Bri-M
12-03-2009, 09:14 AM
http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2009/11/30/news/opinion/opinion_columnists/opin_313.txt
Now that the holidays are upon us, it’s time to get annoyed with the consumerism, secularism and political correctness that continue to whittle away at the meaning of the holiday season.
The secular and consumption-driven nature of the season has become so routine that one has to work hard to remember to take time for the traditions and religious observances that once defined the season.
I thought I had seen every example of how religious meaning has been stripped out of Christmas until a friend showed me the label on a festive seasonal bottle of Coca Cola the other day. The marketers at Coke have taken secularism to new heights and thrown in a confusing mixed message for good measure.
On one side of the bottle’s label was the catchy phrase “Holiday 2009” in English. Not Happy Holiday, mind you, but Holiday 2009, as if it were important only to know the year the soda was produced but not to recognize any other significance of the holiday.
Hats off to the people at Coke. That’s about as generic as you can get, and it bears no risk of offending anyone with a message that could be interpreted as religious in nature. In fact, the message has no meaning whatsoever.
But there’s more to it than that. On the opposite side of the label was the mirror image written in Spanish, a common practice for consumer goods marketed to a growing Hispanic population. However, in place of the English-language Holiday 2009 on the label was the Spanish phrase “Feliz Navidad.”
Thanks to the song by Jose Feliciano, many of us non-Spanish speakers know that Feliz Navidad means Merry Christmas, a phrase with far more meaning than Holiday 2009. If translated literally it actually means Happy Nativity, taking the meaning directly to the birth of the Christ child in the manger.
So while the English-speaking public gets the equivalent of a date stamp, the folks at Coca Cola see fit to wish the Spanish-speaking population a Merry Christmas and recognize the core spiritual essence of the Christmas holiday.
I find that fascinating, and I have to wonder what it means. Is it that English-speaking people are seen by the marketers at Coke as completely secular and likely to be offended by the expression Merry Christmas or a link between the holiday season and a Christian holiday?
Or do the people at Coke view Hispanics as more religious than non-Hispanics? Do they think that Hispanics value the religious significance of Christmas more highly and may be offended if the reference to Christmas were left off of a seasonal product?
Is it that Hispanics lack the diversity of religious beliefs and secular viewpoints that exist in the English-speaking population? Perhaps the holiday season equates to Christmas alone in the Hispanic population, and thus Merry Christmas will have meaning to a large segment of that population without offending many of them.
Is the Hispanic population where the rest of us were 30 or 40 years ago when you could wish people a Merry Christmas without triggering widespread social angst or risk being sued? Have they yet to develop the advanced state of political correctness that plagues the English-speaking population?
I have to believe that the marketers at Coke are savvy enough to know exactly what they are doing and were very deliberate in the choices of English and Spanish language phrases they made. But I think a lot of people who notice the labeling in the first place will understand the meaning of Feliz Navidad and wonder at the disparity between that and the drivel on the opposite side of the bottle.
Whatever the reason behind it, I envy the Hispanic population for receiving from Coca Cola a meaningful holiday wish while the rest of us get only a reminder of what year it is.
Now that the holidays are upon us, it’s time to get annoyed with the consumerism, secularism and political correctness that continue to whittle away at the meaning of the holiday season.
The secular and consumption-driven nature of the season has become so routine that one has to work hard to remember to take time for the traditions and religious observances that once defined the season.
I thought I had seen every example of how religious meaning has been stripped out of Christmas until a friend showed me the label on a festive seasonal bottle of Coca Cola the other day. The marketers at Coke have taken secularism to new heights and thrown in a confusing mixed message for good measure.
On one side of the bottle’s label was the catchy phrase “Holiday 2009” in English. Not Happy Holiday, mind you, but Holiday 2009, as if it were important only to know the year the soda was produced but not to recognize any other significance of the holiday.
Hats off to the people at Coke. That’s about as generic as you can get, and it bears no risk of offending anyone with a message that could be interpreted as religious in nature. In fact, the message has no meaning whatsoever.
But there’s more to it than that. On the opposite side of the label was the mirror image written in Spanish, a common practice for consumer goods marketed to a growing Hispanic population. However, in place of the English-language Holiday 2009 on the label was the Spanish phrase “Feliz Navidad.”
Thanks to the song by Jose Feliciano, many of us non-Spanish speakers know that Feliz Navidad means Merry Christmas, a phrase with far more meaning than Holiday 2009. If translated literally it actually means Happy Nativity, taking the meaning directly to the birth of the Christ child in the manger.
So while the English-speaking public gets the equivalent of a date stamp, the folks at Coca Cola see fit to wish the Spanish-speaking population a Merry Christmas and recognize the core spiritual essence of the Christmas holiday.
I find that fascinating, and I have to wonder what it means. Is it that English-speaking people are seen by the marketers at Coke as completely secular and likely to be offended by the expression Merry Christmas or a link between the holiday season and a Christian holiday?
Or do the people at Coke view Hispanics as more religious than non-Hispanics? Do they think that Hispanics value the religious significance of Christmas more highly and may be offended if the reference to Christmas were left off of a seasonal product?
Is it that Hispanics lack the diversity of religious beliefs and secular viewpoints that exist in the English-speaking population? Perhaps the holiday season equates to Christmas alone in the Hispanic population, and thus Merry Christmas will have meaning to a large segment of that population without offending many of them.
Is the Hispanic population where the rest of us were 30 or 40 years ago when you could wish people a Merry Christmas without triggering widespread social angst or risk being sued? Have they yet to develop the advanced state of political correctness that plagues the English-speaking population?
I have to believe that the marketers at Coke are savvy enough to know exactly what they are doing and were very deliberate in the choices of English and Spanish language phrases they made. But I think a lot of people who notice the labeling in the first place will understand the meaning of Feliz Navidad and wonder at the disparity between that and the drivel on the opposite side of the bottle.
Whatever the reason behind it, I envy the Hispanic population for receiving from Coca Cola a meaningful holiday wish while the rest of us get only a reminder of what year it is.