DVD Talk review of 'The Cola Conquest'
 

I read Holly E. Ordway's DVD review of The Cola Conquest at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=10159 and I had to take issue with the following paragraph:

"Santa Claus: we all know him. He's the pudgy, jolly fellow with the ample white beard, dressed (of course!) in his bright red suit with the white trimmings. He's wholesome, he's all-American, he's traditional... and he's an invention of Coca-Cola."

This is a widely held belief, but it's not true.

Saint Nicholas was a historical figure. He was even present at one of the Catholic church councils. (Nicea ??)

Anyhow, I actually was curious about how this film compares with

Coca-Cola: History Of An American Icon
A documentary by MPI with a lowest price of $14.39 at DeepDiscountDVD.

Seeing as this is the only other DVD available on Coca-Cola, a natural comparison would have been nice.

To be precise, neither "Santa" nor the red outfit were *invented* by Coca-Cola (as I do say in my review: "Pre-Coke, "Santa" was St. Nick, who was sometimes depicted as slim, sometimes as fat; sometimes wearing red but more often dressed in yellow or blue."). But I think that there's a reasonably well-supported case that the advertising campaign by Coke, which presents a specific image of the fat Santa dressed in red and white, is what fixes that image in the U.S. cultural mind, so to speak. Pre-Coke-advertising you do see the red-clad chubby Santa, but you also see a lot of other representations of Santa (*) but post-Coke=advertising they're basically all variations on same "chubby, red/white" theme.

I think I'll edit the review to say "this *image* of Santa was created by Coca-Cola" as in fact the way I phrase it is kind of misleading.

*) My mother collects old-time representations of Santa, so I actually noticed this shift well before reading about it.

Yeah, I thought Holly had been deceived by the DVD as well...which makes you wonder how much of the rest of the DVD also contains questionable facts.

By the way, I don't think we can expect a reviewer here to seek out an review ANOTHER DVD about Coke for comparison to this one...kind of a time-consuming assignment, and ultimately one that has little bearing on the review of THIS particular DVD.

I know Holly's somewhat of a health nut, so the only comparsion I would have enjoyed is perhaps the opinion of another reviewer who guzzles Coke down by the gallon (you know, like myself!)

I imagine my review would have gone something like this:

"You know, Coca Cola is 99 percent sugar and water - which is proabably why it tastes so darn good!"

Whoa! It's my summary that made the issue unclear, not the documentary - the program provides the context of pre-Coke Santa and doesn't make the claim that Coke created the whole Santa idea; it just presents (fairly, I think) the argument that it was Coke's advertising that cemented one particular representation of Santa in the public consciousness.

And anyway, that was just one minor fact that happened to catch my attention. It's not a main point at all. The advertising sections are pretty darn fascinating in general, though, particularly the parts that look at the advertisements in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

So... health nut, eh? :D I guess reviewing all those exercise DVDs is creating a nice positive image, hehehe.

Any clue why most retailers don't seem to carry this disc?