A Wife Beating Brand

Just a thought…

When I first came to the UK four years ago I didn’t know the Stella brand. I grew up in Spain and lived happy as a clam enjoying my “cañas” of icy cold Mahou, San Miguel or Aguila. I arrived with a willingness to absorb my forefather’s culture of drinking pints of ambient temperature beer whilst posing as a University student (a mission I excelled at I must ad).

Anyway, when I first saw the Stella Artois logo on a tap I was immediately drawn to it: the Frenchy name and elegant design succeeded at reeling me in. I swiftly ordered one and as I held it and sipped it I thought: “that’s a rather all right beer, not the best I’ve had but it does the trick”. That is when my mate saw me and proceeded to fill my ears with this brand’s not-so-glamorous reputation.

A wifebeater is slang for the typical tough-nuts style sleeveless shirt, yet on the wiki definition you will find another meaning: “In the UK and Ireland, the term is occasionally used as slang for the Belgian beer Stella Artois. In British culture, Stella Artois is associated with a drinking culture in which domestic abuse may follow a bout of drinking Stella Artois at the local pub.”

I’m not sure how Stella’s ‘wife beater’ association began. On the Stella wiki it speculates that the association comes from Marlon Brando’s legendary cry, “Stellaaa!”, in A Streetcar Named Desire, a film infamous for its portrayal of domestic violence. Whatever, the fact is this beer is synonymous to wife beating! Jesus!

Wouldn’t you think this kind of widespread reputation would sink the brand? Think again.

Stella Artois is the best selling premium lager in the UK beer market.

Don’t get me wrong; I hold nothing against the beer, poor Stella. I am aware, as is everyone else, that there is no secret ingredient in it that will induce a fit of misogynistic rage or that by drinking it I will be immediately tagged as scum. I mean brands can carry undesirable social associations, I just think this one is pretty hardcore. I guess even more hardcore is the fact that it survives this; wife beating has just become a tongue in cheek kind of notion.

I quite like Stella’s ads, they are quirky and characteristic. They have gone from the 1970s slogan "Stella's for the Fellas" to a the current Frenchy (though it’s Belgian?) European sophistique vibe. Some of it is actually rather highbrow, what with “Reassuringly Elephant”, the surrealist version of “Reassuringly Expensive”. It ties in strategically, seeing as a lot of work has gone into tying Stella to excellence in cinema. All the ads make cunning references to famous old films. It’s worked well, high five to the planners, but it hasn’t made everybody forget the wife beatings. I will come back to this is a second.

I just want a quick look at the above mentioned strap line. Now, this is in line with the up-market sophisticated image of the recent campaigns. It makes sense, the thing is, is it really expensive? It sure as hell doesn’t seem like it to me (I don’t have the facts and figures to parade but I have done my homework). Does this not mean that this is just a disingenuous lie? Is saying that a beer is expensive when it’s pretty mid-range not promoting a fake feeling of quality? Oh wait, maybe it's just hilariously sarcastic. It didn’t strike me this way at first, I thought it rather charming, but on closer inspection and after reading the article that follows it did hit me.

So, I was reading thelondonpaper on the tube and I came across this article. It talks of the unprovoked attack on a teenage girl by a bunch of thugs, the attacker himself was “clutching a Stella Artois beer”, he is even pictured with it. A real piece of PR.

It made me think two things, apart from the general disgust this type of person provokes in me.

1) Would the writer of this article have bothered mentioning the brand if it was let’s say, a Fosters, and not the stigmatised Stella?

2) And, if it is absolutely clear that the Stella brand and wife beatings are inextricably associated in pop culture, despite the polished Frenchy-filmy stuff, shouldn’t the brand communications take a stand on this?

Now, for a moment think about this. Imagine, bizarrely that Stella resolved that enough was enough and decided to tackle not only its reputation (making it European and pseudo-expensive hasn’t done it) but to tackle the subject head on. Sure, Stella doesn’t make men hit women, it is beer like many others, and it also doesn’t want to lose the actual wife beating ‘market niche’ (cringe). Fair enough. But what if it took a stand against this kind of behavior by setting its advertising agency’s powerful creative communications engine on this socially responsible quest? What if it overcame the obstacles and dangers this challenge would pose for the brand and succeeded at promoting responsible and, blimey, civilized behavior in all, or most, of it’s drinkers?

Wouldn’t that be exciting?

And also, wouldn’t it be a brave, brilliant and rewarding challenge to take on as a planner?

Just a thought…

Phaedrucide: A Definition

So, what does Phaedrucide mean? I have been using this word, the namesake of this blog (and a series of other creative projects), for a while now without explaining it in full. I have given my explanation to those who have asked me in person whereby I have been able to do so live and uncut, with the aid of wild Mediterranean gesticulation and intense facial expressions, but it’s time to let the cat out of the bag in the written word.

The etymology of this word comes from the name Phaedrus and the suffix “-cide” (cidium, caedere- to cut, kill) following from the Latin example; Homicidium (Homicide). The name Phaedrus indirectly refers to a character found in various Ancient Greek scriptures, mainly used by Plato in a series of dialogues with Socrates. However this it is only through the description of Phaedrus in Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig that the name gains its meaning.

Without going into excessive detail, I do have to express that I view Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as one of the most seminal and ground breaking philosophical writings of the century. Philosophy seems to be tied to antiquity, and perhaps it will only be in a reasonable future that his work will be popularly acknowledged. This isn’t to say that his work has gone unnoticed, millions of copies sold in 23 languages is quite compelling. Perhaps I am referring to the influence his work could still, and by all means should, have on popular culture. In all fairness, his description of the Metaphysics of Quality which he expanded on in his next book, Lila, has been included on philosophy courses at Universities around the world, and Anthony McWatt (a lecturer in philosophy at Liverpool University) actually has a PhD in his work.

The beauty of his work is it explores philosophy and values from a different angle, looking at the old and the new, the scientific and the mystical, the Eastern and the Western and proposes new perspectives. These can be, and are, understood on many levels by the reader, making his writings, in my humble opinion, a must read for all. Discussion on the philosophical underpinnings of his work are readily available on internet communities dedicated to this study, but I want to talk about Phaedrus.

In the book, the character of Phaedrus resides within the mind of the narrator. He represents another self within himself, a dual personality, one that drove him to insanity. This insanity was brought on, as it transcends in the journey (travelled in the book, experienced by the narrator and by the reader as well), by Phaedrus’s insatiable thirst for knowledge and ever intensifying challenge to his ‘reality’. I don’t intend to go into the intricacies of his rebuttal of Western philosophy, only to say that Phaedrus pushed the limits of his mind so far, and in so many ways, that his world imploded on him.

The presence of Phaedrus was initially manifested in the narrator’s recount of his university studies in biochemistry. Here he found, and was profoundly bothered by the notion that there was always “more than one workable hypothesis to explain a given phenomenon, and the number of such hypothesis seemed almost unlimited.” Let’s say that Phaedrus first manifested himself as an uncomfortable intellectual itching that eventually led the narrator to be institutionalised, even receiving sordid treatments such as electro shock therapy, until he was deemed recovered.

One of the shocking realisations that any reader of this book will encounter is the suspicious similarity between the plot and between Pirsig’s life. The extent to which it seems autobiographical is quite mystifying, a fact I guess I am making now to highlight the fact that the concept I am finally going to explain is truly a homage to this truly remarkable author.

It was in fact in crossing the threshold from insanity back into supposed sanity that the two characters were truly divided. The narrator spoke of his former self from a distance, this former self brought terrible memories of his tortured intellect, of the pain it caused him and his loved ones, of the helplessness of spiralling the drain of mental health. Phaedrus was a past different person to him and he was a threat, but Phaedrus was coming back.

The way Phaedrus is perceived by the reader is clearly tainted by the voice of the narrator who hopes to avoid Phaedrus’s return, to be able to live in his reformed reality and exist in harmony with his environment. That seems fair enough, having returned from the depths of despair which he had reached due to Phaedrus’s quixotic philosophical quest it is clear he wouldn’t want to go down that road again. The interpretation of Phaedrus’s character does however remain open to the reader’s subjectivity. The character is extreme; he is brilliant but he is mad, he is ferociously inquisitive yet inexorably self-consuming. Was Phaedrus good or bad?

Funnily enough, this kind of moral dichotomy is one that Pirsig rejects all together. Nevertheless, Pirsig did make a point to clarify this question in later publications, which for some (myself included) was understood form the start; Phaedrus was indeed the good guy.

Before I go off on my imminent rant, I just want to clarify that I am in no way claiming to be an authority on Pirsighian philosophy or making a statement about Phaedrus’s role in the book. I aim just to explain what Phaedrus has come to mean to me.

Phaedrus was indeed extreme: in his way of questioning what most regarded as irrefutable facts, in his manner of finding layers and layers of understanding invisible for common minds and in his ability to perceive the tremendous connectivity of systems in the world around him. Through out the book we discover more and more about his past, about his downfall and of the threat of his return. He understood that wherever he looked there was more to be seen, and that behind everything, behind mind and matter, there was one all-encompassing binding force; Quality (a kind of non-mathematical version of Einsein’s Unified Field Theory). So intense and so passionate was his pursuit that the fabric of his reality started coming apart, yet he was so focused trying to understand how it was woven together, and so fascinated in seeing the filaments come apart, that his reality just disintegrated before his eyes.

We have agreed that the fear felt by the narrator was understandable, but eventually we come to appreciate that Phaedrus’s return does not equate to insanity. Although it was his quest to pinpoint and understand Quality that was largely responsible for his decline, it was the steadfast notion that Quality was “the key” (as well as his love for his son) that finally resurrected him. Phaedrus returns but this time he is stronger and wiser.

As I said, although this scenario is drastic, Phaedrus comes to represent the mad seeker of truth, (whatever that may be) which we all, hopefully, possess. It is one of the highest of human traits. He stands for the passion and devotion to a cause that can move mountains, the type of dedication which is so unusual yet so admirable in people who possess it. This kind of path isn’t always the easiest, and most likely it is quite the opposite. It is fraught with conflict with those that will inevitably oppose the controversy, outlandishness and menace of new thinking. It is never easy for the bearer of such thoughts.

Phaedrus is passion, inspiration, instinct and vision. He is restlessness, curiosity and drive. He is sheer creativity.

The Phaedrus that I am describing is the one that lies within all of us...

When I was a child I promised myself I wouldn’t grow up. I saw all the grown ups, so serious and so tame, while I was investigating the hedges, making mud pies and exploring the secrets of the garden. I would be racing around with my long golden hair, caked in mud, with patches on my pants and bloody elbows, blissfully happy. I saw grown ups doing their grown up things but they sure weren’t enjoying themselves as much as I was. I promised that I would never change.

Well, everybody grows up, even me. Such is life. Growth, responsibility, context, and experience…I don’t really have to explain what turns a boy into a man. I’m not making a big statement about happiness here either, or about being youthful or having fun. I am just using myself as an example, saying that as a child my undeveloped little mind was banging on all cylinders. It was unbound by knowledge. Everything was new and exciting, I was infinitely curious and I wanted to touch everything I saw. I could feel with incredible intensity, that was the only way I knew how to, and I was aware enough to realise that I never wanted to lose that feeling. That in essence was what that promise was all about.

In growing up there is a division from that child, to quote Pirsig, “it’s like those photographs of a rocket just after launching where you see two stages start to separate from each other in space. You think you're together and then suddenly you see that you're not together anymore.” Only the timeframes are much longer than that. The first realisation probably comes when you look back, not just passively remembering being a child but actually focusing on putting yourself back in your little boots and seeing things the way you used to. I guess there is a strong link with the Time Machine syndrome (TMS) that I described. It was the day I really remembered that old promise that got my mind ticking on this subject…that’s my story anyhow.

I believe that the inner Phaedrus is that child all grown up, without having ‘grown up’ if you get my drift. The wild card within that is suppressed by the rational and the pragmatic, the left side of the brain dominated by the right. At times it is absolutely necessary, but that is not the problem. The problem is when he is blindly assassinated! Smothered by routine, by mental rigidity, by lack of perspective, by self-consciousness, by materialism.

When ‘the man’ gets you down, when you become square, when you don’t draw because you say you are not good at it. When you don’t express yourself. When you discover something and don’t care or don’t want to find out more, when you forget the last time you laughed so hard you drooled. When you are “sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit crushing game shows stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth”. When you are bored. The very breaking of that childhood promise to oneself, a promise so prematurely profound and real.

Every time this happens you are committing Phaedrucide.

So, now that we know what it means, why be named after such a sad reality?

The word Genocide (from Greek genos [‘race,’ ‘kind’] and -cide, from Latin -cidere, ‘to kill’) was only coined in 1944 because the concept was unknown, at least in that magnitude, until then. It is not until you can recognise, define and name an evil that you can start to condemn it, tackle it and abolish it.

That is the purpose of this word!

Phaedrucide is the name under which I carry out my creative projects. Following the old principle of “to kill the killer one must become the killer” I carry this name to attempt to understand my Phaedrucidal tendencies and eliminate them. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” they say…

This name is a mark and a warning. I guess it’s along the lines of the psychological principle of pasting pictures of a pig on your fridge to stop pigging out. It’s kind of masochistic but it works for some. In the same way my Phaedrucide work is the opposite of what it says on the label. You put a pig on your fridge because you don’t want to be one, because you see a horrid reflection. I don’t have a pig on my fridge because that isn’t my issue. Mine is trying to keep an old promise.

So this is for me, but it’s also for anyone who can relate. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance did a lot for me, it inspired me, but it stopped being about the book and about Pirsig’s Phaedrus long ago, this is about mine. It is a constant reminder that life is for living and that it is a truly amazing thing. It is my expression, my creativity, my attempt to be in touch, to allow my Phaedrus to breathe. These are things that I am excited about.

Phaedrucide is my one word lifestyle manifesto.

A minor incident at work

I am watching the symptoms of a system meltdown. Not on a major scale, nothing anybody else seems to notice in this busy bees nest yet it’s subtly perceptible and somehow significant. I am sitting at my desk at work, as one does, and around me I am witnessing the roots of disorder. I am reading it in peoples faces, their movements and their glazed eyes.

Maybe this requires some contextualisation. I work in a Design studio, outside London in an industrial shithole otherwise known as Slough. I can’t complain, being my first job (as a student work placement) It’s down right fantastic. We get to enjoy the foxy-modern-hip policies of a design studio like free coffee and being able to listen to music off our sexy G5 computers. No complaints about it, the early mornings are a lesson in discipline, the paycheck is an excuse for monthly binges and the work is easy going.

Oh the work. It’s not exciting, I doubt anybody thought it would be. We sit at our desks with our fancy equipment and design ads for print, churning them out while listening to music and sipping mediocre coffee. There you go, it pays the bills and provides a workingman structure to my lifestyle which I can use as an excuse to go overboard in my free time, it all works out. Next year I will be a student again for my final year (gulp) and after that it’s the Real Rat Race so I guess right now I’m in a kind of social no-mans-land. Groovy.

So, I rise in the dark and flock to work with the rest of the herd of commuters, seeing familiar yet glum faces in the train morning after morning. I enter the gates of the corporate dimension and grab a coffee, make my way to my desk, settle in, Log-in and space out. That brings me here, to my work station; the place where I exercise my official purpose, my job, the source of my income, my title. I guess I’m being so flippant because I can afford to be. I’m aware that this year is just a transitory step and so I don’t have the devotion towards my job that people have when they meet someone and say “Hi, I am a Person, I do So-and-So for a living so that is what I represent”. I work here, but this is not what I Do.

My work habits are strange but they suit this job perfectly. I have always been an underachiever, frustrating teachers throughout my life with my wasted potential. It wasn’t really wasted, it was simply subject to my whims – my potential poured into my interests and being the lively young puppy I was they changed constantly. It was consistency which I lacked and still do. I find consistency boring.
I work in bursts of massive productivity followed by long breaks which I spend surfing the mighty and all encompassing internet, designing, writing and pondering. I’m surrounded by people that pace themselves and work constantly, they don’t understand why I work the way I do and manage to get things done – I don’t understand how why they decide to be bored. I guess they’re not bored though, I just get bored to think of their approach. I’m not talking about everybody around me, I am talking about the people that have brought me to write this.

Today the networking system that is the backbone to our work process has crashed and will remain down indefinitely. It has been this way for the past three hours but they hope to get it fixed soon so we are meant to stay and, well, pass our time. This is when I began perceiving the symptoms. At first everybody seemed relieved and joked about the situation. Since i’m in my musical isolation (studio verborrhea is generally intolerable) I witness everything as a choreographed pantomime. The expressions move from jolly-jokey, to sheepish to shifty to uncomfortable. People are getting impatient about this situation, they are getting bored because they can’t work; they “can’t get no satisfaction” because they can’t do what they are meant to be doing.

The question whether man is innately lazy or ambitious is a long lasting dilemma. Many social disorders can be attributed to this paradox; some people are stressed by work they don’t want or don’t like and other people are frustrated and getting depressed because they can’t find a job. I think that basically it has to do with non-conformity. Yet at the same time that is another paradox; non-conformity can be tremendously constructive as a self preservation device for people to break from the beaten track and explore, innovate, rebel! Then again I was referring to the non-conformity with serves as a constant warping of goals so that they can never be achieved. Maybe they weren’t genuine, sincere goals in the first place (that’s a whole other story). I reckon this all has something to do with the overwhelming majority of glum faces I see in the morning. I doubt mine looks much better.

Time old dilemmas to one side, all I can say is that before me I see people gagging to work, they seem like they are about to choke in the awkwardness of this situation. Should I stand up on my chair and explain, screaming, that it’s just temporary, that soon things will be back to normal?

“We design for a corporation that has just announced a turnover up by 6.7 % to £897.9 million in the last quarter! You are not changing the world, you are a hair on the mammoth of irrelevance, your work here belongs to a world far from the reality that matters to your human side, yes that little quivering being that’s lurks within you. Our role here serves the machine that is awesome and all encompassing in our era, but it’s this same machine which makes you feel so lonely and so sick, because you are so devoted to it that you trust enough to have forgotten about the massive ocean that lies beneath the surface you are doggy paddling on. Stop and see where you stand because you are both the exhausted beast and the abusive rider, look ahead so your aspirations aren’t lost in the dust of this lunar landscape, so that you have bearings are based on the permanence of the stars, of Quality and of awareness. What is more cliché, to warn against the evil that lies in the slippery path of society or to truly become the ‘architects of our own demise’ regardless of all the harbingers? Yes! Work with gumption but remember what you are working for, remember what it means. And when a network breaks down in your design studio, with no detrimental effects on your income or job (in fact it donates free time to your busy day) question why you start manifesting symptoms of panic. Question the root of that feeling! Question why you have driven me to stand on this chair and scream this, do you understand what I’m trying to do?”

The meaning doesn’t really gel, I think it’s too hard to make my message cogent, besides that was an emulated rant in my head - maybe it would have clicked If I had gone for it. I guess I’m not ready to make myself look like a lunatic, and get my ass fired, for these victims of my judgment who probably see me as another form of wasted space.

Oh, there it goes; the system is back-up and running. Back to work.