When I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004, I took a picture of what I could only describe as an unusual mermaid. Then, last March, a well-educated friend of mine, Kelly, emailed me the following:
Back in the medieval world, a mermaid with a split tail showed up frequently on Romanesque churches throughout Europe to symbolize Luxuria or Lust. In medieval iconography, a woman with unkempt, wavy hair was a woman to be feared. Think sirens and the 7 deadly sins and the Catholic Church’s need to protect the faithful and to remind them of the dangers facing them in the world.
Kelly also mentioned that this was same siren reproduced in the Starbucks logo, and pointed me to a blog post about “Starbucks Iconography,” which says:
As one might imagine, these great grandmothers of the coffee temptress were more than just decor. Keeping in mind that sirens seduced to kill, a mermaid with tail spread open was an (not entirely subtle) indicator of the dangers of sexual temptation.
Five or six years ago, I was wandering through Seattle’s Pike Place Market when I found a vendor selling prints of the original woodcut Starbucks logo, which had been modeled very closely on an old engraving. At the time unaware of the siren symbolism, I was simply delighted by her voluptuousness. She was downright chubby.
It turns out that as the Starbucks logo evolved, the siren was progressively de-sexualized — and slimmed down. The very first iteration of the Starbucks siren was a more finely drawn version of the old engraving, missing her distinct belly shading but now in possession of a faint smile. In the second version of the logo, her nipples and the suggestive cleft in her tail were removed. Then, in the more recent incarnation, her belly button was erased and the split tail was all but hidden.
A fascinating blog post by Michael Krakovskiy details “How the Starbucks Siren Became Less Naughty,” including insights from the graphic designer who produced the various iterations of the logo. In another post, “The Mermaid,” Heinz Insu Fenkl examines the cultural meanings of mermaids and sirens:
The mermaid ultimately signifies the fundamental mystery of female sexuality, particularly for men who, because they cannot comprehend it, are simultaneously drawn to it and terrified by it. That is why the mermaid becomes so easily conflated with the siren and her irresistible call that leads men to their doom.
Just a few weeks after alerting me to the siren-seven-sins-Starbucks connection, Kelly called excitedly to tell me she’d just bought a coffee with the original logo resurrected on the cup. The media was soon reporting on it. A Business Week article said the logo change was temporary and intended to restore the company’s authenticity and edginess. Meanwhile, Christian groups were in an uproar. One said, “It’s extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks.”
The new “old” logo isn’t an exact reproduction of the original logo, though. Hair now discreetly covers the siren’s breasts, she’s still missing a belly button and she remains slightly slimmer. Nonetheless, she’s prompted plenty of controversy and discussion. My Internet searches revealed several references to her as “creepy” and “ugly.” Here’s one from a presumably ordinary guy commenting on Digg:
Yeah, the first logo is a bit creepy…A mermaid with 2 tails? Ah well, I’d hit it.
Yes, the “irresistible call” of the siren.
I was reminded of this topic — which I’ve been meaning to write about for a while — when I saw this image recently on Domino’s Daily Dose blog. This bikini model could be considered the modern equivalent of the ancient siren — alluring, yet unattainable. It may be stretching it a bit to say she’s a creature of both land and sea.
The Daily Dose blogger writes: “My own personal Operation Hot Bod is not going terribly well, but i am still hopeful that by the time i am at the beach i will have got in enough exercising to look like this!”
This brings me back to an exhibit of ancient figurines I saw at the American Museum of Natural History. These “goddess” figurines date back to roughly 25,000-30,000 BC. Anthropologists suggest their ample breasts and bellies signify fertility rituals (although it’s important to note that some are actually quite thin), while feminist scholars cite them as evidence of ancient goddess religions. The Venus of Willendorf, in particular, is celebrated as an icon of the fat acceptance movement. The fact is, no one really knows. I like to think of them as the ancient version of a Barbie doll, but this is of course my own personal bias.
The point is, from the goddess figurines of 25,000 years ago to the sirens of the 1500s to the corporate logos of the new millennium, representations of the female body have always served as a reflection of the place female power holds within the current culture. “Popular” body sizes and shapes shift depending not only on fashion, but on economic, political and spiritual realities. The new/old Starbucks siren certainly epitomizes our contemporary ambivalence about female sexuality, size and power.
