Native American Style Necklace - MAKE MIA (Land o' Lakes Butter Maiden) GREAT AGAIN by towerdweller

Last crawled date: 4 years ago

I was reading comments online in which discussion of the Cultural-Cancelation of Mia, the Land o' Lakes "Butter Maiden", came up, and it was brought to my attention that her Woke removal from the butter brand's logo wasn't merely petty and offensive in and of itself, but had angered several entire Native American families enough that they've chosen to boycott it even if that means paying more money for other brands of butter. "Land o' Lakes got rid of the Indian but kept the land," etc. The problem is that Mia was NOT a stereotype, and in fact had been a symbol of Native American pride as a living part of modern America. Being a good-natured smartass and in total agreement that it is NOT harmful to represent "minority" people in product branding (or as the empowering emblems of sports teams), I offered to design this necklace for them, as a fun, artistic form of political protest that anyone who supports the representation of the character Mia in her proper place---on her people's land---can wear.
This is challenging to 3D-print because it has so many small pieces, but I've done my best, and as you can see (as soon as I actually string my beads and take the pictures) have already successfully printed it myself. It took a little trial-and-error at first, before I came up with that ring arrangement which fortunately minimized printing failures. Make sure your printer is well protected from cold drafts in the room, or the defects caused by the material shrinking at the top layer will cause the printer to knock beads loose and turn them into smol plastic hairballs! D: Even if one or two (or three) fail, though, thanks to the ring arrangement, as opposed to a tight clump arrangement, you should still get several good beads out of each batch. :)
I'll add a Redkins emblem alternative centerpiece eventually, for anyone else out there who feels similarly slighted that the Redkins logo was incorrectly benched as an offensive stereotype. I'm personally no fan of my viking ancestors, but you don't see me, getting hypersensitive about Vikings being used as sports team emblems; maybe only about Disney's noxiously politically-correct Princess Merida being a whinny, dramatic sissy. LOL
The REAL Pocahontas is MY favorite, powerful princess; everyone else in her time was scared of each other, but she was truly fearless and a mutual seeker of wonders and curious companions in distant lands----a lot more like sweet young Alice exploring the rabbit hole than Disney's thicc reinvention of Pocahontas as America's Shakespearean Juliette, in my personal opinion. ;P That movie was really about Chief Seattle's views, and Pocahontas, Far-Traveler (a D&D archetype) princess of the Powhattan tribe, wasn't even in it; but you don't see many other people getting upset about THAT historical deviance and disgrace paid in Pop-Culture to a Native American. Respect for the real girl, please! Just because I'm not physically related, doesn't mean I can't still feel a spiritual connection with the real Pocahontas and maybe just a little bit defensive of her, especially when so few (if anyone) else is standing up for her as a fascinating, unusual person. The beautifully entertaining but ruefully politically-correct mirage has eclipsed the real being.... Now THAT's tragic.
The character Mia, on the other hand, was never a specific real person, and she was in fact designed as a generic representative of the Ojibwe tribe. Slight Mia, slight the whole tribe she represented-----all at once. D:
Just stop Canceling stuff you don't understand... You often have the opposite of the intended effect! And as such, Cancel-culture is a typical, PRO-IGNORANCE, ill-omened book-burning; it's okay to find something offensive, but NOT to bully ANYONE into silence!! I still love Disney's "Pocahontas" as a shallow, outstandingly animated film.....but definitely would call it entirely a product of the modern, screwy times that it was produced in-----not remotely representative of serious history. The real Pocahontas was NOT an Animist, for one thing; that's 100% Chief Seattle's sentiment put in the Disney princess's mouth, in potentially offensive conflict with the real Princess's real beliefs. Those two historical figures never met-----weren't even from the same side of the continent, let alone same tribe and same time-period. It's too presumptuous to construe that they were of the same mind just because they were both Native Americans without directly comparing their firsthand writings as individuals.