By Lori Perkins
Just typing that headline makes me shake my head, because I still don’t really understand how illustrated biomorphic candies could cause so much culture war controversy, but, hey, it’s 2023 and almost nothing makes sense anymore.
So in this continuing conservative versus “woke” world we are living in, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and his band of merry macho men have felt deprived when the high heeled and booted “female” M&Ms were redesigned to wear more confortable shoes in keeping with a post-COVID trend among real women to stop wearing footwear that is crippling but pleasing to the male gaze.
There was all sort of talk about M&Ms wearing “lesbian footwear.” These are cartoons of candy, folks.
But it seems Mars Inc. (who makes the multi-colored chocolate covered candies) has thrown in the towel on this supposed battle of the “woke agenda” by replacing all the spokes candies with comedian Maya Rudolph, who is old enough to wear comfortable shoes. They released a straight-faced announcement on Twitter saying the spokes candies would be indefinitely paused and that there would be a new roll out of M&M advertising during the Super Bowl on Feb. 12th. Some pop culture watchers are saying that it’s all a grand advertising scheme like the death of Mr. Peanut for Planter’s Peanuts in 2020, when Baby Nut was launched in the Super Bowl ads.
But to quote another culture warrior, I really don’t care, do you?