Chris Magazine

This is from the NY Times.

Please, let's be honest. For anyone who's been in love, a straight jacket's a pretty apt analogy to what it can do to you. As far as being sensitive to loony people in straight jackets...first off, how often have you seen one? It's not like they let the paranoid schitzophrenics out of the ward wearing the damn things and frankly if they are to react violently to such an image, it's likely they shouldn't have been let out in the first place. Second, Why do we have to be so damn sensitive to everyone? Honestly, if they're really upset I'm sure Hallmark makes a "Sorry you're totally screwed in the and you felt like our bear made fun of you.... please forgive us" card. As for me, I'll buy the bear, but only because I think that jacket would fit my two year old and would aid me greatly when I have to change her diaper.

Toy's Message of Affection Draws Anger and Publicity

By PAM BELLUCK

HELBURNE, Vt., Jan. 20 - The Vermont Teddy Bear Company believed it had a winner of a Valentine gift: its "Crazy for You" teddy bear, a cuddly bundle of fur - with paws restrained by a straitjacket and the outfit accompanied by commitment papers.

But when the company, a nationally known retailer and tourist attraction much loved in Vermont, started selling the teddy bear this month, it created an uproar.

Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican who considers the company's president a friend, called the bear "very insensitive" at a news conference, saying: "Mental health is very serious. We should not stigmatize it further with these marketing efforts."

Pleas to stop selling the bear have come from state legislators, medical professionals and mental health advocates, who say they object not to the "crazy for you" sentiment but to the straitjacket and commitment papers because they represent such an extreme and painful image of mental illness.

The mother of a mentally ill teenager in Massachusetts started a petition drive, helped by students in local public schools.

And both the president and the chairman of Vermont's only teaching hospital, Fletcher Allen Health Care, criticized the company, significant because the president of Vermont Teddy Bear, Elisabeth Robert, sits on the hospital's board. Mental health advocates want Ms. Robert removed from her hospital position, and the board chairman, William Schubart, is considering the request.

"That kind of lighthearted depiction of illness is just not something I tolerate," Mr. Schubart said.

Vermont Teddy Bear said it would keep its original plan of selling the bear, which costs $69.95, in its stores and on its Web site through Valentine's Day, its busiest season. (In its Shelburne store, little straitjackets are also sold separately so customers can accessorize other bears.)

In a statement, the company said, "We recognize that this is a sensitive, human issue and sincerely apologize if we have offended anyone." It added, "This bear was created in the spirit of Valentine's Day" and "was designed to be a lighthearted depiction of the sentiment of love."

Company officials have agreed to meet with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Bob Carolla, an alliance spokesman, said the company first resisted meeting before Valentine's Day but then agreed to meet on Feb. 8. Mr. Carolla said that his group had fought the use of straitjackets in advertisements, but that this was the first straitjacketed product he could recall.

Ms. Robert (pronounced roh-BEAR) said in an interview that the company, based in Shelburne, made the 15-inch bear after a customer survey yielded "overwhelmingly positive feedback."

When complaints started, Ms. Robert said, she reflected on the matter "for virtually an entire day."

She said she talked to employees and the board of directors, and reviewed public feedback. "I listened to our customers - they were buying the bear," Ms. Robert said.

She concluded that "there were many business reasons not to pull the product off the market - profit wasn't the only one."

The bear has upset many Vermont residents because the company, like the ice cream maker Ben and Jerry's, is a Vermont mascot of sorts and has popular community programs like providing teddy bears for injured children. Also, Vermont is considered a state with progressive mental health laws.

"Vermont Teddy Bear has a reputation for being socially responsible and sensitive," Jason Gibbs, a spokesman for Governor Douglas, said. "And you would think that someone who sits on the board of trustees of Vermont's only academic medical center would have an exceeding degree of respect for the need to treat the mental health community with parity."

"We're also concerned about the reputation of this particular company," Mr. Gibbs said. "They are a valued employer; they are a tourist attraction."

Nicole L'Huillier, a company spokeswoman, said that despite making a product associated with children, Vermont Teddy Bear advertised to adults, often on radio shows like Howard Stern's. In addition to bears dressed as princesses and Superman, it also has a Playboy bear.

"The majority of our customers are men at Valentine's Day," Ms. L'Huillier said.

The company has received about 150 supportive e-mail messages and phone calls regarding its "Crazy for You" bear and about 400 in opposition, she said.

Fueled by the uproar, about 2,000 bears were sold last week, she said, a volume considered "very high," but sales have recently "leveled off."

Supporters of the company's decision to keep selling the bear say opponents are too politically correct.

Ken Schram, a commentator for KOMO-TV in Seattle, said on the air that "the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill is bouncing around its round rubber boardroom." And Robert Paul Reyes, a columnist for The Lynchburg Ledger, a weekly newspaper in central Virginia, advised the head of the Vermont chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill chapter to "take a Valium, or better yet buy a 'Crazy for You Bear.' "

Some Vermont residents also dismiss the objections.

"It's a lovey, huggy little bear," said Al Bounds, 74, of Shelburne, which is a Burlington suburb. "Who cares what it's wearing?"

Mr. Bounds said he thought the controversy was "good for the company because it will put them on TV, so that will bring money into the community."

But others say a straitjacket on something as cute as a teddy bear trivializes a traumatic experience and reinforces a stereotype of mentally ill people as violent.

"If Vermont Teddy Bear had produced a bear with a noose around its neck saying, 'I'd love to hang with you,' and called it a Ku Klux Klan teddy bear, the response would be overwhelming disgust and horror," said Anne Donahue, a Republican state representative.

Flip Brown, a management consultant in Burlington, said that "I know that marketing departments need to be creative and even edgy, and you want products that grab attention," but that "if you buy this bear and you have a child who sees it and asks: 'What is that bear doing? Why can't it move its arms?' how do you answer that question?"

Maureen McNamara of Westboro, Mass., whose 13-year-old son has been committed to psychiatric hospitals and put in a straitjacket, started a petition drive against the bear. "You wouldn't have a bear in a wheelchair saying, 'I'm rolling over the hill in love with you,' " she said.

On Thursday, at the company's store here, Irene Brimicombe, 81, of Shelburne, looked at the prominently displayed bears and said, "They should take it off the market, so many people are against it."

But her friend, June Quinn, 76, who recently moved from Virginia, bought one. "I'm tired of being politically correct," Ms. Quinn said. "I'm tired of balancing what comes out of my mouth. And, he's cute as all get out."

Ms. Quinn also bought an American flag sweater for her bear.

"Well, he can't sit around all the time in this," she said, gesturing to the straitjacket.

"See," Ms. Brimicombe said, "that proves it isn't right."

P.S. I think the Klan bear is a great idea. For years I've been getting my Klan friends chocolates, which they wouldn't eat because they were "black", finally I could get them a nice white bear in a hood. No longer would they have to be excluded from Valentine's Day just because they're racist bastards.