[imagesource: Twitter / @Ash_Mando]

Representing a well-known public identity is not a job for the faint-hearted, and yet, plushy mascots do it all the time.

But that’s not even the weird part about the wondrous world of mascots.

These fictional representative spokespeople for a particular brand or organisation come in all shapes and sizes and often lend eyes, ears, and a mouth to inanimate symbols that aren’t supposed to see, hear, or speak.

This means they often end up looking nothing like what they’re supposed to symbolise or they creep you out by the mere fact that they’re suddenly animated and ready to speak up for whatever cause they back.

I mean, who is keen to get a health check-up when “a friendly enlarged thyroid gland perched on a hardened artery full of plaque” is watching over you?

Hai, fighto:

Image: Mondo Mascots

That mascot is just one of the many bizarre mascots found all over Japan and drily curated on the Mondo Mascots Twitter account, according to an incredulous writer from The Guardian.

This same disbelieving columnist also comments on the equally as odd Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics mascot, which, as I am sure you know by now, has been extensively compared to the female clitoris.

Dubbed Les phryges, they’re meant to be modelled on the revolutionary red Phrygian cap, worn by Liberty in the famous Delacroix painting:

The Olympic Phryge and the Paralympic Phryge are taking the lead of a tribe which always has its trainers on 👟
What could be better than little Phrygian caps to lead the revolution through sport and accompany us to the #Paris2024 Games! pic.twitter.com/hUjFI09zZM

— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) November 14, 2022

But everyone is set on seeing female genitalia instead:

Image: Twitter / @baleinelove

(That giant five-metre-high inflatable clitoris was carried around by members of Gang du Clito to mark International Women’s Day at Human Rights Plaza in Paris on March 8, 2021.)

And then this popped up to really settle the debate over what the Les phryges most resembles:

Hein ? pic.twitter.com/OwlfyshuBq

— @benjamin_t__@mastodon.social 🦦 (@benjamin_t__) November 15, 2022

The Guardian elaborates:

France is united in seeing them differently: with their “curved protuberance at the front” (Radio France again), social media is convinced they look like giant clitorises. Admittedly, a composite image of French judo champion Teddy Riner with a phryge compounds this impression.

The pair of them look distinctly … post-coital? The cartoon phryge, flaunting its curved protuberance, has its tongue poking out and is sweating; Riner appears to be tenderly cupping one of its little feet. They both look very happy: the heart has its reasons, as Pascal said.

Perhaps you’re in the same boat as everyone else – excited for a month of sports purely because of these phryges and their “sexy, murderous energy”.

It’s about time female pleasure takes centre stage and why not in and around the world’s biggest sporting event?

[source:guardian]