[Reader-list] Coffee 2

[yasir ~]

The hard sell


Wild Bean Cafe

Mark Hooper
Saturday December 2, 2006
The Guardian

As anyone who's ever studied GCSE-level Shakespeare or the lyrics of
Kelis will tell you, subtext is everything. Great artists rarely say
what they mean. Hence the boys in the yard aren't actually after
milkshakes, just as the world isn't really a big stage.

I only mention this because, having studied the Wild Bean Cafe advert
at painstaking length, I can only conclude that it works on
metaphorical levels so subtle and deep it's beyond the comprehension
of mere mortals.

Taking the script entirely literally, what happens is this: man drives
date home. Date asks him in for coffee. Man looks appalled and
abandons her in favour of an instant coffee from a machine in a
service station. We all know that asking someone in "for a coffee" is
a euphemism for rumpo-pumpo, but that's far too literal an
interpretation of what's going on.

The more you consider the evidence, the less it adds up. If he's
genuinely only interested in the coffee, why does he turn her down
point-blank without even tasting it? Clearly, the Wild Bean Cafe ad
must be one of the greatest social critiques of our age. Think about
it: Wild Bean Cafe is owned by BP Connect. BP also deal in another
liquid even more highly desired than coffee - and it's not Kelis'
shakes.

Now, the man turns down the offer of "coffee" from his companion and
instead opts to cruise the laybys, looking to pay for it from
strangers. The free market economy itself is being subverted by
metaphor. A major multinational company is being portrayed as a pimp.
And all the men and women are merely players.