Costa Coffee has become the latest brand to inflict woke ideas on its customers by the use of virtue signalling advertising. An image of an androgynous-looking character in a surfing position wearing long shorts, blue hair and large lips, with scars below each nipple, has been spotted on one of their vans. The image was created as part of a design for last year’s LGBT Pride month, but has subsequently been condemned by feminist campaigners who had their breasts removed due to cancer. Here is what Costa Coffee had to say about it:
“At Costa Coffee we celebrate the diversity of our customers, team members and partners. We want everyone that interacts with us to experience the inclusive environment that we create, to encourage people to feel welcomed, free and unashamedly proud to be themselves. The mural, in its entirety, showcases and celebrates inclusivity.”
Costa is not the only brand that is pushing body mutilation on girls. Dr Martens, a popular footwear brand, has promoted a new boot, created by a ‘queer artist’, which features a topless cartoon figure with scars beneath their breasts, indicating breast removal surgery. Although the boots were not for sale, people could enter a giveaway to win the pair; hold me back!
Earlier this year, Stonewall was criticised for selling Christmas cards, which showed three characters, one of whom had scars under each nipple. Also, a Stonewall book Honorees, which ‘celebrates the power of community and the importance of LGBT history’, shows cartoons of people marching, including one individual who had scars under their nipples. Finally, a book published by Penguin included people of all shapes and sizes on the front cover, including someone who had undergone breast removal surgery.
Instead of these sinister and obscene gestures, high-street brands would be well-advised to stick to their traditional remit. Costa Coffee could try simply making coffee and drinks for people who are going to work or want to pop in for a snack; Dr Martens could be designing and producing boots for workmen and lesbians, and Penguin ought perhaps to stick to publishing books. They should not be glorifying the mutilation of women.
Are these household brands trying to influence women who are struggling with their body image? Are they signalling to healthy young women, some of whom are only teenagers, to cut off their breasts? Do they not understand the dangers of what they are portraying? One of the options for girls who do not want to have breasts is chest binding, which involves compressing the breast tissue. But, over 97% of girls who have worn chest binders experienced negative side effects such as ‘poor posture, fungal infections, long-term skin damage, sores, reduced skin elasticity, rib damage, fluid build-up in the lungs, circulation problems, dizziness, headaches and spinal misalignment’. Another option is mastectomy, which is an operation used to remove the breast. Normally used as a treatment for cancer, women use it to have their breasts removed under the impression that this will change them into a male. But, again there are negative side effects, such as blood clots; feeling tired and weak; nerve pain; wound infection; swelling of the arm and fluid collecting around the operation site. What happened to the famous ‘First, do no harm’ dictum of the Hippocratic Oath?
Thankfully Costa is facing a backlash from their infuriated customers, and social media users have threatened a boycott after the hashtag #BoycottCostaCoffee garnered traction on Twitter. The coffee chain is also a subsidiary of Coca-Cola, which as an American corporation may see the outcry travel stateside. Look what happened to Bud Light when Dylan Mulvaney was used in their advertisements. Will this be another one of those ‘go woke, go broke’ scenarios?
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Have made my feelings known to Costa…Only every bought their coffee at motorway service stations, but that won’t happen again.