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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To question the protest over the Sainsburys mug

118 replies

LadyLightning · 20/08/2020 23:50

I work in mental health, have counselled many victims of domestic abuse and worked for agencies providing emergency support to people in danger.

I see the Matilda themed mug at Sainsburys has been withdrawn because it can be apparently be read as 'a brilliant idea. hit her'. Which would obviously be reprehensible.

Did anyone read it that way? I thought it was pretty clear it was meant as as 'a brilliant idea hit her'. Of course we have to take violence in relationships very seriously, but does this seem a bit overblown to anyone else?
YABU - the mug should have been withdrawn
YANBU - the protest is over blown

OP posts:
Camomila · 21/08/2020 08:03

oops. 'hit her'

Zhampagne · 21/08/2020 08:04

Oh that is so ridiculous. If you read 'hit her' as an imperative then 'a brilliant idea' becomes a fragment which makes no sense.

wanderings · 21/08/2020 08:17

When does that sentence appear in the book, anyway? I know the book well, but I can't place that line. "A brilliant idea hit her " almost seems too colloquial to be in the book about Matilda, the 4-year-old reader of Great Expectations.

Here is a line which could be selectively quoted from Danny the Champion of the World: "I am going to beat the daylights out of him". (Danny's gentle father, on the teacher Captain Lancaster, who had caned Danny.) Could there be a mug quoting that?

I do think there's a grain of truth in what @BallOfString says, about siblings saying "the mug says I can". But once you start looking for them, there are endless well-known metaphors endorsing casual violence, should we ban them all?
"Give him a good kick up the backside."
"She had her knuckles rapped for it at work."
"Criminals get away with a slap on the wrist."
This was in my school magazine:
"Thanks to Miss Rod for the much-needed arm-twisting when it seems that nobody is going to swim butterfly, or run the 1500m!"

Zhampagne · 21/08/2020 08:22

@wanderings

When does that sentence appear in the book, anyway? I know the book well, but I can't place that line. "A brilliant idea hit her " almost seems too colloquial to be in the book about Matilda, the 4-year-old reader of Great Expectations.

Here is a line which could be selectively quoted from Danny the Champion of the World: "I am going to beat the daylights out of him". (Danny's gentle father, on the teacher Captain Lancaster, who had caned Danny.) Could there be a mug quoting that?

I do think there's a grain of truth in what @BallOfString says, about siblings saying "the mug says I can". But once you start looking for them, there are endless well-known metaphors endorsing casual violence, should we ban them all?
"Give him a good kick up the backside."
"She had her knuckles rapped for it at work."
"Criminals get away with a slap on the wrist."
This was in my school magazine:
"Thanks to Miss Rod for the much-needed arm-twisting when it seems that nobody is going to swim butterfly, or run the 1500m!"

It’s quoted in full in the Independent article:

“When at last the germ of a brilliant idea hit her, she began to expand on it and lay her plans with the same kind of care the Duke of Wellington had done before the Battle of Waterloo.”

mnahmnah · 21/08/2020 08:22

I’ve got that mug and it had never occurred to me!

FinnyStory · 21/08/2020 08:23

I didn't know the line from and this is the first I've heard of the protest. On seeing the picture of the mug, I did wonder what on earth possessed someone to chose those few words and present them in that way.

butterpuffed · 21/08/2020 08:24

@Zhampagne

Oh that is so ridiculous. If you read 'hit her' as an imperative then 'a brilliant idea' becomes a fragment which makes no sense.
It isn't ridiculous. I read it as 'He/She had a brilliant idea which was to hit her. As I said I've vaguely heard of Matilda but don't know the books.

However, domestic violence in an adult relationship didn't occur to me, I saw it more as children arguing.

BillywilliamV · 21/08/2020 08:28

I have a Tesco Mug with a quote from Miss Trunchbull.

"I don't like small people!"

Does this qualify as hate-speech, I wonder?

Ohdeariedear · 21/08/2020 08:28

It’s completely down to the design, the way it’s been laid out and the change in font and then also HIT HER being in caps - it all combined shifts the tone/message/meaning. I’m really surprised no-one raised it at the design stage. (Or perhaps they did and thought it was ok)

Therarestone · 21/08/2020 08:32

I would never have read it any other way than 'A brilliant idea hit her' so nothing wrong in my personal view. Maybe if I had been in a DV situation I might view it differently.

BallOfString · 21/08/2020 08:34

@wanderings it’s not so much the words themselves, but having them on a everyday object where the would be seen regularly. It’s the potential of adding an extra lever to the relentless sibling argy bargy that bothers me. If we’d seen this once and it had led to ds hitting dd, I could handle that, but imagine this mug on the table at every meal. I think it‘s just something I’d rather avoid.

wanderings · 21/08/2020 08:35

@Zhampagne Thanks, I must have missed that part. In fact, it's reminded me that I once quoted (aged 10) from Matilda, to justify retaliating against my brother, when he wronged me. @Ballofstring Smile

I said: The thing to do when you are attacked, is to counter-attack. (I think Napoleon was mentioned in that paragraph as well.)

sashh · 21/08/2020 08:36

I would have no idea it was from Matilda, and having read the newspaper link it isn't even the full quote.

I can only read it as intended because of what has been said on here, I think it's a bad choice of words and design.

I also think there is something overlooked here, the'brilliant' idea is a a font children may not be able to read si ti becomes 'HIT HER'

KingFredsTache · 21/08/2020 08:38

I do think it's a strange choice of font and layout - why do it like that?

Lelophants · 21/08/2020 08:38

Maybe if you'd never read the book or knew the quote. You've got to think of lowest common denominator!

Hullo · 21/08/2020 08:43

Reading this, what I thought of was a woman in the office or something who has a lot of brilliant ideas...you know, like those mugs with ' something something I'm a female boss something ' line written on them. That's the image I got. It didn't sound at all like "yes hit her" because there's no comma or something to show it's a broken sentence. I read them all together: A brilliant idea hit her.

Seeing this mug (like all of the other naff ones), I wouldn't even pay much attention to it and I'm both a sexual abuse survivor (as a child) and domestic violence survivor.

That said, I'm glad to see both camps (those who are offended and those who scream "professonally offended" at them) are alive and well on this thread, working together. I was expecting to see the usual double standards on MN, where this would have been a big problem but the mermaid one wasn't, all for obvious reasons.

I fall in the 'I didn't read anything into this but OK, if you say so' camp.

NeverHadHaveHas · 21/08/2020 08:44

I got this mug as a end of term present for dd’s reception teacher and teaching assistant as I thought it was a lovely depiction of a teacher inspiring a child.

The quote is clearly from the book and the image and the text read together have absolutely no connotations of domestic violence.

It would literally never have occurred to me that a person would read the text in that way, because that’s not what it says!

Hullo · 21/08/2020 08:46

Oh and I wouldn't have known the quote came from a book or something. Haven't read Matilda, which is why the "office woman" is my go-to thoughts about it.

JadesRollerDisco · 21/08/2020 08:47

They should never have passed it to be made and it should have been withdrawn because the design is odd and unclear. I don't think it's a domestic violence issue per se though, it's more like a spelling mistake or something

FreekStar · 21/08/2020 08:50

If they had used different layout for the words and not capitalised the word hit, it would have read differently. Whoever designed it was illiterate!

RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 21/08/2020 08:53

However, domestic violence in an adult relationship didn't occur to me

Same

BUT

I did read it the same way as others on the thread, as in...a brilliant idea, hit her (i know there is no comma but to me the font change Suggested it)

RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 21/08/2020 08:54

I fall in the 'I didn't read anything into this but OK, if you say so' camp

Yes, thats a good way of saying it

Im quite often in this camp on mumsnet

Hullo · 21/08/2020 08:56

Before seeing the mug and judging from some people's reaction, I thought the words "hit her" were in very large, bolded and highlighted fonts - larger than all the others. Therefore, singled out and stressed. But looking at the mug, "brilliant idea" is what draws my attention. It's bolded more than the others, in the middle and written in a stylized fashion to draw attention while the others are in plain-ish fonts. It seems obvious to me that part ("brilliant idea") is what they were going for, to single out and emphasise.

EveryDayIsADuvetDay · 21/08/2020 08:58

I haven't read the book (or seen the mug until looking at the link just now).
My initial interpretation was the 'idea occurring to someone' variety, but I do see that it could be misinterpreted, and while, s PP has said, that's not going to make someone hit a woman/child, it is normalising DV.

Sainsburys could have gone for a simply not ordering any more stance, but I guess once it had been highlighted, why fill up shelf space with something controversial?

StCharlotte · 21/08/2020 08:58

Thanks to Zhampagne for putting the whole quote (and saving me from trawling through the article).

I haven't read the book and even now I know the context of the quote it just seems a really odd thing to put on a mug.