It's a slow Monday night for beer news. Blame the World Series meeting Monday Night Football taking on the night before US mid-term elections. Nothing of great beery import out there... so what about that witchy label... no, not that one to the right, the other one.
Frankly, I really don't care that much about mess arising from that Lost Abbey's beer label that shows a witch being burned at the stake. Haven't had the beer and don't expect to. But there is something about the controversey, isn't there. On the one hand, I find the outcry from pagans a bit odd as women who were determined to be witches were not necessarily - and likely not likely, even - pagans per se so much as Christian heretics, adulterers, convenient representatives of the local minority or simply scapegoats. Or, and yes, there was that classic - the falsely accused weather controllers. On the other, I find the brewery's defense - based vaguely about "the original artwork" - somewhere between sad and stunned because the label is about as artsy as black velvet Elvis.
But there is an icky thing about it all, isn't there. The label displays a murder. Forget the faux storytelling, forget the PC outrage... what other product do you have that brands itself around the scene of a murder of an innocent in progress? Just checked the mustards... nothing there... nothing on the breakfast cereals either.
Comments
TheBeerNut - November 2, 2010 5:13 AM
I heard Uncle Ben once pistol-whipped a tramp, though.
Alan - November 2, 2010 8:36 AM
I like flowers and puppies on my food product packaging, thank you very much.
Jeff Alworth - November 2, 2010 1:22 PM
I keep almost-posting on that story, too. I am intrigued more by the backlash than the label. I don't think it's out of bounds, and the brewery has been openly apologetic. In the US, the issue of witch-burning has perhaps more resonance than north of the border--but we're talking about a 17th century issue. It's hard to see how this reflects a whole lot on modern wiccan rites--which, correct me if I'm wrong, have long been dissociated from witchery of yore.
I think if the wiccans want to get up in arms, they should go after the macros who have for decades denigrated women in more direct and meaningful ways.
Alan - November 2, 2010 1:51 PM
I don't really think it is "out of bounds" but that is in the sense that I don't think velvet black light Elvis portraits or overwrought "deep" shorts stories written by teenage are out of bounds - but they do need to be put in context. And I missed the open apology but caught the explanation.
My point is really that the witchery of yore is not about witches either. It's about lynching a scapegoated old woman. And it asks me to explore when it is OK to make light of a person being grabbed, falsely accused and put on fire in a public place. A comparison: I saw an inflatable kids bouncy play palace in the form of a ocean liner sinking - clear reference to the Titanic. Personally, I find that a bit sick. Don't know if I would feel the same about a sinking from, say, 1600.
So, by comparison, how far back do we have to go to make a lynching an acceptable marketing tool.
Craig - November 2, 2010 2:09 PM
I thought you were talking about Christine O'Donnell
Alan - November 2, 2010 2:10 PM
Hmm...
Scapegoat? Not scapegoat?
Scapegoat? Not scapegoat?
Craig H. - November 2, 2010 5:39 PM
The LA label does show a killing . . . but isn't it an execution? Isn't that different from a murder? After reading your post, do I agree that showing a killing is icky.
Alan - November 2, 2010 7:54 PM
Well, is it lawful? That is a good point. When a tyrant kills is it lawful? If witches were, as is generally accepted, not the nuns of Satan but convenient victims, is that acceptable? And even if it is - would you drink and Electric Chair IPA or Gallows Stout? Maybe you would
Craig H. - November 2, 2010 9:21 PM
I assume the woman on the label is an innocent, as well, and whether killing is ever lawful . . . gotta jump over to some other kind of blog to discuss that. :) My only (tiny, miniature) point was that a state-mandated killing, in the village square & according to the local laws of the time, might better be called an execution. (Personally, I'd pass on "Electric Chair IPA" or "Gallows Stout." I guess there is a line, even for a lowbrow like me.)
Alan - November 2, 2010 9:52 PM
No low brow - you make good points - discuss away. I am working this out myself, not pontificating.
Alan - November 4, 2010 8:39 AM
An interesting if utterly unfortunate recent comparator:
"...his Halloween get-up “wasn’t meant to be anything racist” and said “I apologize if I offended anybody.” He went on to suggest people were overreacting, saying the practice of Klan lynchings of black people “has been gone for years and years and years...That’s so past-tense.”