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On the Box
April 25, 2008 - 12:35pm — Katie Liederman
Yesterday my phone was stolen by a junkie in an antique shop, so I've had to get a new one — my sixth in four months. Having angrily made the purchase at Verizon, I was astonished when my eyes fell on the image that decorated the cover of the box. Generally speaking, what you'll find on cell phone boxes (or on board game boxes, or in college catalogues), is a clean-cut person of color posing awkwardly in a pair of Dockers as he high-fives a redheaded friend in a wheelchair.
Nowadays people get ultra-jazzy with the ethnic combos: you'll see a Pizza Hut ad featuring a husky Native American woman, her svelte Rastafari husband and their kids: an adopted Croatian toddler sitting in the lap of her older Inuit brother, who has Down's Syndrome. The clan is gathered around a pizza in matching L.L. Bean sweaters, laughing feverishly as they devour some weird cheese-in-the-crust concoction, flinging garlic knots up in the air, just chillin' and loving life. Yet still, they manage to look less "We Are the World" and more like a mutant Hootie and the Blowfish cover band. The reason? They look whiter than me.
Pigtails and turtlenecks and pale jeans with elastic waistbands — these companies put these strange amalgamations of people in their ads cause they're trying to compensate for the fact that they have approximately no people of color on staff in upper management and want you to think that they're not prejudiced. "We CAN all just get along!" their transparent marketing ploys scream. Having grown so accustomed to such absurdity, I was beyond taken aback when I saw the figure emblazoned on the box that housed my new phone: a white girl. A blond white girl. With blue eyes, freckles and a little French mani. She's smiling, she's kind of tan and she's wearing a madras-printed polo. A limp, multi-colored beaded necklace hangs from her neck, the type that you buy from a pothead at some weird music festival your first year at college to seem bohemian and distance yourself from your middle-class upbringing.
I was outraged. "Is this 198-fucking-6?!" I thought. How DARE they? A WHITE GIRL on the box?! I felt dirty just holding it. I tried to redeem myself by eating tandoori shrimp for dinner, but it didn't do any good. Feeling guilty somehow for endorsing their bigotry, engulfed in a cloud of shame, I fell asleep in a t-shirt that screamed "ISRAEL!" while listening to Panamanian flute music. That made me feel better.
Nowadays people get ultra-jazzy with the ethnic combos: you'll see a Pizza Hut ad featuring a husky Native American woman, her svelte Rastafari husband and their kids: an adopted Croatian toddler sitting in the lap of her older Inuit brother, who has Down's Syndrome. The clan is gathered around a pizza in matching L.L. Bean sweaters, laughing feverishly as they devour some weird cheese-in-the-crust concoction, flinging garlic knots up in the air, just chillin' and loving life. Yet still, they manage to look less "We Are the World" and more like a mutant Hootie and the Blowfish cover band. The reason? They look whiter than me.
Pigtails and turtlenecks and pale jeans with elastic waistbands — these companies put these strange amalgamations of people in their ads cause they're trying to compensate for the fact that they have approximately no people of color on staff in upper management and want you to think that they're not prejudiced. "We CAN all just get along!" their transparent marketing ploys scream. Having grown so accustomed to such absurdity, I was beyond taken aback when I saw the figure emblazoned on the box that housed my new phone: a white girl. A blond white girl. With blue eyes, freckles and a little French mani. She's smiling, she's kind of tan and she's wearing a madras-printed polo. A limp, multi-colored beaded necklace hangs from her neck, the type that you buy from a pothead at some weird music festival your first year at college to seem bohemian and distance yourself from your middle-class upbringing.
I was outraged. "Is this 198-fucking-6?!" I thought. How DARE they? A WHITE GIRL on the box?! I felt dirty just holding it. I tried to redeem myself by eating tandoori shrimp for dinner, but it didn't do any good. Feeling guilty somehow for endorsing their bigotry, engulfed in a cloud of shame, I fell asleep in a t-shirt that screamed "ISRAEL!" while listening to Panamanian flute music. That made me feel better.
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30 Comments
well well
i think after the 2nd in 2 or 1 or 3 months however many times you've had to lose it, i would just say, meh screw it. id go with prepayd until my badluck decided to disipate. i mean its alot cheaper then dealing with claims. took me 4 months just to get a phone back from claims when someone took my phone. and although i am a loving person if i knew who took my phone, i would hunt them down. but meh that is just me.
MitchkA
-let life take you-
_Let dreams make you_
using a payphone...is that eighties, or nineties?
the pictures really tie the whole piece together. we are the world. yes we are.
far more eighties
most people didn't really start having a cell phone till 97/98/99, so i see your point, but still. using a pay phone, specifically if you look really stressed out as you do so because you have someplace important to be and something's come up is so 80s.
20 bucks
I lost my cell phone last weekend in a park while walking my dogs with some friends, at one point we sat on a bench to people watch, I noticed a family next to us - man/father sat on the bench and the mother and daughter were attempting to throw a frisbee around....after a while we left and i realized my phone was gone. My girlfriend tried to call my phone a few times, finally someone answered.. the man on the end said - "yeah I got your phone -what are you gonna give me? I want a reward.." When she asked where he was, he said "come to where you were sitting I'll find you, and I want 20 bucks."
Great we found the phone - and of course they want a reward this is Philly...what do we expect...
We returned to the park and to the bench we were sitting at - the father/ man I had seen earlier was still in the same place talking on a cell phone..my gf called my cell again and this time a female answered, we told her we were at the bench - and we have the 20 bucks.. she began to give us the runaround, - and hung up. We called back but at this point I was ready to just call sprint and cancel - I imagined calls being made to far away lands, or sealing up a major drug deal and thought I was screwed either way, we were yelling this to the voice on the other end - it wasnt looking good.
I had an idea - I would ask that guy who was sitting next to us - if he saw anyone pick up my phone..he was still chatting his cell, so I decided to wait - just then we turned around and his daughter was walking cautiously towards us - we looked at each other, I then realized she was the female voice on the other end, she suddenly held up my phone, "did you lose this?" "Yeah - I said thanks alot" I gave the girl the 20 bucks.. I looked at her father still sitting on the bench - he had been listening to us the entire time.
We just took the phone and left, but only after we shot looks of death to the man and called him a pimp.
Sure - I'm glad I have my phone back - but I was so saddened that this girl was wrapped up this plot for a $20 dollar reward, she was maybe 12 years old.
Geez. Another fine example of...
Breeding...it's not for everyone. Peace, Jodie
By the way...
Seeing "we are the world" it reminded me about what I heard last past weeks : there is a crisis going on (because of cell phones, I think), coming from America (you, dear) and creeping slowly into Europe... But, as I heard that there were people revolting because of starving NOW in Africa, in Asia, I didn't hear ANY media campaign to help them (in France).
Have you heard about it in America ? Phone me.
It can be very fashionable and "worldy" to help starving people... (bad joke, I know).
hmmm
lemme get this straight:
there is a crisis going on in the world because of me, and it involves people starving in the third world, and what makes it worse is that i am so concerned with being "fashionable" that i am oblivious to the aforementioned crisis? whoa! that sounds about right. good call.
No, too complicated for me...
I think it's not straight but really complicated (so lez?).
I was jocking (trying in fact to make a link with your post-not only with "we are the world"-, and the phone was the link).
And indeed I was thinking about how convincing people who don't feel concerned (I don't know about you...).
I'll try to be more clear next time.
*cheers*
unless you are exaggerating
why have you needed 6 cell phones in 4 months? what are you doing? i want to hear that story.
nothing too exciting
i've just been leaving my phones in cabs on a bi-monthly basis for a long time now. never by a junkie though.
Hummmmmm...........
Don't you have a "special" place to hide your cell phone so you won't lose it, like the rest of us do??
Peace Out ;-)
good idea.
my bra, perhaps.
Awesome
Another great piece of writing Katie. You always find a way to amuse me.
lol
ah, see what i missed by having a life somewhere out there?
shit. verizon? this is never going to work. i'm on at&t...
good blog.
uh..uh...what kind of stalker are you?
complainig cause she is in a diffent cell phone company?
First stalking rule: "DONT BE CHEAP"
Squirrel on crack '08
-----------------------
"Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today, I saw one. It got on at 42nd, and off at 59th, where, I assume it was going to Bloomingdales to buy a hat that will turn out to be a mistake -
why thank you
and i have a life! it's just solely comprised of anguishing over who's on the cover of my new cell phone box. is that not cool or something?
No worries Katie...
It's very cool. Excellent post as always.
I'm just sayin'.....
<3
I love you Katie Liederman!
love
thanks for the love (i often find myself pondering where it is, much like jt in that underrated/ widely-ridiculed B.E.P. song).
Katie
Just for putting up the pic of Hootie you totally rock. Best blog of the week. lol
Thanks!!
Katie...thanks for being you! Doesn't matter what happens in my day...yours is more interesting! Keep it coming!
Running for the box
Katie, your post made me go find my T-Mobile phone box. Si, I found a Hispanic represented among the photos of people on the box. Bueno. :-)
Damn? My box had a pic of the phone!
I'm just sayin'.....
I am so glad
I'm not the only one who thinks of this stuff.
Do you remember the episode of "Mad About You" when Jamie worried if they had enough gay friends? I got it.
Your friend,
Rusty
[lesbian humor; what a concept]
+ + + + + + + +
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
do you have enough gay friends?
i do. or maybe i don't. the more the merrier!
OMG (laughing!)
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) Peace, Jodie
Ummmm....
Katie,
Have you lost your marbles?
no
i'm just hyper-PC, which is really 80s.
haha..
...i agree, she just may have