Sunday, June 28, 2009

Wondercow: a dairy digression

For years, we have avoided breaching the dairy dam. Cows willingly in service to the dairy "farmers" aren't exactly suicidal. Well, not directly. More like severely masochistic. But this image has compelled us to wade into the milky mire.

We've seen ratfink farm employees before. And we've seen superhero-style Submissive Dominants before. But never have we seen a single figure who captured both of those nauseating archetypes so well. (This one took a valiant stab at it.)

And think about it: how does this make the least bit of sense? A cow championing the system, the entire worldview, that categorizes her as property—chattel! (Cattle, of course, being related to this legal term denoting tangible personal property.)

Here she is, "trapped by dairy price web." Does she enjoy her life of servitude? Is she fond of the machines that take the place of her nursing young, long gone to their own dark fates? Can you even begin to imagine how, as powerful as Wondercow is, she would fret and fight on the dairy industry's behalf?

In this, she's no different from any other submissive dominant we've seen, those craven colossuses who could easily put an end to their victimhood, but who won't. No! Like Wondercow, they take a perverse pride in their self-imposed impotence!

And we hate to be indelicate, but where are Wondercow's udders? We don't ask idly. She has a skirt and earrings, so we know she's female. She's a cow, after all. But why then does she have the physique—the abs and pecs—of a human male? Canadian dairy farmers rely on the secretions of her mammary glands and the mammary glands of her innumerable sisters. It's almost as if the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, the creators of Wondercow, are uneasy about the whole matter. Strange time to get bashful. They've built an entire industry on those secretions, and now they're playing dumb?

(Thanks to Dr. procrastiknitter for the referral.)

4 comments:

Desdemona said...

There's a dairy near us with a mascot called Super Cow; when my son was in kindergarten "she" (in the form of a person in what I can only describe as "bovine drag")paid a visit to his classroom: http://www.supercow.com/
Anyway, Wonder Cow's weirdly beatific expression in the first picture makes me think of a young Joan of Arc, hearing Michael the archangel's instructions; Wonder Cow's strangely androgynous appearance only strengthens the suggestion! Perhaps Wonder Cow's sacrifice will one day be rewarded with the starry mantle of sainthood? (Of course, it took Joan almost 500 years...)

Ben said...

All hail Supercow!

And all look strangely upon those who would pay actual money for this?

Desdemona said...

But...that was going to be your birthday present, BEN!

John V. said...

Oddly enough, when I was on the bus today I overheard a few fragments of conversation from four teenaged girls along these lines. "I thought 'cows' meant..." "Cows are female, bulls are the guys..."

If I am permitted a shameless plug, I posted a few thoughts about the strange way people think of the sex/gender of different animals on my blog here: http://darmokthegreen.blogspot.com/2009/06/he-animals-and-she-animals.html