Just Your Everyday Bag of Carrots (Penises)

This is a bag of carrots I recently bought from the store. And with the way I go grocery shopping I can only imagine that, walking down the vegetable aisle, I glanced at my list, read "carrots," and got what was on sale without a second thought. At first it seemed like your everyday bag of vegetables: crisp, delicious, healthy, orange; all the delightful snacking qualities a carrot should possess. But it was only after taking a closer look at the bag itself that I was confronted with how obviously phallic and suggestive it is...and also that, according to market research, I may or may not be repressing a lonely, inner housewife that I am apparently unaware of.

Now I'm not sure what telling expression of human nature that Aristotle would have come up with about this, but I think it's fair to say that this bag is literally dripping with pathos. It is the language of the Freudian slip made tangible, and fully realized, then gallivanted about in the sensual dressings of a commodity.

Let's break down this visual narrative being told to our audience of consumers:

I've always noticed that certain advertisements like to anthropomorphize woodland creatures to get personally private concepts across more subtly. For example, imagine if the Charmin commercials showed humans with clumps of toilet paper on their rear ends instead of cuddly cartoon bears, or if the rabbit on this bag was replaced by a real woman. It would not only seem crude to most shoppers, but a lot of them would probably even be disturbed and offended by it, and therefore less likely to purchase the product.

This particular anthropomorphism, the face of this product, relies on double-entendre, and is definitely catered to a specific body of shoppers. We have "Bunny-Luv," your typically attractive rabbit-next-door. She is fairly satisfied with her life, except that Mr. Luv is frequently gone on long business trips, and it sometimes gets lonely in the rabbit den at night. Or perhaps she hasn't found her Mr. Luv yet, and is beginning to lose hope. Either way, the nice farmers at Grimmway Farms always seem to be there for her, and have been more then accommodating in these lonely hours.

 Most of the logo is made entirely of hearts (a symbol of passion, romance, and infatuation), three of which make her face beam with adoration as she bashfully turns it into her shoulder, but can't yet manage to break that lusty, inviting eye contact with the large, unusually attentive carrot staring her right in the face. Instead of reaching for the Ben & Jerry's, she grabs a healthy alternative, at the base, awkwardly, with both hands...

I don't think I need to continue on this train of thought because I'm sure at this point in the sales presentation all the department heads at Grimmway Farms were lighting victory cigars for another upcoming quarter of great sales: sex simply sells. We can't be sure where this image may mentally lead one's fantasies while in the middle of a public supermarket, but I can assure you, at the end of this narrative it seems less and less that I bought an everyday bag of carrots, and more a decadent brand of aphrodisia that an aptly named porn star might sell door to door like girl scout cookies.