Belching Out the Devil Read Online Free Page B

Factory”? A show of hands? A couple of you. It was actually shown last year during the Superbowl and it was the second-highest rated commercial and because of that we turned it into a documentary. So, how many of you have wondered what happens every time you put a coin into a Coca-Cola vending machine, anyone wondered that?’
    A lone and slightly strangled voice yelps, ‘Yes.’
    â€˜Let me tell you what happens,’ says John. ‘Everyone say a little bit of love, let me hear you say ‘Love’. ‘
    â€˜Love’ croak six or seven of us.
    â€˜Magic’ he gleefully urges.
    â€˜Magic’, reply even less than the first time.
    â€˜Magic and Happiness!’

    â€˜Happiness’ I find myself saying almost alone.
    â€˜And that is what goes on inside the vending machine. Enjoy the show.’
    Â 
    The lights go down and the advert begins. If you have a TV you’d recognise it. A young man puts a coin in a Coke vending machine, but as the money rolls down the chute the advert becomes an animation with a sub-Tim Burton soundtrack. A small swarm of huge insects, overweight maggots with helicopter blades strapped to their backs, fly in an empty Coke bottle, which a mechanised decanter promptly fills. A track-suited figure with a gold tooth and a plume on his helmet, half-knight half-pimp, is catapulted - holding a bottle cap - on to the top of the bottle. A gang of fluff ball lips are released from a cage, ambush the bottle and frantically kiss it. Then penguins in goggles throw a snowman into a large fan that blows the flakes from the now decapitated snowman on to the bottle. Finally the drink is led down a parade ground by a band, with cheerleaders and a fireworks display, before being dropped into the trough at the bottom of the vending machine for the young man to collect.
    Â 
    As ads go it is actually a very good one, but it is odd that the company guides keep referring to it as a documentary, which it isn’t. It is no more a documentary than Snow White is an academic study of interpersonal relationships within polygamous communities. But as the ad finishes the ‘documentary’ element begins. Various Coca-Cola employees were interviewed, their words re-voiced by actors and assigned to different cartoon characters from the commercial. So the majorette, all blue hair, lips and eyelashes has a voice of an All American Mall Girl, whose words at least are a real worker’s testimony.
    â€˜Are we rolling?’ she asks in true behind-the-scenes
documentary style. ‘Hi I’m Wendy, I’m single…and it’s my job to keep everybody happy,’ the coy cartoon trills. How would she describe Coca-Cola? ‘Coke is like a little bottle of sparkle dust.’
    Â 
    Later the maggot with the helicopter blades (who upon closer examination looks like he has nipple rings or piercings of some kind) says in a deep husky voice, ‘It’s a relaxed atmosphere, it is not like some jobs that are tense when you get [t]here, it is a good working environment.’
    Â 
    These, remember, are the words of Coca-Cola employees, recorded and revoiced. According to these real employees, Coke is a great place to work, so it must be true. It is such a good environment that all sorts of creatures line up to testify, including a blue, long-necked chimera, a weasel salamander in a hard hat with a monkey wrench held over his shoulder. He speaks in a gruff ol’ southern voice ‘I smile ten minutes before I go to bed and ten minutes before I wake up every morning…It is people like me an’ Eddie who make this company, the fact that we have been here and stayed here, to me that is the heart and soul of Coca-Cola.’
    Â 
    And as if that wasn’t enough a shy Hispanic woman tuba player, demurely whispers, ‘What have I given to Coca-Cola? My loyalty and my love. I give that.’ She pauses before adding, ‘Don’t make me