It’s the holiday season, and Starbucks returns to the center of controversy

I know I’ve kept far quieter about the upcoming election than I should have. To be honest, I found it incredibly difficult to actually put the disgust I have felt about parts of this campaign into words. I am breaking my usual pattern of not posting on the weekends (as you may have noticed, this going up on a Saturday) to try and catch up on a few topics. I’m going to try to keep this on the main topic as expressed by the title, though by necessity I will wind up discussing a few things about the election as a result.

Upworthy recently reported on the latest Starbucks holiday cup, and unfortunately, the controversy that was unbelievably quick to come in return. This is not the first time we’ve been down this road, as regular readers of this blog should be aware.

The only reason I will likely not wind up with one of these cups is that I rarely if ever order hot drinks, coffee or otherwise, at Starbucks. (My usual is iced tea, and I’ve been known to order it well into the winter, or at least what passes for winter in Houston.) This cup is definitely a keeper, though, should I partake of my occasional wintertime hot chocolate.

This quote from the article sums it up nicely:

No election will solve those problems. No election can solve those problems. Those issues — what it means to coexist with people who hold vastly different beliefs than our own — are on us to solve in our everyday lives and in how we choose to treat others. This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue; this is a human issue.

This has been, if not the most polarizing election, one of the three most polarizing elections I have lived through. The 2004 and 2008 elections are definitely contenders for most polarizing, and I feel the trend has been towards more polarization and division as the years have worn on. This is a real shame, and to be honest quite unexpected in this cycle (then again, Donald Trump actually being nominated wasn’t something I had expected to happen either; more on that in a later post).

That the backlash comes in the form of, for example, someone deriding the cups as “political brainwashing” is a pretty sad commentary on where we are as a society and a country. I’m proud to be an American, but I’m embarrassed to see people writing things like that and at the same time holding themselves out as Americans, and in some cases patriotic Americans at that.

I don’t think the design is about politics, and certainly not about Starbucks openly positioning itself as a Democrat- or liberal-leaning company. I take the message at face value: that there is more that unites us than that divides us. Come November 9, there are going to be a lot of people who are going to wake up with a president they didn’t want. And yes, in a way that will include me; I really wanted Bernie Sanders to win the Democratic Party’s nomination, and I was severely disappointed when he decided to concede the nomination to Hillary Clinton. A lot of Republicans certainly didn’t get the candidate they really wanted, either.

I get that a lot of people were disappointed by Barack Obama’s presidency. President Obama got a lot accomplished, though there were a few things that in my opinion he screwed up. (I do plan to post a retrospective on his presidency either near the end of the year or in early 2017; which it is depends on whether I carry on with some plans I had for this blog in the month of January.)

But slamming Starbucks for choosing the cup design they did? One that’s supposed to celebrate unity? That’s outrageous, and I would even call it borderline un-American. Again, because of the cup design and the fact that people are slamming Starbucks over it, I’m making my next visit to Starbucks sooner rather than later. (Though the fact I’m at 120 stars and thus only five away from earning my next free beverage certainly doesn’t hurt.)

I’m not even going to think about opening the whole “war on Christmas” can of worms just yet. It’s still a bit too early, and those worms go better with Thanksgiving turkey anyway.

[Update 2016-11-29: As referenced in a more recent post, this cup design is not for the winter holiday season, but more timed for the election season.]

Coca-Cola’s “It’s Beautiful” Super Bowl ad

I know I have a backlog of about a dozen posts I’ve been meaning to write, but on this one I feel the need to strike while the iron is hot. It’s about this 60-second television commercial aired during the Super Bowl. In case you haven’t seen it:

Now, I know it’s primarily a right-wing crowd that’s ticked off about this commercial. I’m mostly left-wing but lean right on a few issues. It’s a no-brainer that we as a country benefit when everyone knows at least one common language. Now, the question then becomes what language should that be?

The Declaration of Independence was written in English. The Constitution was written in English. All of our laws are written in English. Our road signs are written in English. The majority of our broadcast media are in English. If instructions for anything are written in only one language, that language is English. It is technically true that English is not the official language of this country, but it really should be named as such by law.

And this is why I think Coke’s ad fails as a piece of advertising. I am fine with showing different nationalities, different colors of skin, even those of differing sexual preferences. But if we can’t even talk to random people in the same language, how much unity do we really have? I have lost count of the number of times I’ve asked a stranger something like “what time is it?” or “which bus was that that passed by?” and got “sorry no speak English” as my response. So when Coca-Cola shows “America the Beautiful” being sung in different languages, and it is hard to tell if parts of the video were even shot in America (at 0:28 Coke bottles are shown which very well could be the Mexican version not necessarily imported into the US, at 0:35 all the signage is in Chinese and there’s nothing to clearly show that this is actually the US). I hope this isn’t the case, but if in fact any portion of this commercial was actually shot outside of the US, it was inappropriate to use “America the Beautiful.”

I’m not even sure what they are trying to communicate. It’s a video montage with a song whose melody I recognize, but most of which is sung in the language NotEnglish. (I say it this way not to offend, but in the same way that John Polstra used the term “the programming language NotC” to refer to a different and less-known computer programming language.) About the only things I can recognize are the Coca-Cola logo and some obviously American landmarks like the Grand Canyon. If there’s a message of unity here, I missed it.

The advertising would have been improved by showing the singers on camera–different nationalities, skin colors, sexual preferences, what have you–singing “America The Beautiful” in English and only in English. The video as aired could remain the main video shown on screen, with the singers in an inset, or the video as aired could be replaced with the singers entirely. Now the commercial becomes a more obvious promotion of unity behind a common language–and a common soft drink.

I’m disappointed as a Coca-Cola customer that they dropped the ball this badly on such a big stage. I’m not going to boycott Coke, but I’ll definitely be drinking a lot more Dr. Pepper over the next couple of months than I otherwise would have.