UGH.

When my husband and I went shopping yesterday, we found ourselves following a particular van for miles.  The rear window of the van had one of those little “Calvin” cartoon characters urinating on the words “My Ex.”  There was also a large sticker right in the middle of the rear window with the logo of the Dodge Ram pick up truck.  It said, “Watch my Dodge while I Ram your girl.”  Charming, huh?  I don’t usually bemoan the “coarsening” of our culture (in fact I often enjoy it!) but I found this example utterly grotesque. 

Comments

[norbizness]

But the little Calvins praying in front of a cross are adorable, and the little Calvins urinating a cross even moreso. Calvin wiping his ass with the American flag? That's where right-thinking Americans (and Democrats running for higher office) draw the line! Hobbes the Tiger reading Leviathan? Too highbrow.

[aisy]

the calvin thing has got to go. all its incarnations are irritating. as for the other sticker... that's totally crude. how people find that amusing is beyond me.

[The Happy Feminist]

I like Norbizness's take -- I can mount a campaign for office based on eradicating the particular urinating Calvins that offend me.

[Clare]

You know how you see dirty white vans around the place with "clean me" or "also available in white" written on it? Well, I saw a van yesterday with "if only my wife was this dirty". Too far, I felt!

[aspazia]

First of all, since I have been mostly a lurker until now, I want to say it is so exciting to find another UU feminist blogger!

Now, to my comment. I think it makes perfect sense to be offended by these stickers. They transcend coarseness. While much humor seems in part aimed at making us appreciate the ridiculous of everyday life, and to give us some distance from the world, these stickers seem more a call to arms.

It doesn't seem like the structure of the cartoon is to get us to laugh, but rather to aggressively assert a right to dehumanize others. If we changed the image from "ex-wife" to Jew, would this be funny?

Dehumanization is not the essence of funny, it is the essence of hatred and violence.

Ok, I will step down from my pulpit now.

[bmmg39]

I've been condemning t-shirts, greeting cards, bumper stickers, arts n' crafts, and all other merchandise that debases men and boys. I see far less that debases women and girls, but I condemn it just the same.

boy genteel

[Amanda Marcotte]

Bemoaning the coarsening of the culture would be beside the point anyway. Jokes about violence towards women were quite popular in the time conservatives long for--the 50s, with endless jokes about cavemen dragging women around by their hair.

[Richard]

Yeah, and there were probably a few kids in the van too. Lovely.

[Helena]

“Watch my Dodge while I Ram your girl.”
There are moments when I am happy about English not being my mother tongue. Then I can just read through a sentence like that and pretend it never happened.
No, seriously, ignorance is not an excuse and I DO have a pretty clear idea about the meaning of "ram".
I'm all for the freedom of speech. I just wish people knew how to use it in an intelligent way.

[Ann]

A few years ago I got a pickup truck, and when I bought it, it was covered in Jesus stickers. Then I bought a topper for it, separately, and when I got THAT it was covered in Big Johnson stickers. You know the ones, don't make me go there. But seriously, the back window of this thing was COVERED in them. It took me two hours with a razor before I was even comfortable driving the thing out of my driveway. (I did, however, enjoy the contrast with the Jesus stickers enough to take some pictures before I scraped them all off.)