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Amusing read by a fave columnist. - Perdita
"Once I was crazy, but my ace in the hole was that I knew that I was crazy." -- Paul Simon
So the Vermont Teddy Bear Co. has issued a fun new bear in time for Valentine's Day. It's the usual cuddle-uddle bundle of fur, only this time it's in a notional straitjacket. The tag on the bear reads "Crazy for You." Well, you would have thought they'd started executing cheerleaders behind the factory. Statements were issued; pundits were alarmed; up was roared. The governor of Vermont opined: "Mental health is very serious. We should not stigmatize it further with these marketing efforts."
Well, yes, mental health is serious. Life is serious -- everyone dies at the end. Weddings are serious too, and broken hips, and bar exams, and paraplegia, and animal husbandry. It's all a serious business; we're surviving every day, striving for happiness, experiencing pain and loss, inhaling toxic chemicals, going to bed with the wrong people -- Lord, it's a wonder we get up in the morning. But things are also not serious. Things are also funny and cute and ecstatic and silly and odd and amazing. Most things in the world are serious and funny at the same time. Doctor: "You have inoperable brain cancer." Patient: "I'd like a second opinion." Doctor: "OK, you're ugly." This is a very old joke.
Ugly isn't funny. Brain cancer certainly isn't funny. And yet, people laugh. Obviously, there is context. You would not tell a brain cancer joke to the relatives of a man who recently died of brain cancer. On the other hand, you might very well tell a brain cancer joke to someone who has brain cancer. In fact, it's probably a good idea; most dying people hate visitors acting as though the funeral had already started. Hey, cheer up; I've got three days to live; let's try to make them moderately amusing. And open the damn curtains. And "crazy" is a perfectly good word. People who know they're crazy use it all the time. People who don't know they're crazy -- well, they're pretty hard to offend with the word "crazy."
There is a slow but sure return to the common vernacular, a move away from bureaucratic euphemisms. Queers have taken back the word "queer" and made it affirmative; cripples are beginning to take back the word "cripple." "Fat" is slowly coming back into vogue among the fat; "old" is now frequently heard on the lips of the old. They're perfectly good words that describe perfectly ordinary states of being. If you think there's shame attached to being queer or crippled or fat or old -- the shame is on you.
Are we going to lose "crazy"? "Inappropriately emotional," sings Patsy Cline, "I'm inappropriately emotional with disempowering feelings of loss for you." Van Morrison sings: "She gives me love, love, love, pathologically dissociative love."
And what's this about "we should not stigmatize it further with marketing efforts?" How does having a teddy bear with a mental condition stigmatize the condition? Seems to have quite the opposite effect -- the message is that mental patients are cuddly. Probably not true, but not stigmatizing either. Why shouldn't there be Bipolar Barbie? High-Functioning Ken? OCD Oscar? Heck, dolls get married and fight wars and urinate; why shouldn't they also have a few problems?
Besides, most of the Vermont Teddy Bears are bought by adult men around Valentine's Day -- that's why we're hearing about the fuss right now. It's not actually a kid thing. And there are certainly men I know who have been driven crazy by love. You ever have someone stop returning your phone calls for no reason? You ever have a woman start dating some biker guy who treats her badly while you, the guy who always treated her with respect, is left to eat Top Ramen and listen to Patsy Cline records?
Jon Carroll, SF Chron, January 26, 2005
"Once I was crazy, but my ace in the hole was that I knew that I was crazy." -- Paul Simon
So the Vermont Teddy Bear Co. has issued a fun new bear in time for Valentine's Day. It's the usual cuddle-uddle bundle of fur, only this time it's in a notional straitjacket. The tag on the bear reads "Crazy for You." Well, you would have thought they'd started executing cheerleaders behind the factory. Statements were issued; pundits were alarmed; up was roared. The governor of Vermont opined: "Mental health is very serious. We should not stigmatize it further with these marketing efforts."
Well, yes, mental health is serious. Life is serious -- everyone dies at the end. Weddings are serious too, and broken hips, and bar exams, and paraplegia, and animal husbandry. It's all a serious business; we're surviving every day, striving for happiness, experiencing pain and loss, inhaling toxic chemicals, going to bed with the wrong people -- Lord, it's a wonder we get up in the morning. But things are also not serious. Things are also funny and cute and ecstatic and silly and odd and amazing. Most things in the world are serious and funny at the same time. Doctor: "You have inoperable brain cancer." Patient: "I'd like a second opinion." Doctor: "OK, you're ugly." This is a very old joke.
Ugly isn't funny. Brain cancer certainly isn't funny. And yet, people laugh. Obviously, there is context. You would not tell a brain cancer joke to the relatives of a man who recently died of brain cancer. On the other hand, you might very well tell a brain cancer joke to someone who has brain cancer. In fact, it's probably a good idea; most dying people hate visitors acting as though the funeral had already started. Hey, cheer up; I've got three days to live; let's try to make them moderately amusing. And open the damn curtains. And "crazy" is a perfectly good word. People who know they're crazy use it all the time. People who don't know they're crazy -- well, they're pretty hard to offend with the word "crazy."
There is a slow but sure return to the common vernacular, a move away from bureaucratic euphemisms. Queers have taken back the word "queer" and made it affirmative; cripples are beginning to take back the word "cripple." "Fat" is slowly coming back into vogue among the fat; "old" is now frequently heard on the lips of the old. They're perfectly good words that describe perfectly ordinary states of being. If you think there's shame attached to being queer or crippled or fat or old -- the shame is on you.
Are we going to lose "crazy"? "Inappropriately emotional," sings Patsy Cline, "I'm inappropriately emotional with disempowering feelings of loss for you." Van Morrison sings: "She gives me love, love, love, pathologically dissociative love."
And what's this about "we should not stigmatize it further with marketing efforts?" How does having a teddy bear with a mental condition stigmatize the condition? Seems to have quite the opposite effect -- the message is that mental patients are cuddly. Probably not true, but not stigmatizing either. Why shouldn't there be Bipolar Barbie? High-Functioning Ken? OCD Oscar? Heck, dolls get married and fight wars and urinate; why shouldn't they also have a few problems?
Besides, most of the Vermont Teddy Bears are bought by adult men around Valentine's Day -- that's why we're hearing about the fuss right now. It's not actually a kid thing. And there are certainly men I know who have been driven crazy by love. You ever have someone stop returning your phone calls for no reason? You ever have a woman start dating some biker guy who treats her badly while you, the guy who always treated her with respect, is left to eat Top Ramen and listen to Patsy Cline records?
Jon Carroll, SF Chron, January 26, 2005
