Far Rockaway Stickball

When I was growing up in Far Rockaway, New York, I lived next door to Candy and Karen Rosino.  They were so exotic and everything that my family was not.  I’m not talking about socio-economic status; we all lived in the same “financial” bracket from what I could tell as a seven year old.  But while we were Romanian Jews, they were Irish Catholics. I loved playing with them. We lived on the street playing kickball, and stick ball, and flipping baseball cards, etc.

But one of the things I remember most about Candy, is she referred to her butt as her can.  I had NEVER heard that before. It was years before I didn’t think it had to do with the first three letters of her name.  Candy’s Can.

You know how kids do that…if they don’t know what they are hearing they make up reasons to explain it…for example when I was five-ish, I used to listen to the radio and when I heard the announcer say,”We will now pause for station identification.”  I always thought he must have meant vacation and that the radio station packed up went on vacation and then came back in time for the next segment.  Newark Airport to me, for years, was always someone saying New York very quickly.  What do you expect, I was five.  (Years later someone would publish that great book about commonly misunderstood lyrics like Springsteen’s famous “Wrapped up like a douche” or Creedence’s “There is a bathroom on the right.” OR Silent Night’s, “Round young virgin.” ( Candy, I’m sure knew the real words to that). I was 8, when we moved. It was the last time I saw Candy.  I was crushed.

I was crushed

But when I figured out that can meant tush, or tuchus, or butt, or ass (if no grown-ups were around) It was yet another example of how exotic my best friend was.

Candy had a small can, I was born with a large can.  Pepsi just unveiled their skinny can, last week, for Fashion Week.

Every year fashion week brings its share of articles about the dangers of anorexia and the attempts to address the tragic side effects of eating disorders among runway models, yet every year the models get taller and skinnier, at least from  the photographs accompanying the Fashion Week articles.

So when Pepsi, a sponsor of Fashion Week, decided to prance its  skinny can down the new product runway, I’m sure the company expected applause and immediate approval. After all was there a single short fat model on the runway?

Instead of hearing YES you CAN, however, Pepsi heard, ” OH NO YOU CAN(T)!  Fabulous punny headlines abounded:  Pepsi Fizzles Out, NEDA wrote, Christine Wans wrote,  “The new sleek Diet Pepsi “Skinny Can” has officially strutted it stuff at Fashion Week in New York City.” 

Sarah Skidmore explained the reasoning behind the protest succinctly in the Huffington Post, First she quotes the Pepsi spokesperson, “The can is a “taller, sassier” version of the traditional can that the company says was made in “celebration of beautiful, confident women.”  Skidmore then adds,”Some say Pepsi’s approach only reinforces dangerous stereotypes about women and body image.”  Really?  You Think??  Skinny once again is being equated with beautiful and confident.  I am all for diversity…in packaging…in bodies…in opinions…and if Pepsi wants to have a variety of shapes and sizes of cans on the shelf…fine with me!!!  After all the Pepsi Can we all grew up with was short and rounder than the new skinny can.  Kind of looks like ME!  But somehow, the product wasn’t packaged with  the message, “if you are a short, stout woman you are beautiful and confident and sassy!”

So in my book, (not the one I co-authored….my metaphoric book) it feels as if we have made some progress on the Eating Disorders Awareness and Size Acceptance fronts.  The one step forward two steps back feeling though was hovering. Almost every on-line article that I read about the opposition to Pepsi’s Skinny Can meta-messages was flanked by ads about how to lose your belly fat or Jennifer Anisten’s newest diet.  I’d like to tell the advertisers to shove those ads up their cans!!!

CAN(t) STAND THESE ADs

And I look forward to the day where Fashion Shows are really about the clothing and the fun of fabrics and looks and dressing in a way that feels good.  Perhaps one day we Can have at least Two Cans (and I’m not talking about the birds!)

Two Cans