Unjust Plush wants us to “spread awareness to ugly injustice through cute plush toys.” Take a look at them; they’re creepy, but simultaneously adorable. Creepable? In any event, they make me uncomfortable and I kind of don’t know what to think of them. [Ed. note: I think they are def adorable and I want to hug them all immediately…can anyone explain why?? -Megan Rascal]
Years ago I gifted my non-vegan friends’ non-vegan children cute stuffed animals from PETA: a cow and a pig. I hadn’t realized when I’d purchased them that they “spoke.” Indeed, when you would squeeze them they’d say (in a rather unsettlingly gruff voice), “friends not food,” so I wound up presenting them rather sheepishly with the disclaimer that they could remove the batteries if they so chose. Surprisingly, they didn’t; but over time the kids got used to the chorus and I was sometimes treated to a giddy recitation as they ate burgers or bacon: not exactly the outcome I was striving for.
These Unjust Plush offer more of an in-your-face message and I’m still trying to decide if I think that makes them an unnecessarily morbid gift for a child. “This cute seal has a head wound because cruel people like to bash their skulls in with clubs,” doesn’t sound like a conversation I want to have as an Aunty.
In contrast to the morbidity, does the cartoonish element make them trite? For instance, the elephant carries a bottle of glue- presumably to repair his tusk—as if it’s that easy. The rhino’s tagline reads, “Don’t ask him about his nose job; he’s sensitive about it;” a clumbsy connection at best.
So I guess the bottom line is, “Is all attention good attention?” Are the Unjust Plush successfully imparting a serious message by enlightening an otherwise blissfully ignorant audience (the under-5 set), or are they simply making light of a grievous subject?