The fabulous Simon Glazin from theverysimong.com is one of our fave buddies and we’re forever debating the merits of, well, pretty much everything. Thing is, he’s also a brilliant writer with a great eye for a pop culture moment, and has previously interviewed Jackie Collins for the print version of Notion a few issues ago. So we thought it high time that he bring his fresh take on pop culture to PlanetNotion, in a semi-regular series that we’re calling ‘The Very Thought Of It’ – this time, he delves into the recent, umm, supermarket mishaps…
I remember being five-years-old and my mother dressing me up as Postman Pat for a birthday. I loved the outfit, naturally. And last year a friend had a fancy dress party to which I went as Mary Poppins – one of my all time favourite film characters (I had many an umbrella growing up with Plasticine parrots attached to the handle). In between those years I have appeared as a Cowboy (read: girl), Boy George and enjoyed for many years screaming around Soho in full drag gear.
Not once have I, or any friend, entertained the idea of purchasing a ‘mental health patient fancy dress costume’. To be honest, we probably never knew one existed until last month, thanks to Asda and its “completely unacceptable error”.
It was former footballer Stan Collymore – a sufferer of depression – who was one of the first to Tweet about the costume: “Do you actually realise how many people are hanging themselves because of being frightened of the stigma?” Not good.
And a day after costume-gate, Tesco was reprimanded for selling “The Inflatable g*y Best Friend”. And no, the asterisk in gay is not a typo. This is exactly how it was labelled online, and to a lot of people, the crux of their annoyance and disappointment. Suffice to say, they pulled this product too.
The one thing I’ve heard people ask over and over again since these supermarket slipups is: “What were the bloody buyers thinking?” Unfortunately, I had neither the ability to hold my tongue nor the patience to battle for a quote so will come to my own conclusion.
Somewhere deep in the Asda and Tesco HQs, probably hidden in the corner of a stuffy office surrounded by pictures of their cats, sits the fancy dress buyer and website controller (not exact titles) respectively. I don’t know whether they were just having an off day, or their finger slipped, or they temporarily went blind, or the intern was manning their stations or [enter any scenario you like here], but whatever their excuse, the moment they said yes to these items was the moment their whole CVs became void if you ask me.
Tesco said: “We have very clear guidelines for third party sellers who list items on our website, and are very sorry that on this occasion they weren’t followed.” Erm, am I being stupid, or shouldn’t they be looking at what ‘third party’ sellers are uploading? This isn’t eBay, this is Tesco!
And the product description was interesting too: “We’ve had the manbag, we’ve had leg warmers and iPhone fever, now it’s time for the new craze.” Oh, we’re a craze now? We’re an object now? Tut tut Tesco.
The actual problem with both errors is that a) mental health patients don’t actually walk round with blood-stained straight jackets, wielding meat cleavers, and b) we (as in the gay community) haven’t gone through decades of shit and finally now have the right to marry only to have the A starred out.
Last week was World Mental Health Day and National Coming Out Day consecutively. Two very poignant days in the year to raise awareness and celebrate, respectively. What we didn’t see was a bunch of people wondering the streets with torn, bloody straight jackets on and knives as accessories, or screaming queens with banners emblazoned with: PROUD TO BE G*Y.
Why don’t supermarkets go back to doing what they do best… selling fruit and veg and the odd Diet Coke.
- Simon Glazin