Basket cases

I’ve never quite gotten the pre-packaged Easter Baskets that seem to infest supermarkets these days around Easter time.

But nobody seems to get the latest trend in Easter Baskets: toy soldier-themed baskets.

At the Astor Place Kmart, the encampment is on display just inside the main entrance. A camouflaged sandy-haired soldier with an American-flag arm patch stands alert in a teal, pink, and yellow basket beneath a pretty green-and-purple bow. Within a doll-arm’s reach are a machine gun, rifle, hand grenade, large knife, pistol, and round of ammunition. In the next basket a buzz-cut blond with a snazzy dress uniform hawks over homeland security, an American eagle shield on his arm, and a machine gun, pistol, Bowie knife, two grenades, truncheon, and handcuffs at the ready.

Yeesh.

Religious and military spokesfolk are more than a bit put off. Episcopal Bishop George Packard, who ministers to the military, calls it “really, really bizarre. It’s a crass embrace of the far end of a range of options for parents to provide their kids. Easter baskets have been deteriorating for a long time, but they’ve really gone over the edge. I am so disturbed, I am so confounded by this bad taste.”

As long as they sell, though, the retailers seem immune to concerns.

“There was no intention on our part to offer up a violent Easter basket. We’re very conscious of what will and what will not offend our customers. It was meant to be a lighthearted and fun gift,” says Kmart spokesperson Abigail Jacobs. “It’s in my opinion a harmless toy included in an Easter basket.”

Sh’yeah, right.

I have no objections to toy soldiers, or toy guns, or anything like that, per se. But I don’t see it as something that belongs anywhere near something associated with Easter, no matter how secularized the holiday gets.

(via BoingBoing)