I’m with The Bland

Good old “Fags”. We all need one in our lives. Something politically incorrect that is.
Busily stamping out anything that may be misconstrued and therefore offend, many products have undergone “image overhauls” (except, strangely, Coon cheese in Australia…what does this say about our Oz cuzzies’ complete lack of respect for Aboriginal culture? I need not elaborate, demonstrated by the company’s unapologetic stance in the past). The “majority” of the population are middle-class, family oriented conservatives, according to the Roy Morgan/Ogilvy & Mather Values Segments statistics commonly used in marketing, and are not exactly known for their liberal outlook on – well- just about anything.

Given this fact, I don’t know why any company think that its going to affect sales of any product in a significant way, since the amount of people that may get on their high horse, statistically speaking are such a tiny sliver as to hardly count. Regardless of whether this warrants any attention, products like Foodtown’s “Picanniny (sp) Popping Corn”, “Darkie Toothpaste”, the now horrifying “Nigger Polish” as well as “Fags” have now fallen by the wayside and have been replaced by the bland and inoffensive -as if we need any more of that in the world. Nevertheless, the packaging for these items in it’s original, unadulterated format is now highly collectable – a reminder of an era, that was perhaps not so much “less PC”, as perhaps simply more innocent times.

Addendum 22/03/2012: During my recent hiatus, I had time to rifle through my archives yet again – and found this modified box design from the late 1990s, early 2000s.

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