Candy Girl

After the Brown M&M swapped her stilettos for lower block heels and the Green M&M traded in go-go boots for sneakers, Carlson declared that "M&M's will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous," and that when "you're totally turned off, we've achieved equity."
M&M's replaces its spokescandies with Maya Rudolph after Tucker Carlson's rants

Okay. I can't be the only person who is asking why on Earth Tucker Carlson appears to be of the opinion that anthropomorphized M&M candies should be a turn on. But more to the point, I also can't be the only person wondering why Tucker Carlson's call for female (or, perhaps more precisely, female-seeming) cartoon characters to be sex objects is being treated as anything other than bizarre. I mean, he's been at this for some time. Forbes reported on this strangeness a year ago. I have to admit, I was seriously tempted to bring back the "Rampant Idiocy" tag for this post.

Not that this is new. The sexualization of female cartoon characters goes back as long as there have female cartoon characters. But I don't know that I've ever encountered a situation where someone was complaining that some or another female cartoon character wasn't sexy enough, or that toning down the stereotypes was some sort of affront to good taste.

At the end of the day, however, I suspect that this has nothing to do with the footwear that's been chosen for a pair of cartoon candy women. Rather it's about the idea that there is something legitimate, if not simply proper, about treating women (real or imagined) in media as sex objects, there to be ogled by men who want to be turned on. And in that sense, I have to give Mr. Carlson credit for managing to get that case out to a large audience without being called out for it. He's taken aim at the idea that women's sensitivity to being sexualized is the problem, rather than the uncomfortable or even dangerous situations they understand result from that sexualization. (While the second may be rare, depending on the circumstances, it isn't going anywhere, so neither is the first.)

I'm disappointed that Mars Wrigley Confectionery took the bait on this one, since it really seems to me that this is simply a case of Tucker Carlson trolling for views and to display to his audience that he can influence others to do nonsensical things. Maybe there there was a good reason for this, maybe it's a move that will cast the company in a better light later. But for right now, it just seems like caving in to a weirdo.