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Starbucks or Slutbucks?
The Resistance, a Christian group based in San Diego, has called for a national boycott of Starbucks because of the coffee company’s new/old logo. “[The logo] has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute,” the group’s founder Mark Dice said in a press release. “Need I say more? It’s extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks.” The mermaid/siren that’s being used to promote Starbuck’s Pike Place Blend coffee (which I happen to like a lot) is actually a bit more modest than her predecessor from the 1970s, which was based on a 16th century Norse woodcut (you can view the logos, compare them, and judge for yourself here).
There are times when Christians should be outraged and should make their outrage known, but, to me, this ain’t one of those times. Have you noticed that there have been a lot of odd things happening in and around San Diego since Lynn Vincent came down with mono? I don’t mean to be a conspiracy theorist, but …
back to top51 Comments to “Starbucks or Slutbucks?”
All I can say is some people have too much time on their hands to be complaining about this. How many of us would have even noticed the new logo were it not brought to our attention by this group? And at least the new one is not as revealing as the 1971 logo.
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Yes, this is idiotic. Of all the things to spend their time on…
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First two “legged” mermaid I’ve ever seen. To be that upset over a genetic mutation’s mutation seems just a bit stretched.
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Oh please, this is why people think Christians are nuts . . .
And if there was ever any question that CA has its share of freakishly conservative Christians . . .
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Christians, in the future, if you have a problem with something a business does, PLEASE don’t go to the press with your Christian outrage.
Just stop buying the coffee.
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Uhm, how do we break this to Lynn? As I recall she rather loves her Starbucks…
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There is much better coffee for much less money than Starbucks but some the people can be fooled most of the time and fools are separated from their money quite easily.
AAAHHHHH but if it’s status you want, buy our coffee on line from Hawaii or Jamaica and spend $32 a pound plus freight for it, grind it yourself, brew it in a $1,000 machine and it will still be cheaper than Starbucks in the long run.
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I don’t understand the Starbucks obsession. Wait a minute, yes I do. I understand that a lot of people just really love their coffee, but I think a lot of people love even more that they are Starbucks customers.
A good cup of coffee can be acquired at many places, but at Starbucks you can be served a unique slice of identity on the side.
**PLEASE** Don’t be offended Starbucks patrons–I’m not necessarily talking about YOU.
I love coffee, and I really appreciate a good cup. I’ve had a good cup from Starbucks before, but I much prefer what I brew myself. An $8 bag of whole bean coffee and a $30 French press.
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Christians are nuts. Shouldn’t they be doing something Christish like campaigning for John McCain?
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I think I’d have to care a whole lot more just to care less.
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Why do folks insist on giving the attention wackos like Dice crave.
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a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute
This may come as a surprise to some, but prostitutes are not the only women who may spread their legs when they are naked (assuming the image is of a naked woman spreading her legs).
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LOL. “Slutbucks.” I kind of like it. It’s got a corporate-like ring to it.
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So we have the attention getting
Right on the list for every single person to see who visits WoW. What kind of a message does this send? If you don’t like the new ad, then why ADD to the ad by making it worse? This is nothing more than ‘one up-man-ship’ –
I’m ashamed that this appears on the blog, it should be REMOVED -
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This is all pretty silly.
And mermaids don’t have legs.
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Some people are always looking for the negative.
How come this group isn’t praising Starbucks for modifying the original 1971 logo so that her hair cover her breasts?
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[/tonguecheek]
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Some of the best coffee at rock bottom prices is 8 O’clock coffee at WalMart and Kroger. You can get regular or 100% Colombian. This was the old A&P store brand for those of you old enough to remember A & P – once the largest grocery chain in the USA. I pay $3.39 a pound for these whole Arabic beans on sale.
The Llama Blend is 1/4 Blue Mountain Jamaica medium with 1/4 Kona dark, 1/4 8 0′clock Colombian and 1/4 8 O’clock regular. This works out to about $17.50 a lb or $.27 a cup – about 10 times cheaper than the crud at Starbucks.
You guessed it. Llama’s never drink coffee at Starbucks or anywhere else for that matter.
Talk the money you save and invest it in your and thus America’s future – since you are America’s future and the only thing that separates you from anyone else in the world.
If you are young enough you easily retire on this seemingly small savings alone. It will be worth way more to you than SS for sure.
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LLllllammma,
It sounded like you were in the coffee business for a little there. But I see you just buy your coffee at the grocery store like a sensible person. (By the way, I have even more sense, I don’t drink coffee at all
).
Aren’t you in the architecture business?
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I agree, this is a bit silly to get all bent out of shape over. Perhaps demonstrating over the recent genocidal actions of certain regimes would be more beneficial….
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Millstone coffee is great (esp. the unflavoured varieties; flavoured tends to be a little strong), but unfortunately it actually costs more than Starbucks.
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I don’t drink coffee, but neither logo bothers me. It’s things like this that make it difficult for Christians to be taken seriously on the major issues.
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Graceland,
Ewww, a dirt machine AKA The French Press.
Grind it fine, very fine then filter it a cup at a time. It’s smooth and not bitter—much better even to the last drop—when finished within 10 minutes . . . IMHO.
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“This works out to about $17.50 a lb or $.27 a cup – about 10 times cheaper than the crud at Starbucks.”
I buy my starbucks at the grocery store for about $10 a pound. Just came back from vacation in Kona and their coffee was terrible. To each his own.
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“It’s things like this that make it difficult for Christians to be taken seriously on the major issues.”
Ohhhhhh it’s a lot more than things like this. Trust me.
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Mickey, I just came back from the ‘Bucks (I am not much of a fan, but there are TWO across the street from my office and nothing else within a reasonable distance), and I had the Pike Place blend, and it was kind of . . . nasty. Very acidic. Is it different where you are? What should it taste like? I like Kenyan coffee, in general.
#8 Graceland: This I don’t get. How do people have more of a slice of identity going to a ubiquitous Starbucks where everything is the same than they do, say, going to McDonald’s? Is it just because they can customize their drink (and most of those are NOT coffee) order? Or have I just been in New York too long?
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I guess I just have to point out that while Starbucks seems to be the hallmark for expensive indulgence all over the country, at least in my town, it’s where the homeless and sometimes the mentally unbalanced people hang out. (It’s also where there are marginally clean public toilets, for which all residents are eternally grateful.)
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Starbucks coffee comes from Indonesia. I don’t have a problem with it unless it is made too strong.
Make it Man,
I buy half of my my coffee at the Super Market. Can’t get Kona and Blue Mountain there but get most of it free from suppliers as samples. I do buy some on the Internet too.
I sometimes get the Kauai peaberry at world Market for $6 a pound if you buy it in the #2 bag – a very good value.
I am an Architectural graduate but never practiced. I have been in the construction and food businesses for 30 years. All the money is in the land and the building not design so why do it? The food business is nearly recession proof. People will give up just about everything before they give up eating and they are not going back to farming their own food any time soon. When times are good they are very very good like now and times are never bad.
Will soon be out of the food business again though and I will miss it.
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Alissa: I used to not care much for Starbucks coffee; I found it too bitter and harsh for my taste. Lately I’ve found the Pikes Place Blend smoother than what they used to serve with a good robust flavor.
I want to add that I don’t have a “Starbucks habit” and rarely go. And when I do go, I use gift cards others have given me. I still have a little over $4 left on one of my cards, so I can only go a couple more times! Otherwise, I make my coffee at home. My wife just bought some of the Eight O’Clock 100% Colombian, and it’s pretty good.
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So What? Sometimes people get their undies in a bunch for nothing!
Our favorite blend is Cafe Altura Dark roast. The second is Costco’s San Franscico Blend. We get the whole bean–then brew it in our $5 yard sale coffee pot I have had for 5+ years. Then on Saturday AM when we feel a little wild we put some real (from the liquor store) Irish Cream in it with milk. Now, that is a coffee!
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Mickey: Maybe it had just been sitting there too long . . .
My favorite coffee in the universe is the stuff I drank when I was living in Papua New Guinea for a while. A-maz-ing. Unfortunately, it’s about $50 a pound in the U.S.
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So much for the topic of the thread . . .
I think Starbucks over-roasts or burns their coffee beans which if made too strong and allowed to sit, really goes bad quickly. I prefer Gevalia Traditional Roast and sometimes Dark Roast (brewed slightly thin) at home and Yuban original at the office where I don’t want to mess with the beans. Pedestrian, sure—but it tastes fine when I’m concentrating on other things. Always black, black, black.
Question though . . . Godlumps—if Christians are such despicable people (#25) with so many problems just as humans and forgetting things of the ‘higher’ that order you seem to find desirable, why is it you hang around? Just curious.
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I miss German coffee ….
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All this shows is that there are kooks and cranks out there. Nothing more. Some of them say that they are Christians. Some of them say that they aren’t.
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The odd thing here is this: prior to this episode a major religious group HAD come out in opposition to the bare-bosomed STARBUCKS logo.
The religious police in Saudi Arabia mandated that the logo be changed, since the truly devout are genuinely offended by bare-bosoms on either a beach or a coffee cup.
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Her “legs”?? It isn’t a woman, it’s a siren or sea nymph. At least I think so. ; )
I agree with everyone who said that protests like this only make Christians look ridiculous … and I’ll have to try some Eight O’ Clock coffee.
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I was reading the other day that in Victorian society, it was improper to refer to the legs of a table as “legs”, since that might provoke a sensual response (so it was thought). The result? It is believed that there were more brothels in London than churches.
I’m with K. Starbucks coffee is junk and 8 0′Clock is far better and cheaper. Of course, I’m also had Blue Mountain (which is NOT cheaper), but I was able to buy some in Jamaica at a substantial discount. That is the best coffee I’ve ever had.
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DW and I enjoy an occasional Starbucks and, truthfully, the Logo really has never crossed my mind and it won’t next time I have one either. If I were the judge though, I like the last one with just the bodice and head. I think many companies overdo their logos.
I actually prefer beer over coffee and brew my own of both. BTW, Graceland, how did the first tasting go?
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“Starbucks coffee comes from Indonesia. I don’t have a problem with it unless it is made too strong.”
Llama. Are you really that clueless? Starbucks has coffees from around the world.
Latin America
Brazil Ipanema Bourbon™
Nutty & soft with subtle cocoa notes and a
pleasingly mild complexity.
Breakfast Blend
A bright, sparkling blend of Latin American
coffees. Great for drip brewers.
Colombia Nariño Supremo
Full-bodied with satisfying walnut flavors.
Costa Rica Tarrazú
Refined with vibrant flavors and refreshing acidity.
Guatemala Antigua
Elegant and intriguing.
Guatemala Casi Cielo®
Casi Cielo has amazing character and
great depth of flavor.
House Blend
Our most popular coffee…light and lively.
House Blend – Decaf
A well-rounded, lively favorite.
Joya del Dia Blend™
Inviting, with delicate flavors and
a soft cocoa finish.
LightNote Blend®
Smooth and delicate with a clean finish.
LightNote Blend® – Decaf
Smooth and round, with a crisp finish.
Organic Shade Grown Mexico
Shade grown. . .crisp, refreshing aftertaste.
Shade Grown Mexico – Decaf
Light-to-medium bodied with a refreshing finish.
Terraza Blend
Well-balanced and boasting caramel flavors, this
light-bodied coffee is refreshing over ice.
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Africa/Arabia
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Wild and exotic, with an aroma of spice.
Ethiopia Sidamo
Smooth and elegant, with a floral aroma.
Gazebo Blend®
Taste this wonderful coffee over ice for a cool treat.
Kenya
Bright citrus notes with deep aroma of fruit and wine.
Rift Valley Blend
Hints of herbal, peppery notes draw out this
coffee’s full round body.
Tanzania
Medium-bodied with a crisp, clean flavor and pleasing
black currant and citrus notes.
Ubora Blend™
Elegant, with floral, citrus and herbal notes.
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Asia/Pacific
Decaf Komodo Dragon Blend®
Deep, full-bodied with a complex flavor that
is bold and unanticipated.
Komodo Dragon Blend®
Earthy and smooth bodied.
Sulawesi
Smooth, buttery, earthy and elegant.
Sumatra
Intense, earthy, and aromatic.
Sumatra -Decaf
Our most flavorful decaf, bold and earthy.
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Goodlumps at #39: Llama. Are you really that clueless?
Yes, he is. On a wide variety of subjects. But don’t worry, he doesn’t let it stop him from having verbose opinions.
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I have found that African coffees are quite good (full-bodied but not bitter like South American coffees). I was introduced to Ethiopian coffee a few years ago through a missionary who had come back from Ethiopia. His church was hooked on the stuff! It brews very dark but is actually pretty smooth (though robust). Kenyan coffee is also very good.
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I guess that last post was a little off topic. So I will come back to the thread by plugging my favorite chain coffee house, Caribou Coffee (sadly, none in Louisville). The establishments are designed like a mountain cabin, they are much larger than Starbucks, the coffee is better, and the logo is a caribou (of course!), so you don’t have any problems with silly folks getting offended by logos!
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Regarding Victorians and legs: how long must our great-grandparents’ rest be disturbed by this goofy slander?
And then to be thrown in with a “post hoc, ergo propter hoc.” Dreadful!
From Gertrude Himmelfarb’s essay From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values:
“Thus ‘Victorian values’ have been associated with piano legs modestly sheathed in pantaloons, human as well as table legs referred to as ‘limbs,’ and books by men and women authors dwelling chastely on separate shelves in country-house libraries.
“In fact, these were not the normal (or even abnormal) practices of real Victorians. They were often the inventions of contemporary satirists (writers in Punch, for example), which have been perpetuated by gullible historians.
“‘The woman who draped the legs of her piano,’ one historian solemnly informs us, ’so far from concealing her conscious and unconscious exhibitionism, ended by sexualising the piano; no mean feat.’ In fact, it is this historian who has sexualized the piano and has imposed his own sexual fantasies upon the Victorians.
(http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.18009,filter.all/pub_detail.asp)
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My apologies, Kwerna. In my defense, I never mentioned the covering of said legs anywhere in the post. I do not see how the excising of certain “sensibilities” can be denied, however; I have seen pictures of medical texts from the period that follow such a “limbless” theme, and Bowdler’s edited version of Shakespeare sold very well I understand. As far as the causation fallacy, you are entirely correct; that was not my intent, and perhaps I misused the term “results” to poor effect. My point (or, rather, the point of the source I referenced) was that pretending that sinful temptations do not exist (or doing away with them, as with the Starbucks logo) does not actually stop the temptations. I was only seeking to draw an analogy between the two. Causation was not my intent, though I do not think correlation can be denied.
As one who has seen historical myths about Calvin, the Puritans, and Galileo repeated retold and misappropriated (also by gullible historians?), I have no intention of perpetuating such things. Point noted, as long as you realize I did not mention the covering of piano legs.
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Those aren’t legs.
The logo is based on an old sixteenth-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed bare breasted mermaid, or siren, encircled by the store’s original name.
So she isn’t spreading her legs, she is simply holding both tails. It’s interesting that no one mentioned the bare breasts or the tails for that matter. Let’s face it – everything about women is seductive. When Adam saw Eve he said “Wooo man!”. Why not just remove all women from advertising …
Anyway, the purpose of the logo is to represent a siren, a goddess who lures men in seductively to buy coffee. What lures the women in I wonder.
To be perfectly honest, I bet 99.9% of Starbucks consumers never noticed the logo. I think the smell of coffee is seductive enough.
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In the name of everything can be seductive if you let it…my mom once was hosting one of my older brothers, whose family is known for having very high standards of modesty. So she found an old movie and carefully pre-screened it. It turned out that she didn’t pre-screen it carefully enough. In one scene, a woman is wearing a knee-length, elbow-length wool bathing suit, and my brother looked away. My thought is that when one gets to THAT level of modesty, it must be very hard to exist in the real world and interact with real people. Women today don’t cover up that much in church, in my experience, let alone on California streets (where he lives). (Disclaimer: I cover up that much in church, except for the to-the-elbows part; I dress modestly. But I see more in church than I want to see sometimes, and I would think it would be hard to be THAT sensitive.)
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Yes, if you let it. It could be that your brother knew his limits. Maybe not and he was just reacting to his sense of decency. That could be self-inflated or spirit-led. It could just be the different outfit for an activity that is usually associated with immodesty that made it uncomfortable for your brother. I’m not making a judgment about your take on your brother’s level of modesty. I’m remembering a time when my husband confided to me that the way my soon-to-be sister-in-law’s way of dress made him feel uncomfortable. She was wearing a spaghetti strap tank top. We were all in close proximity so I think that was a factor. My husband has surely seen women less dressed than that everywhere, but at that particular time and moment, it was something that may cause him to stumble. I am glad my husband reacted the way he did. He knew what was affecting him and was honest about it. I am all for men wanting to be more careful where they gaze. They are assaulted on all fronts these days. Billboards, magazines, TV, living flesh all around them try to distract and cause them to sin. It’s not easy to maintain purity in this day and age but when a man tries, I believe he honors his wife and God.
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Well, all I can say is that I’m glad I visited the Pike Place store last summer, ‘cos I scored a couple mugs and thermos’ with the orginal mermaid logo, before the bigwigs thought they ought to elongate her hair…so at least the new contoversial logo is an edited version…no naughty bits. Oh, and it’s not a mermaid, it’s a Spanish siren.
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These little ones,
I definitely agree a man (and a woman) needs to know his limits and not play with them. I also know that my family is all very modest, but most or all of us are OVERLY aware of issues of modesty. My sister, for instance, talked about a relative’s wedding dress as so embarrassingly immodest that undoubtedly she’ll hide her wedding pictures later. I thought maybe I’d missed something, so I went back and looked at pictures of the wedding day. That year a bride couldn’t get a dress with sleeves, so she got the widest straps available–not as attractive as a dress with sleeves, but not immodest, in my book. My sister also commented that the dress was low-cut. Well, I had a whole roll of pictures, and one showed a tiny dimple of cleavage; most showed nothing. Calling it low-cut was simply being inaccurate. Probably nobody outside our family would even notice something like that, but in being trained SO strongly for modesty (with training that included judging others’ modesty and not just our own), we were primed to be far more aware of stuff like that than is really necessary or healthy. I’d think that it would be very hard today to be a man who can’t handle seeing a woman’s calves, for instance.
At the same time, women need to be careful. One of our church’s young teen girls, for instance, this morning wore a top that tied around her neck, leaving her shoulders and shoulder blades bare. She had a sweater with the outfit, but didn’t put it on till afterward. I was wishing her mom had made her wear it, as she’s too old to be showing that much skin in church (or anywhere), and I was pretty sure she’d have distracted some of the guys if I noticed. (Female flesh isn’t a turn-on to me.) So both sides do need to take responsibility–guys in knowing their limits, girls in covering a bit more than they might find truly necessary.
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