Apart from the fact that I love all things French, especially the Impressionist period, I chose the name Absinthe as a metaphor for the sort of work that I’m good at: unpacking the reality from the myth and setting about to tell the story that we want people to hear. It’s a form of narrative management, in policy and communications talk.
Absinthe—the drink—was widely vilified during the late 19th to early 20th century following its association with writers and artists such as Henri Toulouse-Lautrec in Paris during the late 19th century.
But was the problem with absinthe itself, or was the backlash more social and cultural in nature?
The aura of illicitness and mystery surrounding absinthe has played into literature, movies, music, and television, where it is often portrayed as a mysterious, addictive, and mind-altering drink, epitomised by the term la fée verte or ‘green fairy’. Remember Kylie Minogue in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge? This is exactly the bohemian image that many conservative groups began to rally against—and were ultimately successful in tarnishing absinthe’s image.
More recently, these widely-held ‘truths’ have been debunked and in fact most of the toxic effects attributed to absinthe—and more specifically the wormwood component—are in fact attributable to alcohol.
Clearly ‘fake news’ is a big issue today, but the absinthe story shows us that there are instances of it occurring almost a hundred years ago, even if it wasn’t labeled as such. Today, absinthe can be found for sale in many European countries, showing that it is possible to repair and reposition damage done by a social backlash.
SOURCES:
Lachenmeier, D.W. (2008). Thujone-attributable effects of absinthe are only an urban legend—toxicology uncovers alcohol as real cause of absinthism. Med Monatsschr Pharm. 31(3), pp.101–6.
Eadie, M.J. (2009). Absinthe, epileptic seizures and Valentin Magnan. J R Coll Physicians Edinb. 39(1), pp. 73–8.