THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509270040
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
DAVE SAYS:
Hey, Kerry, remember when I borrowed that stamp from you the other day? You know, when I said that if I didn't mail my mortgage check I'd be living on your couch by the weekend?
Well, I lied.
I used that stamp to send a photo of you to the Betty Crocker Makeover Contest.
What a swell idea the folks at General Mills have cooked up. They're going to pick 75 photos, jam them into a computer and munge them all together until they come up with a silicon-chip version of the Perfect American Woman. Multicultural, all-'90s, working-woman style.
You ought to qualify for at least one-seventy-fifth of that title. Besides, I kind of like the idea of buying a box of ginger-upside-down-raisin-tangerine cake with your picture on it, and then stuffing it into the back of my pantry, behind the cheese doodles.
Though I hope you come up a winner, Kerry, I really think they should keep the good old Madison Avenue version of Betty Crocker.
If you'll notice, not a single brewery sells a beer with a photo of the average adult American male on the label. Mr. Budweiser is not stupid. He knows there's no advantage in trying to sell his suds with a picture of a paunchy, balding guy in a tank-top shirt with one hand on the remote and the other plunged elbow-deep into a bowl of potato chips. Asleep, likely as not.
Likewise, it may not be a good idea to sell cake mixes with photo of a woman who has just smeared her mascara, broken a heel, been bawled out by her boss, discovered a new grey root, and come home to a houseful of screaming kids and a husband who wants to know why he's having chicken for dinner again.
Cakes are supposed to be . . . happy food.
If they need a more multicultural, '90s-looking Betty Crocker, they ought to just tone down the ink on the one we have and give her a more uptown hairdo. Otherwise, leave reality out of it. If I see Roseanne's face on a Betty Crocker box, I'll swear off cake forever.
KERRY SAYS:
OK, Dave, I admit that the thought of merging the images of 75 women into one creature is a bit frightening. I keep visualizing some sort of scary Picasso-esque Betty Crocker with two eyes on one side of her face and a chin on the top of her head.
But come to think of it, by the time I get home from work at night that's what I feel like.
Like a lot of working women, my makeup goes on at 6 a.m. and my hair gets its daily comb at the same time. Twelve hours later, when I'm hunched over the stove trying to concoct something the kiddies will eat, I'm one frightening looking woman.
Sorry about that. But no one in my family looks like they're on the verge of starvation.
Does it make a difference to me what Betty Crocker looks like? No, sir. Then again, I can look at her prim little visage and relate somewhat. Irish-Americans don't look all that different from WASPS.
But what about the other ethnic groups? What African-American woman could see anything remotely familiar in the white-bread face of Betty Crocker? How about Mediterranean types and Asians?
Betty Crocker is more than just a face on a box. She's a sort of cosmic kitchen goddess. It's her cookbooks that taught us to make pie crusts, casseroles, meat loafs and other comfort foods. She taught us there was no shame in thickening sauces with cream of mushroom soup.
Remember, Betty didn't always have a face. During the early years she was just a signature. Betty wrote letters during the Depression urging women to feed their families balanced meals on reduced rations. Women who then were relying on her expertise probably imagined Betty to be someone who looked a lot like them, or their mothers.
I think it's good that they want her to look like all of us. The new Betty Crocker will reflect that.
So thanks for the vote of confidence by entering me in the contest. I hope the picture you sent was taken before noon.
But the next time you're lucky enough to have someone bake you a cake, Dave, concentrate on the face of the woman who baked it - not the face on the box it came in. by CNB