Ever found yourself questioning the Starbucks logo? No? Well, you might be one of the few...
Last year, Starbucks stores in the US went retro, returning to their 80s logo, a brown, bare-chested split-tailed mermaid.
Say what?
Yep. The original Starbucks logo was a naughty siren chillin’ out with her tails.
Starbucks had to change their corporate logo because shockingly, some consumers found the topless siren too lurid and sexually suggestive. They found it, shall we say, tough to swallow with their morning coffee.
A simplified logo was introduced in 1987, hiding the siren's breasts under waves of hair. Interpretations abound! She has giant pineapples for tail legs! She’s doing a difficult yoga pose! Or yes—it has to be said—she is showing us her vadge.
Starbucks decided to play it safe: the image was cropped and enlarged so the split in the siren's tail (and that scandalous belly-button) would no longer show. The only indication now that the female icon is a sea creature is in the wavy lines. The logo is so squeaky-clean that it kinda looks like she’s holding two scaly fish.
When Starbucks brought the original whore logo back in 2008 for a limited time, you can imagine the controversy and upset it caused in the Christian community:
One Christian group boycotted Starbucks. "The Starbucks logo has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," explains Mark Dice, founder of the group. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks."
Yes, that’s right. The founder of a Christian organization did in fact just say Slutbucks. Did he coin a new term? Should we encourage him to go to Urban Dictionary and take credit for that savvy and scathing play on words?
Other comments include consternation regarding the mermaid’s size, especially from women. She has in fact, been called “The Chubby Memaid.” (You can hear the collective movement of Disney executives as they begin brainstorming ideas for future cartoon movies.) Ladies, cmon. A little self-respect, please. Have we seriously been that brainwashed and conditioned by Ariel, the “little” mermaid that the Starbucks siren is now our designate Fat Chick?
And why is a mermaid/siren/slut Starbucks’s icon anyway? Well okay, she’s actually called a Melusinea if you wanna get all geeky about it. In ancient Greek mythology, sirens and mermaids were in the business of seducing mariners with songs and promises of sex and then killing them.
One expert believes that “the original logo made quite explicit that Starbucks was using the lure of female sexuality to draw the customer to their coffee, but now you can see that the coffee is linked to the double lure of ultimate wisdom and the pleasures of the flesh.”
Um. Yeah. Okay. Pass the sugar.
If you ask Doug Fast, the logo's designer, he simply says that the woman depicted is based on a Greek mythological siren-half-woman/half-fish. You kinda get the impression that he thought it would be cool. You know, back in 1971 when he was designing it for a little independent Seattle coffee shop.
I find it an intriguing and fascinating social observation that nudity is deemed so offensive in our society, and particularly in the United States. But violence? Hey, no probs. The logo would likely have gotten less controversy had the mermaid been toting a gun. What is everyone so scared of? Fellas, they’re just boobies. And Christians, what’s a little split tail amongst friends?
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