unidentified non-Wyoming, non-naked mud flap woman
We saw this on the back of a van when we were out walking the other day. I was curious about who had come up with this clever twist on the naked lady mudflap silhouette, so I googled “mudflap librarian.” Not because a woman reading a book must be a librarian, but because I suspected that librarians were behind the idea.
What I found instead was the Wyoming Libraries campaign. The marketing campaign features radio spots, billboards, posters, and bumper stickers. But what has everyone talking is what they're calling “mudflap girl."
Most of the campaign is designed to remind people about the library, and let them know that they have audio books, ebooks, DVDs, and other resources in addition to books. The Economist recently had an article about how Wyoming residents use their libraries more than the average American and how their new library in Laramie is attracting more people than ever. New programs targeting children are especially popular, but everyone seems to be taking advantage of what their libraries have to offer.
The Wyoming Libraries website explains the rationale behind Mudflap Girl:
The second segment of the campaign is a guerilla marketing effort. We are using bumper stickers in the libraries as a way to bring an element of humor to libraries and make them more interesting to residents who do not normally use the library.Also in the second segment of the campaign is mudflap girl. This campaign's only purpose is to market the ChiltonLibrary auto repair database. Mudflap girl stickers meant to be put on vehicles were sent to auto repair stores across the state advertising the Chilton database.
It's difficult, maybe impossible, to tell how effective the campaign has been. The Wyoming Libraries has been upgrading and improving their services since a sales tax increase was approved in 2003, and the ChiltonLibrary database has only been available a short time, so we can't tell if its usage has increased due to the campaign.
Every library blog has something to say about mudflap girl, and I've seen as many postitive comments as negative ones. My take on it is that it reminds me of those adults who try to be cool by talking and/or dressing like the kids they're trying to impress. Of course, the kids laugh at the adults behind their backs. The mudflap girl campaign seems to me as if the library is trying too hard to be like the cool kids.
And I still don't know who's responsible for the not-naked silhouette in the photo at the top of this post.
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Deven McKay
Ersatz Reader
Donna Ski
Christine Bollerud
Felisa Rogers
lasomnambule
Salon.com
Comments
I want a mudflap girl!!!
Sweet!
(rated & appreciated!)
The mudflap girl is funny; the guy spurring that wild book is pretty clever, too. Hopefully, he rode that book the full eight seconds.
Don't know how long one has to stay up on a mudflap girl to get credit for the ride.
You can't see anything.
Seriously.
No perky breasts, no butt, no nothing.
It calls to *mind* the image of the real mudflap girl, but if you look at the silhouette, it's just a woman holding a book.
She doesn't look like *me*, but she doesn't look like a tramp, either.
It says (if I'm not mistaken), "Oh, you think it's nice to objectify womenfolk? Well, we READ, darnit!
No breasts for you!"
I get your point, but the image is offensive on the mudflap because it's an objectified woman's body. The sticker is funny to me because it's an objectified woman's MIND. ;))
And there is nothing sexist about the mudflap girl. That's just silly.
I'm not too crazy about the bumper sticker that evokes Charlton Heston's ravings at the National Rifle Association, either.
But I'm a west coast liberal.
I still think taking offense because of the mudflap girl supposedly objectifying women is ridiculous. Baywatch objectifies women. Many hip hop videos objectify women. I even tend to objectify women. This is just a funny ad. It is funny because it is an ironical reference to the ubiquitous mudflap icon that does objectify women.
But, you know, that Randy Newman song, the one where he rants about short people. Now, that's offensive!!
Rob, a librarian came up with mud flap boy in response to mudflap girl. There's also a more graphic mudflap boy image making the rounds in the librarian blogs.
Would a matched set of naked boy librarian / naked girl librarian mudflaps cancel the sexism? 'Cause I'd buy 'em.
When I was young, the library was the closest thing there was at that time to the internet. I could be reading a book or a journal and see an interesting citation, and depending on the size of the library, go off and find the article or book cited, only to find more citations that I needed to read. I am not sure how many others can understand the enjoyment I found in such random explorations.
When my children were young, they were often sent to the library to do research and I enjoyed accompanying them. The library in the small Colorado town near where we lived was an old Carnegie library build of stone and hard wood. I could always easily entertain myself reading and browsing through the books while the boys did their research. And the library had a great collection of books on tape which I listened to on my 30 minute commute to work. We always had some books on tape when we travelled the two hours to the nearby ski areas that would engross the entire family during our drive. I remember listening to a particularly scary Steven King novel with the boys while we were driving at night and on our arrival home, the boys were so shaken they could hardly stand up to get out of the car.
I have not been in a library for probably a decade, a major reason being the huge amount of information instantly available on the internet and the fact that many of the books I might have checked out from the library I now buy used from internet book sellers or listen to via MP3 files. But I retain a great fondness for libraries for their place in my past and how they democratized information, knowledge, and literature in our country.
One can only applaud the Wyoming libraries for attempting to market and revitalize such valuable institutions. Rather than feeling an affront about their adoption of slightly sexist symbol for their marketing, I am more interested in wanting to ask the young lady with the book what she is reading.
I myself find the cowboy on the buckin' book a far more effective image. It evokes the traditional iconography of Wyoming license plates and speaks directly to the audience it's intended to reach. I suppose, in the spirit of equality you could have a cowgirl on a buckin' book as well, but that image is more effective for promoting Wyoming libraries than the mudflap girl, for my money.
And, just to be completely honest about it, as long as you're going to objectify the female form, I think breast should be included.
I was saying that the Mudflap Girl -- or your post about her, at least -- does have me thinking about libraries, the Wyoming libraries mostly. But I don't use the library. I typically buy books, and if I havent' read the author, I buy almost exclusively on recommendation. (This is why I was asking about what to read from David Foster Wallace.) I mostly buy from Amazon, or sometimes Barnes & Noble or Half-Price Books. There is a wonderful antique book store in San Antonio I will haunt for hours anytime we go there. But I don't use the library.
I just thought it was a clever marketing campaign, and was annoyed by the slight kerfuffel over alleged sexism and objectification of women. But I am less patient with that strain of thought in recent years when it is applied so trivially.