Who would have thought that the M&M’s ‘spokescandies’— you know, the cartoon version of the beloved chocolate candies we’ve all seen in ads— could stir up major controversy?
But, yet at the start of 2023, here we are.
Mars Wrigley, the private company that makes M&M’s, made some slight changes over the past year to its brand characters to make them more inclusive. This included the Brown M&M female character swapping her stilettos for lower block heels and the Green M&M trading in go-go boots for sneakers.
Well, far-right conservatives like Fox News host Tucker Carlson had a meltdown and spent months attacking the minor brand changes to some of the characters and rallied against “woke M&M’s.”
Carlson said that “M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous” and that when “you’re totally turned off, we’ve achieved equity.”
On Monday, the chocolate brand announced that it is taking “an indefinite pause from the spokescandies” after the controversy over their rebranded appearances.
“In the last year, we’ve made some changes to our beloved spokescandies. We weren’t sure if anyone would even notice,” the brand said in a statement shared on Twitter. “And we definitely didn’t think it would break the internet. But now we get it — even a candy’s shoes can be polarizing.”
“Which was the last thing M&M’s wanted since we’re all about bringing people together,” the brand added.
In their place, actress Maya Rudolph has been tapped as the new spokesperson for the beloved chocolate candy, M&M’s said.