An Orange Juice Label as a Microcosm of Society
One facet of Herbert von Hundstein's theory of universality is that all components of culture, from obvious propaganda campaigns to written notes exchanged on refrigerator doors, are meaningful and representative of society as a whole. Von Hundstein writes in Kultur ist Alle; Alle ist Kultur,
The most mundane may also be the most significant, for is our culture any less forgotten in the private conversations of two lovers? Culture does not exist in a vacuum: it permeates all like oxygen, and for that reason anything in existence is a product of its culture. (34)
Therefore, a parking ticket, office memo, and orange juice packaging are all representations of culture. It is the orange juice label that concerns us here, and its promotion of ambiguity, assumptions of the audience's supineness, and reliance on other texts.
The word "minute" has multiple meanings, as does "maid," and thus "minute maid" is infinitely problematic. Are we to assume that the "maid," an unmarried girl or woman, is only a maid for a minute? After those sixty seconds, is her virginity gone? If this is the intended reading, being the primary denotations for both words, then should this company really be selling orange juice and not sex toys? Examining the phrase "minute maid" from a grammatical viewpoint, we could easily extrapolate that "minute" here serves as an adjective, modifying "maid," and thus means "a very small" maid. Perhaps virgin dwarfs create orange juice. The company presumes to convey a quickness created through the additional services of an assistant, a maid making a laborious process go by in a minute; however, that reading is only one of many possible.
During the 2000 preside...
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... cause orange juice labels to be less ambiguous, assumptive, and intertextual in the future.
Let us not oversimplify and assume that one orange juice label does not matter, that the simple commands "shake well before enjoying" simply fall on blind ears and deaf ears. As von Hundstein states, this orange juice label contains a microcosm of society: within its directives lie the problems and successes of society. The orange juice label thus serves as a litmus test of American culture in general, and we can determine that American culture requires a fairly informed populace used to interpreting assumptions and intertextuality to avoid problematic ambiguity.
Works Cited
Minute Maid. "Orange Juice Label." Packaging on product purchased 27 Apr. 2001.
Von Hundstein, Herbert. Kulture ist Alle: Alle ist Kulture. Trans. Gary Boyle. Dresden: U of Dresden P, 1994.
Quindlen, Anna. “The Culture of Each Life” Newsweek. 4 April 2005. Web. 8 July 2011.
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