Pills! Pills! Pills!

In my research, I repeatedly came across images of rapid-release two-toned colour pill capsule characters. Some are branded for a specific pharmaceutical, others advertise a pharmacy, and many with unclear uses. Without the specificity of their intention spelled out, they smile maniacally, greeting an unknown viewer with open arms. I started collecting these images and placed them in a digital collage, making the pills almost hold hands, as if characters were swaying and singing on the Disney ride, It's a Small World. I texted the image to a friend, who replied, "I take the one on the bottom middle," a reference to the medication she takes daily for depression and anxiety. Pills are small capsules that react, interact, heal, shift, strain, support, and soothe our bodies. Here, pill capsules are blown up in scale, details simplified, and anthropomorphized into performing creatures. They are cute. In the essay “Feline Fetish and Marketplace Animism”, Yuko Minowa describes the elements that contribute to characters cuteness, " tend to be bipedal mammalian, non-sexual, and infantile, round, soft and vulnerable...kawaii characters." These pills, as with most mascots, fulfill these categories of cuteness. But what does it mean for a pharmaceutical pill to be represented as infantile, round, soft, and vulnerable? Pills themselves evoke the vulnerability of our own bodies. I came across a particularly alarming example of a pill mascot that advertised an antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It is difficult to conceive of the necessity or market viability of such an object rendered as a cute creature. Sianne Ngai writes about the "commodity aesthetic of cuteness," describing how "cuteness solicits a regard of the commodity as an anthropomorphic being less powerful than the aesthetic subject, appealing specifically to us for protection and care." Cute mascots appeal to the consumer as a being that needs our love and participation within the capitalist structure. It is mind-boggling to see pharmaceutical companies putting into action these cute characters in the service of finding pharmaceutical commodities homes in our bodies, which may or may not need them.

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