Opinion: Next week’s news: Chairman Ben exploits underprivileged workers in developing world! ’08 candidates demand accountability from lovable icon turned corporateering colossus!
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Hang in there, Mrs. Butterworth! The glass ceiling that has kept not only women but racially embarrassing corporate avatars out of the top ranks of American business may finally be cracking. The New York Times reports that Uncle Ben, the fictional mascot for a line of rice and side-dishes, likes his own product so much he bought the company:
‘Uncle Ben...is being reborn as Ben, an accomplished businessman with an opulent office, a busy schedule, an extensive travel itinerary and a penchant for sharing what the company calls his ‘grains of wisdom’ about rice and life.’
A visit to Uncle Ben’s boardroom hints at what a thankless task it is to try and explain away these uncomfortable institutional histories. Couldn’t they at least have let Ben lose the bowtie? It’s an effort that reminds you of the ‘Cook’s Chicken’ plot in the movie version of Ghost World; the attempt to revise the past is almost as embarrassing as the actual past. It turns out the Uncle Ben logo isn’t some turn-of-the-twentieth-century icon that existed into the postwar era; he was actually invented in 1946. Not exactly recent history, but not colonial history either: As early as the 1934 version of Imitation of Life (not as good as the Douglas Sirk remake but worth watching, among other reasons, because it’s partly set in this reporter’s home town: get both versions on a single DVD!), the use of Louise Beavers’ mug as the logo for a product she doesn’t get to own was a major plot point—and even back then the audience was clearly supposed to understand the irony in that.
It’s an interesting site. Among the features are Ben’s appointment calendar and little book of aphorisms. These illustrate the kind of self-doubt and fearful circumspection that go into an effort like this—and yet you still can’t help thinking it all sounds too white. What exactly are they getting at with the Uncle Benism ‘How about some respect for the meat & rice man?’ And isn’t there a hint of Robert Ripleyesque exoticism in Ben’s writing about his adventures ‘traversing through Bengal and Doab...Turkey, Persia, the Steppes, and the Blue Mediterranean...magnanimous countries’? Or this item from Ben’s appointment book: ‘travel to Australia—meet with Tasmanian Aborigines. Demonstrate why my Instant Long Grain White Rice is far more expedient than a mortar and pestle.’
And what’s with that hyperurbanized writing style? ‘Tree sledding in Japan, while remarkably exhilirating, has a chafing factor that I had not fully taken into consideration.’ Or: ‘[T]he ground rules of proper gentlemanly etiquette prevent me from revealing my chronological age.’ For a while I thought the diction was supposed to sound overly clunky and high-falutin’. But then I noted that even in his jotted notes, Uncle Ben makes sure to respect the registered trademark logo, as in: ‘Perhaps this is why plates of my READY RICE® pilaf are so popular...’ Never attribute to malice what can be explained by a tin-eared copywriter.
Related: Josh Glenn reveals the hidden kinship of Jane Austen and Aunt Jemimah.