how fluffy bunnies and bouncy kittens brought cuteness to an awful climax
Climax of Cuteness
By Annalee Newitz
SOMETHING CUTE IS happening to America. On television the squeaky Pokémon and Digimon are living in a universe whose main physical characteristics are orange squishies and pink smooshies. Teenage girls are mobbing the Sanrio store for the latest Hello Kitty hair bands and dropping into the Paul Frank boutique for teeny T-shirts covered with hair-curlingly sweet cartoons of a spotted bunny-kitty-mousie-puppy creature who likes to eat birthday cake. Lipsticks are pink and sparkly; blouses are festooned with lace; fluffy stuffed animals serve as fashion accents. We are living in what a friend of mine
“As the United States takes a dark political turn with its unceasing war on terrorism, people are hungry for sweetness and light.” calls “the cuteocracy,” where the cutest person, place, or thing wins. Realism is out – unless it’s the hyperconstructed reality of Survivor – and the supernaturally ugly aesthetic of the X-Files has gone
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the way of presidential candidate Ross Perot. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that, as the United States takes a dark political turn with its unceasing war on terrorism, people are hungry for sweetness and light. Cuteness may be calming and fun, but it’s also an ideal mask for something more unsettling. The national craze for cuteness has turned the innocent optimism of Hello Kitty into a hollow, cynical commercialism. Many of the images and icons we call “cute” came from idealistic, hopeful social movements of the 1960s and the exuberant subcultures of early-1990s clubbers and digital dreamers. But today cuteness is starting to feel like fake, mall-bought conformity. As the war on terrorism quickly reduces our complicated national situation to a simplistic cartoon, it seems that reactionary politics can be cute too. The fuzzy-bunny regime is telling you to forget; be a kid; don’t worry. And cuteness, as lovable a style as it may be, is turning ugly. Mommy, where does cute come from?
Probably the first hints that America was about to embark on a veritable od-