobster Fishing.”
Category Archives: Worker and Tools of the Trade
Ambiguously Gendered: Batting for Which Team?
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?”
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”
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.”
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”
Miniaturized Workplace Rage
This is a bit of a cheat, maybe. The typewriter on a desk, I now declare, goes with . . . a computer terminal: Well, it has a keyboard, right? And it’s sort of like a desk. You sit at it while working, right? Or at least, you used to do so, in an earlierContinue reading “Miniaturized Workplace Rage”
Two Seated Ladies
A seated woman sits down for a chat with another seated woman:The newcomer is a much more business-like looking woman. She has a crisp white collar, and no flowers, no puppy, no gardening hat. Is she, perhaps, a therapist of some sort, trying to assist our old friend with whatever horror it is that hasContinue reading “Two Seated Ladies”
Perry Nodelman 