Annals of food politics: “Woke” M&Ms

I kept coming across this on Twitter, but had no idea what it was about.

I’ve always said food explains everything.  And here we are in the middle of M&M-inspired culture wars.

The New York Times to the rescue !

M&M’s, the ubiquitous candy brand owned by Mars Wrigley, announced on Monday that it would take “an indefinite pause” from its “spokescandies,” deciding that the cartoon characters with arms, legs and minimal facial features were simply too divisive for a polarized America to take…figures on the political right, including Tucker Carlson of Fox News, have criticized the candy as “Woke M&M’s,” owing to a series of cosmetic tweaks in recent years.

I love what the Times says next: “Here’s how we got here, to the extent that it’s possible to explain.”  Right.

Mars, it seems, issued the statement shown above last week, replacing the M&M characters with “the beloved Maya Rudolph.”

The Times attributes this to Fox News’ sTucker Carlson:

In January 2022, M&M’s gave the aching feet of its two female spokescandies a break, replacing the green M&M’s heels with flats and swapping the brown M&M’s stilettos for smaller, more comfortable heels…“M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous,” Mr. Carlson railed on his show. “Until the moment when you wouldn’t want to have a drink with any one of them. That’s the goal. When you’re totally turned off, we’ve achieved equity. They’ve won.”