The Sun Maid Raisin Girl’s makeover looks modeled after a Second Life Barbie doll. What do readers think?
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Chris Mooney is host of the Point of Inquiry podcast and the author of three books, The Republican War on Science, Storm World, and Unscientific America. He was recently seen on MSNBC's "The Last Word" discussing "The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science," and recently wrote for The American Prospect magazine about how the reality-based community is moving to the left.
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December 7th, 2009 at 12:44 am
Eeek! Me too. That’s creepy. Until now, she was modeled after a real person. Too bad.
December 7th, 2009 at 1:24 am
Any particular reason they changed her ethnicity?
I dont care or mind, I am just curious.
December 7th, 2009 at 2:47 am
The problem is common with 3D renderings… Uncanny valley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
Chris, I’m not seeing what you seem to be seeing… the 3D rendering is just tanned more…
December 7th, 2009 at 4:02 am
So long as the raisins look and taste the same (or better), I wouldn’t care unless they put the image of Sarah Palin on the box – now that’d have me running the other way and screaming.
December 7th, 2009 at 5:07 am
Why would you do that oh the humanity.
December 7th, 2009 at 5:28 am
Seriously Uncanny Valley, MutantJedi.
And I agree ont the not seeing the ethnicity thing. I think they just left her out in the sun for a while. (Which is maybe OK for a “Sun Maid”—kind of weird that the old one was pasty—though I’m not a fan of tan. I find dark white wimmen kinda creepy, and dark dark women just… um… peachy..)
December 7th, 2009 at 5:31 am
(BTW the inconsistency in wimmen/women was a typo, not meant to be correlated with white/dark at all.)
December 7th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Plastic and awkward and fake, oh my! If you’re trying for a more realistic approach, why not just get a model to pose in a real field with some grapes and take a photo? That would be far better than this. But the real question here, from a scientific point of view, is what kind of antigravity field are they using to support those clearly weightless grapes?
December 7th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Forget about the changes to the Raisin Girl’s bust line – how could you possibly miss the shape of that hanging bunch of grapes she’s holding up?
December 7th, 2009 at 9:05 am
I think they’re just 2 different styles of the same idea. The image on the left is cartoony too, just in the 1950′s Walt Disney style. And I don’t think the new version comes close to falling into uncanny valley territory.
You probably like the one on the left because it’s the way you think it’s supposed to be – the way it’s been your whole life. Try asking the same question to small children who haven’t developed a preference yet.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:13 am
The old image was more wholesome. Let’s just hope it never rains in Sun-Maid Valley. What kind of harvester wears a skin tight lycra white shirt?
December 7th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I suspect the artist hasn’t ever done farm work. A sun bonnet with that shirt, makes no sense.
The ravages of computer design at work? She looks like a creepy computer animation now.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I think it’s pretty weak. What I really wonder is how much they spent on the update. Probably millions on market research and new designs from marketing, before paying some intern eight bucks to crank out the actual logo. Meanwhile, they pretty much own the raisin market, do they think the new logo will make more people like raisins? What do they expect to gain from this?
The new Mickey Mouse is worse though.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:58 am
OMG that is awful. Talk about silicon chest. Bring back the old one!
December 7th, 2009 at 10:13 am
The new one looks a lot like Sheril ……
December 7th, 2009 at 10:40 am
The version on the right has been in commercials for a while (and she’s even odder when moving), so I’m a bit puzzled as to why people are just finding out about this.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Oh dear, I certainly hope not. The mere suggestion makes me consider changing my profile photo.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Looks like she’s ready for guest appearances in third-rate, straight-to-video 3D cartoons.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Many other [mainly] female cartoon characters seem to have gone to the same makeover artist/brand manager/plastic surgeon: Strawberry Shortcake, Dora the Explora, Rainbow Brite [sic], Angelina Ballerina [whoever that is]… even the Care Bears.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/business/media/11cartoons.html
http://thecount.com/2009/03/17/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new/
http://www.babble.com/content/articles/columns/the-babble-list/20-Worst-Toy-Makeovers-From-Monopoly-To-My-Little-Pony-Is-Nothing-Sacred/images/2.jpg
http://www.parentdish.com/2009/11/03/strawberry-shortcake-gets-extreme-makeover/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/16/rainbow-brites-makeover-s_n_323830.html
December 7th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Aside from the plastic look, she looks more grown up, more adult. It’s like the mom is on the right and the daughter is on the left.
…and yes, she could definitely be a (close) relative to Sheril.
December 7th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
she could definitely be a (close) relative to Sheril.
Yes, but in a creepy odd picture, like a second life avatar (as she said).
It’d be a decent picture of Sheril as a avatar, but it’s a horrible fakey portrait IMHO.
Hm… has anybody ever seen Sheril and the Sun Maid in the same room at the same time? It’s all starting to fit together with the AGW hoa
December 7th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
A sun bonnet with that shirt, makes no sense.
That’s one of the things that makes it look so much like an avatar. Most systems don’t let you have an avatar with drapey clothing, because it’s too compute-intensive to simulate and render. So you get simplified moving body-with-clothing-on shapes, and mostly digitally painted-on (“texture mapped”) clothing.
I’ll wager that some geeks out there have noticed this, an is constructing a very good Sun Maid avatar already.
BTW, here’s a history of the Sun Maid. The original was a photo.
http://www.sunmaid.com/en/about/sunmaid_girl.html
And if you thought this one was creepy, check out the 1923 version.
December 7th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Is this their way of announcing that they have switched to genetically modified grapes?
December 7th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
a fresh new healthy attitude with a buff figure can’t be a bad thing … how about yoga??
December 7th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Yeesh, it’s a picture on a box of raisins. A drawn, advertising-type picture! They could put a horse on there or a unicycle or a tire iron. On my list of 100 top concerns this rates at 101. If that.
December 8th, 2009 at 8:40 am
The new one is so much worse. Almost all computer renderings have that cheap and ugly look.
December 8th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Brian Too,
I thought it was a timely post. With all the stupid crap about “ClimateGate” going on, we can use a little comic relief.