Dim Lady

The speaker’s use of contemporary American brand names draws attention to the consumerist habits of present-day Americans. Mullen’s product choices are notable for their widespread availability, generic nature, and factory-like reproducibility; she does not write about luxury goods or expensive name brands, but about highly accessible office supplies like “Liquid Paper” (Line 2), and chain restaurants like “Red Lobster” (Line 2) and “Shakey’s pizza parlors” (Line 5). She uses the cheap and notoriously unhealthy processed-food “Twinkie” (Line 11) as a term of endearment, juxtaposing the genuine depth of the speaker’s love with the artificiality of the Twinkie.

Mullen’s choice to employ these product names emphasizes not just the ubiquity of these items, but the way their mass reproduction has altered taste. Just as in Shakespeare’s time, unrealistic beauty standards meant all sonnets addressed identical-looking beloveds, so in modern America, all reds must be only the “table- / cloths in Shakey’s Pizza Parlors” (Lines 4-5), all idiosyncratic music styles yield to the homogenizing Muzak, and the only acceptable beauty is dictated by the appearance of “lanky model or platinum movie idol” (Line 12) such as Marilyn Monroe. The speaker rejects this model of attraction, calling chain restaurants and celebrity culture “hyped beyond belief” (Line 12), and they instead insist on the individuality and unique features of her own beloved, flawed as they may be.