Cracking Open the Easter Egg Controversy

It's PC gone mad etc etc

Almost as inevitable as wet bank holiday weekends and obligatory repeats of Ben Hur is the annual controversy about the PC attack on Easter, religion and the alleged lack of Easter on Easter Eggs. I've only really noticed that this has become part of the periphery of Easter-time in the last couple of years, with pundits, the public and even the Prime Minister Lady Vicarsdaughter weighing in with a view. Let's take a look into the situation in a little more detail and see the EGGStent (of course I'm going to use egg puns!) of the issue.

When did this moral panic about Easter Eggs begin?

Honestly, it appears to be a very recent thing. Obviously following in the footsteps of other favourite festive conspiracies like the all too many EGGaggerated 'Christmas is cancelled' stories comes our more contemporary 'Easter is being removed from Easter Eggs' panic we're seeing today. From what I can tell it stems from a company called the Meaningful Chocolate company, who are selling a product called the Real Easter Egg. As for most big brand Easter eggs, it appears that they've only ever referred to their Easter Eggs as chocolate eggs on the packaging since the 70s, with seemingly little consequence, suggesting this is a much more recent issue.

Why is this now a problem?

It fits into lots of narratives about PC culture taking over beloved celebrations and presumably something about nothing being allowed to be fun any more. This despite Easter Egg hunts still being popular, copious levels of chocolate rabbits, eggs and other springtime shit selling really well at this time of year and the fact that Jesus dying on the cross wasn't really fun for anyone except maybe the Romans.

There's been a certain amount of positive momentum in the traction of this story year on year with it getting more visibility and debate. Over the last 5 years the message has been repeated at this time of year and each year gaining a bit more resonance with the public, and steadily growing despite the fact this is not the first year this has been raised as talking point. There's no doubting the press wants a piece of that action and capitalises on it by dedicating more column inches to it. They will probably do quite well from it too.

Who are the Meaningful Chocolate Company?

In their own words they say: "We are a privately owned British company with a single shareholder and a small team of committed staff who work out of our Lymm office." That doesn't exactly tell the whole story and despite mentioning the company's solitary "shareholder" the website fails to mention who that is. The truth is the man in question is David Marshall who is described as a Christian campaigner and who certainly seems to have a bee in his (presumably Easter) bonnet about companies "censoring the centuries' old tradition" of Easter. 

The Meaningful Chocolate Company seems to be quite eager to make a name for itself in the landscape of chocolate worship of Jesus in all its forms selling not only the Reverend approved Real Easter Egg but also advent calendars, chocolate buttons and the somewhat unchocolatey olive wood crosses. Many of the confectionery products come with extras like religious story books. Their website also quite proudly boast about which supermarkets have been coerced by "customer requests for the Easter egg to appear on the shelves" into stocking the Real Easter Egg and makes numerous references to their Fair Trade credentials. Unsurprisingly they've sold out of eggs this year.

It's not a conspiracy, it's marketing and lobbying

To speculate for a moment, one has to wonder if this all comes down to the Church trying to claw back some visibility from an increasingly apathetic uninterested public. Sometimes any publicity is good publicity. Let's be fair the Church has a historical pedigree of pressuring companies and governments with its doctrine; less than it used to, but clout all the same.

The Church is in many ways a business like any other, eager for brand visibility like any other and seems to be fiercely protective of the times of year when it might have some actual relevance in society still. Julian Henderson the Bishop of Blackburn stated earlier this year for instance: "We have a responsibility to pass the message of Easter to the next generation and The Real Easter Eggs are a creative way to do this," so there's little doubt as to what the agenda is. To be fair one could imagine the Church is already worried after finding out that hot cross buns (which are at least delicious and feature a Christian symbol already) and chocolate eggs were more recognisably related to Easter than Jesus.

Whilst there is a rather strong push for more visibility of the 'Christian brand' over those nasty atheists and secular chocolate competitors from what little research of press and PR material I found there's no lack of mention of Easter. Cadbury's in particular seems to have capitulated to the public pressure by renaming their annual Easter Egg hunt to include the word Easter, after controversially not including it last year.

Do people really need Easter Eggs to explicitly state they're for Easter? 

That really depends who you ask. If you asked me I would say no. However, a lot of angry social media users would beg to differ. There's no denying the Church and Mr Marshall's plan has worked as there's no lack of disgruntled dialogue from people who are demanding Easter be mentioned on Easter Egg packaging.

Nothing to see here, says clearly that it's an Easter Egg

I think part of the reason chocolate companies have been referring to them as "chocolate eggs" for so wrong is because many companies don't care who buys their eggs as long as people buy them. For that reason considering the country is multicultural and for the most part secular, just calling them chocolate eggs widens their appeal and makes them more likely to be bought at other times of the year. This is not about placating imaginary offended Muslims, Hindus or Jews (which is quite nice of them as Easter partially exists to supplant Passover), neither is it about worrying about political correctness. This is to do with making the most money possible during a season where chocolate sales get very high and the market gets particularly crowded. It's clear to see why David Marshall is making such a fuss to get attention.

Incidentally, I received a Cadbury's Mini Eggs Easter Egg this year and it says: "Contains 1 Easter Egg on the box", so bang goes the theory there too.

What has all this been for?

It would seem this debate and controversy has all happened so people can point to this and maintain their belief/outrage about their cultural identity being under threat, so that the Church gets more coverage of its religious messages and David Marshall and the Meaningful Chocolate Company get to sell all their Easter eggs in a particularly pious manner. 

Does any of this mean I can't enjoy Easter?

Ultimately you have the freedom to enjoy any holiday the way you want to, whether you adhere strongly to the religion and its beliefs or not. If a chocolate egg without an explicit religious message on it ruins your holiday (which originally has very little to do with either eggs or chocolate) then I don't really have any advice for you.