Next in my series of "Lovely Lady Mascots" art cards is the
Land-O-Lakes Indian Maiden.
I was trying to avoid the mildly racist/culturally insensitive mascots (Sorry, folks, no Aunt Jemima), but I've always had a soft spot for the Land-O-Lakes girl. I'm kind of amazed she's made it from the 1920's to the present day relatively unchanged where similar ethnic stereotype characters (like Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima etc) got a justifiable makeover or (like the the Frito Bandito or the Cherry Clan) were eliminated all together.
She was originally painted in 1928 by Arthur Hanson (a colleague of Norman Rockwell, interestingly enough). His original art hangs at the company headquarters in Minnesota. Not sure if it's available for public display though.
Next up: Wendy of
Wendy's Old Fashioned HamburgersLand O' Lakes Indian Maiden is a registered trademark of Land O' Lakes, Inc.
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Sta.sh
i love this art here by the way, it's so cute!
This is just a mascot.
I mean come on...my high school mascot was a Native American Warrior and I saw nothing racist about that.
I looked up to the mascot as something that stood for strength, hard work, and the fighting spirit.
Animals can be our mascots like wolves and tigers....why can't humans?
I'm familiar with this brand and I see nothing racist about it. It is just an Native American Maiden holding a box of butter. What is so mildly racist about that?
One one hand all I can see is an image of sweet looking young Native American girl holding a packet of 'Land O Lakes' Butter.
She's not going round beating her kids (or being beaten herself by her husband) or any of the other negative things that are/were said about Native Americans at the time the original ad was painted.
Unless the ad that you based this on had her looking like she was in a WB cartoon about 'Cowboys Indians and Bugs Bunny' or that 'Land O' Lakes used to/still do exploit their Native American workers (you never know) that they doubtless must have in their workforce then I don't see anything offensive In this image, which I only saw (until I read the text below it) as being picture of a pretty girl who reminded me of an Anime girl named Zia from an 1980s cartoon entitled 'The Mysterious Cities of Gold' Zia by the way was an Inca who'd be sometimes called an 'Indian' (by the bad guys, as one would expect) and (oddly) by the show's narrator.
I'm I missing something here or has PC finally gone REALLY potty?
Haha, I definately get where you're coming from trying to avoid the (too many) racial stereotypes in food advertising, but I too always had a soft spot for her, so I'm obviously glad you did one of her.