The Bellman.
sell-out zone
Monday, August 08, 2005
Capitalism at its finest
I'm stuck behind a firewall, so I can't access this, but word on the street is that the-blog-which-shall-not-be-named-at-Panera-Bread-due-to-a-phonetic-resemblence-to-an-act-frowned-upon-by-Panera's-corporate-masters is running a choose-the-creepiest-products poll. You should vote since I can't. In the meantime, here are a couple of creepy products that may or may not have made their list.
First, from the Black Panther Party, Burn, Baby, Burn Revolutionary Hot Sauce.
As you probably noticed, that's not a very good picture. While searching the internets for a better image, I found Hot Sauce Harry's Bomb Laden Hot Sauce.
Maybe those aren't exactly creepy.
The Bomb Laden Hot Sauce strikes me as vaguely (or maybe not so vaguely) racist, but what really bothers me about it is that it reeks of the same good 'ol boy machismo that gave us Abu Ghraib. Still, I suppose it could be worse.
The Black Panther's sauce has sparked a minor controversy. As near as I can tell the main complaint is that the sauce celebrates violence. Thinking that it does seems to me to require a pretty shallow understanding of the forces that sparked the race riots, but maybe so. At any rate, as far as I'm concerned the problem is that this kind of merchandising trivializes the Black Panther Party, reducing their legacy to nothing but another piece of '60s kitsch. Which would bother me less if I didn't sort of want to buy a bottle.
First, from the Black Panther Party, Burn, Baby, Burn Revolutionary Hot Sauce.
As you probably noticed, that's not a very good picture. While searching the internets for a better image, I found Hot Sauce Harry's Bomb Laden Hot Sauce.
Maybe those aren't exactly creepy.
The Bomb Laden Hot Sauce strikes me as vaguely (or maybe not so vaguely) racist, but what really bothers me about it is that it reeks of the same good 'ol boy machismo that gave us Abu Ghraib. Still, I suppose it could be worse.
The Black Panther's sauce has sparked a minor controversy. As near as I can tell the main complaint is that the sauce celebrates violence. Thinking that it does seems to me to require a pretty shallow understanding of the forces that sparked the race riots, but maybe so. At any rate, as far as I'm concerned the problem is that this kind of merchandising trivializes the Black Panther Party, reducing their legacy to nothing but another piece of '60s kitsch. Which would bother me less if I didn't sort of want to buy a bottle.
