Belching out the Devil - Mark Thomas

You may or may not have heard of Mark Thomas, you may or maynot be familiar with the Mark Thomas Comedy Product. Mark Thomas can probably lay claim to being the driving force behind getting rid of the protest permits for Parliament Square and for being one of the countries best satirist activists. If you're not familiar with him that's a bit of a shame and you are encouraged to seek him out. You will, however, definetly be familiar with the soft drink known as Coca-Cola.

You might be aware, for instance, that the reason Santa is often portrayed in red and white is down to the advertising behemoth that is the Coca-Cola corporation. You might even be aware that this is in no small part down to an obscenely large advertising budget that could pay to run the UN for the next 33 years. There are probably few people who don't know Coke used to contain cocaine (a fact nearly so widely known it's hilarious that the Coke corporation never mention the "c word"…) but how many people know that Fanta was created in the third Reich and advertised amid a flurry of swastikas? We may all find the blithe and bland brotherhood of man song “I'd like to buy the world a Coke” an irritating consumerist dirge but are you aware of how far from the truth Coke's own employment policies are from buying the world a home and furnishing it with love … ? Martin Luther King's last speech, the day before his assassination, addressed companies that adopted unfair employment practices towards African Americans, Coke being one of the named companies he encouraged the civil rights organisations to boycott. A product of the time perhaps? Well in 2000, November no less, Coke settled out of court to the tune of 192-odd million dollars to avoid a court case that would highlight its unfair and discriminatory treatment of African Americans. Which, let's face it, would have been a bit of PR Nightmare. You might be vaguely aware that big corporations are likely to have a few skeletons in their closets—a few things that might make us think twice about buying their products—but you might not know specifically what these are. In Belching out the Devil Mark Thomas takes us on a journey from the Coke museum Happiness Factory (a six-minute documentary about one of their most successful advertising campaigns) and statues of Coke's morphine-addicted inventor, to Bogotá and tales of trade unionist murder, to India and the exposure of workers to harmful chemicals and child labour in El Salvador. Mark shows us the Coke side of life the advertisers don't want us to see and depressingly enough it is “the real thing”.

The book is written in a similar style to Mark's previous book As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandella (an expose of the arms trade) and indeed it doesn't feel a million miles away from being the script of a Mark Thomas Comedy Product special. Fans of Thomas will be able to see him on stage performing the material almost word for word, in places they will probably be able to nail the exact intonation he would use and exactly how much sweat he needs to wipe from his brow. This is probably the book's main advantage, and its biggest disadvantage I suppose, as it will instantly appeal to existing fans but there might be those that find his style a touch irreverent at times and maybe lacking in gravitas at others. However, Mark's writing style manages the trick that Comic Relief tries to pull every time it appears on our tellyboxes. At one minute you're chuckling away at a clever turn of phrase that highlights the ridiculousness of the situation or the pomposity of some Coke executive or policy document. Then the banter drops away as the “short film” segments (in Comic Relief about starving Africans, in the book about the murder and abuse of trade unionists) in all their starkness let the issues speak for themselves. The contrast between this and Thomas' righteous witticisms highlights the serious nature of the problem. Thomas is one who I suspect is more than aware that jokes about death can be funny, even downright hilarious, but you don't generally tell them when you are lowering the coffin into the ground. Both joke telling and burying Coke Thomas achieves quite well.

Thomas' humour is like a boxer's feint that draws you in before the sucker punch of facts that lays you out. But it wouldn't work if the work didn't highlight the human plight of the workers the Coca-Cola system abuses. Thankfully, Thomas does a lovely line in revealing to us the hectic home-lives of those that have been persecuted and from this you get a sense of universalism. You get the sense that if it wasn't for the luck of the draw then you could have been born into a country where large Western multinationals come to take advantage of cheap labour in the name of profit. Indeed, the universal hustle and bustle of human life is excellently mined by Thomas—whether consciously or unconsciously who can say—but it serves the purpose of humanising the workers' plight. In a way that a broadly academic or entirely humorless work perhaps wouldn't achieve with their dry testimony and detached statistics.

At the head of every chapter Thomas places a quote from the Coke corporation's publicity monster detailing its support of ethical business practices, workers rights and its combatting of child labour. He then proceeds to rubbish these claims and expose the central lie the Coke company sells to us in the name of its brand. Namely that it absolves itself from blame by using sub-contractors (similar to how Nike used to justify using sweatshop labour) however, it's worth noting that Coke has considerable power and influence over said sub-contractors—as Thomas shows in the book.

In places the book feels like it could be used as a how to guide: “the Mark Thomas guide to being a corporate shite-bag” perhaps, due to the detail with which it exposes and describes corporate tax dodges and employment loopholes, and how it furnishes us with examples of the legalise and PR lingo Coke has used to try and deflect genuine concerns. It also highlights that while we might sit and think that we would exploit such loopholes if only we knew how, these companies lobby governments quite successfully to ensure these loopholes exist and are not closed.

This book is not only a competent anti-Coke manifesto, it doubles as a good case for supporting trade unionisation, workers' rights and opposing globalisation all with a wry smile and a witty riposte just around the corner. It's hard to justify recommending the book to anyone other then those interested in anti-globalisation or the evils that corporations do (I mean ideally that would be everyone) without seeming preachy and making comments along the lines of “you have to read this book, you'll never drink Coke again!” but as Mark's web site proclaims “If you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention”.

Mark Thomas – Belching out the Devil is available in paperback now.

[Potatojunkie]

You may be aware that the Santa thing is bollocks.

You may also be aware that Fanta was invented by an ordinary German guy who wasn't a Nazi and who was basically trying to keep his head down and stay in business while the war was going on.

Coke are bastards, but facts are important.

[Largest of Als]

You may be aware that Mark Thomas is a twat.... I certainly am aware of that.

He doesn't as much say 'look at this terrible injustice' as he says 'look at me pointing out this terrible injustice'


ARSE!


Oh, where did you cut and paste that hyperbole from anyway?



Al

[Potatojunkie]

Accuse him of not knowing that Coca-Cola is a proper noun all you like, but plagiarism?

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by Potatojunkie

You may also be aware that Fanta was invented by an ordinary German guy who wasn't a Nazi and who was basically trying to keep his head down and stay in business while the war was going on.

I didn't know the santa thing was an urban myth. Thats dissapointing. I don't think I actually said (and neither does the book) that the fanta guy was a nazi... It was invented during the third Reich and advertised amid a blaze of swastikas - but aye the guy probably didn't have much choice in the matter given the state of Germanys politics at the time. It's only really relevent in terms of how the Coca-cola company reacts to it and keeps images relating to it hidden away in its archives for fear of the negative publicity.

[corky]

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by Largest of Als

You may be aware that Mark Thomas is a twat.... I certainly am aware of that.

He doesn't as much say 'look at this terrible injustice' as he says 'look at me pointing out this terrible injustice'

Thats a fair point, he spends a large amount of the preface dealing with his sizeable ego.

Oh, where did you cut and paste that hyperbole from anyway?

Which bit is it you consider to be hyperbole?

[Jaemi]

Incidently, he covered the same topic on Dispatches not that long ago.
You should be able to find it on you-tube.