Tempest in a Hitler-lookalike teapot

Why just a few months back, I was harrumphing – although I do not recall blogging – about Target’s using the color “Manatee” to describe a gray plus-sized dress. Perhaps not as god-awful as calling a pale pink XXL sweater “Sow”, or an off-white misses-sized anything “Lard.” Yet certainly not Target’s finest hour – not to mention one that does not seem all that unintentional, given that the very same version of the gray dress was not listed as “Manatee” for regular sizes. Hmmmm…

Anyhow, these days, the retail tempest in the teapot is over a J.C. Penney designer teakettle that sure enough resembles Hitler.

Although when I was a kid there was a swirly, mottled ham-pink and white tile in the bathtub that, to me, looked like a little boy in a tam o’shanter holding on to his dog during an icestorm,  I’m not one to see Our Lady of Guadalupe in a bagel. Still, this does rather look a bit like Hitler, if Hitler had been benevolently and cutely rendered by Walt Disney, rather than being portrayed as the villainous psychopath that he was.

Perhaps you don’t see it? Like looking at one of those perspective pictures that is a beautiful young woman or an ugly old crone, depending on the tilt of your head?

That curve of the handle is Dolph’s stylin’ swept bang. The knob’s his mustache. The spout well, sieg heil. (Or, as Jarrett Bellini has it on a very funny post on CNN, “That, or he's just waving to the Eva Braun coffee maker.”)

Anyway, if they hadn’t been stalled in traffic, this billboard would have been enough to cause a few California commuters on Interstate 405 to drive off the road.

Since those commuters were stalled in traffic, they had ample time to snap a pic and tweet, which was apparently enough for J.C. Penney to tear down the sign.

Seriously, folks, does any one really believe for a Interstate 405 minute – which, I suppose, can be pretty darned long if you’re stuck in traffic – that J.C. Penney and designer Michael Graves, the auteur of their upscale, Penney-shoppers-have-sophisticated-taste-too line of home furnishings, thought that a tea kettle spoofing Hitler would be a good idea? 

Having looked at Graves’ collection on Penney’s site, I’m well aware that it’s all about “putting the fun in functional” – that nifty toaster that looks like a piece of toast! – and the urge to “upgrade your lifestyle with cookware and small appliances that look great, function flawlessly, and make you smile.” And we all know that nothing says “make you smile” like a reference to Adolph Hitler.

I mean, it’s not completely impossible, but it is exceedingly difficult to believe that Graves is some sort of closet Nazi, or that he’s demented enough to think this would fly.

Nonetheless, there are always those who are willing to take umbrage, and one of them was the mayor of Culver City, where the offending billboard was erected. Jeffrey Cooper took his umbrage in Mother Jones, where he vented:

"I am disappointed JCPenney actually put that billboard up in the first place. ... As a Jew, I am offended, (and) as an elected official, I am mad that the city I represent is linked to this." (Bellini on CNN.)

Being offended “as a Jew”, well, okay.  But “mad” that his city is associated with this? This what? It’s not as if the American Nazi Party had decided to host their annual Hitler Birthday Gala there.  It’s not as if the citizenry of Culver City had engaged in some shameful behavior – say, voting to promote a Holocaust denial curriculum in their schools. It’s not as if Penney was micro-targeting the anti-Semites of Culver City.

Maybe Cooper should be mad that his city actually has billboards. They are, after all, a real eye-sore.

I do not predict a brilliant future for Mr. Cooper in elective politics. Then again, that’s what I said about Bill Clinton after a just dreadful speech he gave at a Democratic National Convention well before anyone had even heard of a town called Hope. After suffering through that awful ramble, I remarked that his career was toast.

Oh, well.

As for J.C. Penney, those tea kettles are flying off the shelves.

Given all the bad news Penney has had lately, this can only be seen as a good thing.

On the other hand…

I know, I know, the whistle doesn’t mimic the Horst Wessel Song, but, now that the resemblance to Der Fuhrer has been pointed out, who would actually want one of these tea kettles?

 

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Happy Birthday, A-Podenska.