"Cowboys" and "Indians," branding and iron-eyes

If you're as old as I am, you probably remember the Marlboro Man. A rugged "cowboy" who represented both the glories of the American West and of smoking tobacco products. Several years ago, I found out that he died of emphysema as a consequence of smoking. That's quite an endorsement for a product! Now I've learned that the "Native American" whose commercial image was etched into millions of American minds (including mine) as he surveyed littered and polluted highways and waterways created by careless and uncaring people, reacting with a single, solemn tear, was a fraud. (You can watch the ad on YouTube*.) The man under the fake braids was an Italian-American character actor named Espera Oscar DeCorti, who went by the name Iron Eyes Cody. More egregious is that the ad was produced by a fraudulent environmental organization called Keep America Beautiful (KAB).** Fraudulent, you say? But KAB is one of the most trusted "environmental groups" in the US, and that ad is credited with inspiring America's fledgling environmental movement! Next I'll find out that Mr. Rogers was a sex addict! (Please God, NO!!!) Turns out that KAB is a trade group for bottling and can companies and soda makers, and it opposes reuse and recycling legislation. As pointed out in an article on the Container Recycling Institute's Web page*** , through industry lobbying KAB has helped defeat bills in many state legislatures that would institute a deposit-based system on plastic beverage containers. Hence, the massive collection of plastic bottles in landfills and littering the highways and waterways. What an iron-eye...
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*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM
**Great article in Orion magazine, "The crying Indian," by Ginger Strand, Nov/Dec 2008, http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/3642
***"Keeping America cluttered: the big fight over bottled water litter," by Kevin LeShane, September/October 2007, http://www.container-recycling.org/mediafold/newsarticles/plastic/2007/9-E-KeepingAmericaCluttered.htm