The Starbucks "Chubby Mermaid"
If you’re a regular Starbucks-goer, you may have noticed the switch to retro brown cups, with a return to the old Starbucks logo. (For reference, here is the more familiar green logo.)
As with every development at the ‘Bucks, I checked in on Starbucks Gossip to see what people were saying, and found this comment:
What did shock me is the chubby mermaid on the cups.
I guess I am so “affected” by beauty in the media/fashon mags, I live in Dallas, that I was stunned [as] to how unattractive she is.
Really? “Stunned” by her unattractiveness? I thought this was an isolated comment until I went into my Starbucks in the morning and chatting with the barista, said I liked the new cups. (Not because of the mermaid or anything, in particular, I just like the brown color scheme.) She said, “Really? I don’t like them.” Immediately the other barista said, “Oh, because of the chubby mermaid?” That’s twice! Twice she’s been called “the chubby mermaid”! Barista number one said, “Not necessarily… it’s just that the logo looks kind of weird. The way she’s holding her tail… like, what’s going on there? It seems inappropriate.”
So what do you think of the new, albeit temporary, logo? Is she chubby, unattractive, inappropriate, or just plain not iconic enough now that she isn’t green? Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Advertising, Art, Old Timey
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“I guess I am so “affected” by beauty in the media/fashon mags, I live in Dallas, that I was stunned [as] to how unattractive she is.”
Oh that’s right- I completely forgot that Dallas was totally populated with all attractive people! and anyone who lives there will of course be stunned by the image of a chubby mythical creature on a coffee cup….
Here in Seattle, the media covered the original logo change (from brown hand-drawn mermaid to stylized green) as entirely about the OMG BOOBIES!! WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN issue. I always found the old-school mermaid…saucy, I guess, with the breasts and whatever she’s doing with her tail. But it certainly never occurred to me to even consider whether she was chubby or not!
Honestly I’m more surprised than anything that people HAVE opinions about the cups. Slow news day? It’s not like we’re going to forget the green logo, or that it doesn’t appear on every Starbucks storefront around the world (except the original one downtown. That still has the retro 70s nekkid mermaid!). It’s an interesting evolution, now that I look at it: that suddenly the breasts are okay, but people are disturbed/obsessed over whether a DRAWING of a MYTHICAL CREATURE might not be rail-thin.
She’s a mermaid.
And therefore conforms to the fabulousness of mermaid beauty standards.
Silly humans!
http://www.deadprogrammer.com/starbucks-logo-mermaid has a summary of the logo’s history and a lot of links to analysis of the logo and the significance of the mermaid archetype in general (though mostly from a feminist perspective wrt to sexuality/chasteness in the mermaids’ portrayals). Fascinating stuff.
Heh, I didn’t even notice that she was a chubby mermaid till it was mentioned… Otherwise, I don’t see why it’s such a big deal. Then again, I really don’t care for Starbucks (living in Montreal, I have plenty of other options for coffee that are a lot cheaper and of better quality).
The “chubby mermaid” controversy is what it is, and says a lot about why I avoid most media of every kind.
Now, that bit of yoga she’s doing with her tail? For some reason I’m seriously squicked by that. At the very least you’ve got to admit it looks uncomfortable.
I never realized she was supposed to be a mermaid in the first place. Aren’t mermaids supposed to have one tail, not two? If it were her legs she was holding like that, it would be pretty vulgar.
Why does she have 2 tails, is my question. Otherwise, I must admit, I didn’t even realize the logo was different – just the color.
It looks like she has two giant pineapples for a tail-legs. WTF.
Wow, riv, thanks for that link. I is edumacated now. I had no idea about any of that history. Cool.
She’s not a mermaid. She’s a shelanagig – a pagan fertility symbol. And she’s showing off her vadge.
Actually – she’s a melusina. If you check that link above it shows that the original Starbucks logo was a pretty exact copy of an old engraving. And even then they de-emphasized the roundness of her stomach.
I like the retro feeling in the brown logo because I have something for retro things.
I like the green logo because green is a lovely colour. Tho it took me ages to find out it was a mermaid-like character (or a shelanagig, like Meg says) until a graphic designer friend told me. In the brown one you can tell what it is.
So there’s a tie.
Funny thing: she is “chubby” and doing some difficult “yoga pose” like Flora says. Doesn’t that challenge the stereotype of fat people as lazy bastards who cannot excercise to save their own lives? That totally rocks.
oh my god, she’s a freakin ink drawing of a mythical being. do these people want to airbrush botticelli?
Wow. First I’d heard of this. So, are they doing this everywhere or just in the US? Starbucks is an ‘oh, if you must’ for me here in the UK. When I’ve actually been to Seattle, I’ve found tons of other places to drink much better coffee. But, I kind of like this…at least, as on the old Pike Place sign, you can tell what she is. I suspect people are getting hung-up about the, um, sexual implications.
As for ‘chubby’ – a mermaid (or siren, melusine, whatever you call her) is a marine mammal. Marine mammals are supposed to have plenty of fat to protect them from the cold. They just don’t teach cryptozoology like they used to…
Oooh, I love the new logo! It’s so cool and funky. I do agree it looks a little naughty. She’s all like “hey dudes. sup? check out my fishy cloaca. MMMM SEXXAY.”
Love the new logo, still hate the coffee. If the coffee were better, I’d go just to get one of these cups, though.
Hell, I was shocked that she could do the splits with her tail. How could anyone focus on the chubby?
Hotsauce, you hit the nail right on the head. Now I’m off to hit the link that riv posted.
I never even look at the logo….green, brown, or otherwise!
So that leads me to ask…..why does a coffee company have a mermaid as its “mascot’?
re: airbrush Botticelli?
I read an article that said that Botticelli’s Venus was likely about 5’5″ and 160 pounds. That’s over the “healthy” BMI. Guess we can’t like her anymore, either!
I think the brown logo looks retro-cool, but the green logo is cleaner in its lines. The funny thing is, if you look at the green logo… that mermaid is probably the same weight as the brown one. It’s just that you can’t see past her torso.
Silly!
We’ve been spoiled by The Little Mermaid’s Ariel. We expect them to have a super-tiny waist, thick red hair, and huge anime-like eyes. Before that, many depictions of mermaids were ugly, slimy, and bloodthirsty monsters.
I prefer the old logo, also because of the clean lines, and I like the color green.
She didn’t register as chubby for me until i read this. I was definitely more intrigued by Starbucks having such an odd mythological character on their cups. Rock on.
If she’s Melusine, then she’s intended to be dangerously seductive (cf water nymphs and sirens.) I didn’t even notice her “chubbiness” because I was too busy being gleeful they’d gone back to a figure with visible boobs and a split tail. A mermaid holding her tails apart is definitely naughty. If the original Starbuck, a Nantucket Quaker, saw her, he’d have been shocked out of his socks. Her weight would have been the last thing on his mind.
I like it, I mean I find it to be way more artistic and well thought out than the silly little green design *slurps down rest of Java chip frappuccino (sp?)*
Yeah, I’m definitely diggin’ it.
She reminds me of a Sailor Jerry tatt; retro, classic, and sexy. I actually like it. The tail yoga should squick me but I find it interesting. But the new logo won’t be the deciding factor for me when I have to choose between a Caramel Frap in either tall or grande.
Um, if that’s chubby I wanna be it!
I would be more apt to notice that she is one mermaid with seemingly 2 tails?
I noticed the cups this morning- I thought that the stores had just run out of the appropriate cups, or that they were some sort of bizarre special promo. Obviously, I hadn’t had the coffee yet…
Yeah, my thought was definitely “fish pr0n!” as opposed to “fat mermaid!”
The new logo, with its deep sepia tones, has a very c.1900 look to it. Must admit that I never noticed the SIZE of the mermaid but thought the dual tail look was amusing.
Will ask the baristas at my regular ‘Bucks (located in the very heart of Hollywood!) for their reactions to the new look.
I also like the “old school”-ness of the brown logo, but I’m not really into coffee. Tea is more… well… my cup of tea. Mmmm.
Also, Nomie, I wasn’t exactly paying attention when I was reading the comments, and the “fish p0rn!” had me laughing out loud.
I took a class on goddesses and the two-tailed mermaid was also a symbol of protection (it can be found in old churches) and is another take on a symbol of a woman with her legs spread. It is a woman in power and in this case in control of her own sexuality. This is before more monotheistic masculine based religions/cultures turned the divine feminine into a bad thing (sirens, Eve, etc.) Thought it was interesting and wish they had gone into more depth in the class.
They told us at our local starbucks they only went brown for a short time to generate media for their new pikes place coffee or whatnot.
My question- why would anyone care if someone thinks the picture is attractive or not? All art is subjective and when did the word chubby automatically make everyone think the person who said it was making a call on whether that meant attractive or not? The pic does show a chubby merthing- I personally don’t think the word chubby is bad!
I think it’s just a logo….
I like this one. There is a Starbucks nearby with a big old sign featuring a stylized mermaid in profile (I can’t find a picture of it online, and haven’t seen it at any other Starbucks…weird). For the longest time, I thought it was an otter holding some rocks.
(There is a picture of the Starbucks on someone’s labor of love website, but, alas, it does not show the sign. See the Pico and Robertson pic, about 1/4 of the way down: http://www.starbuckseverywhere.net/LosAngeles.htm)
For cryin’ out loud. It’s retro! That’s all the rage these days. I agree with Flora, this is why I avoid the media at all costs. People are constantly looking for something to be offended by. Not to mention, in this ever-changing world, people still hate change of any kind. I love the retro logo.
I like the retro logo, although the tail thing looks uncomfortable to me — but then, I’m not much good at yoga, either.
Liked browsing through the history of the logo on the link above, and it’s kind of cool that Starbucks is bringing back a bit of thier history, for a little while, anyway.
I think it’s kind of weird how her tail is parted in two like a girl holding up her legs to show her youha. As for the chubby part, I think it’s cool someone thought a mermaid could be chubby too. :)
I thought (from the original green logo) she was holding 2 fish b/c of the Pikes place market and the whole fish throwing. Hmmm.