Better Living Through Chemistry
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- For the album by Fatboy slim, see Better Living Through Chemistry (album).
The phrase "Better Living Through Chemistry" is a variant of a DuPont advertising slogan, "Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry." DuPont adopted it in 1935 and was their slogan until 1982 when the "Through Chemistry" bit was dropped. Since 1999, their slogan has been "The miracles of science".[1]
This phrase became popular as culture shifted from mod to hippie in the later half of the 1960s. Protesters would show up for a rally, perhaps to protest a chemical plant, wearing DuPont propaganda buttons, which bore this slogan.
Protests in the 1960s didn't all revolve around the Vietnam War; Dow Chemical and DuPont were common targets, as people disliked the "artificiality" they represented.[citation needed]
The phrase "Better Living Through Chemistry" was used on products that were not affiliated with DuPont to circumvent trademark infringement.[citation needed] This transmutation is now more commonly used than the original. This statement is used for commentary on several different topics, from the promotion of illegal drugs, to the praise of chemicals and plastics, to the criticism of the same, sarcastically.
This phrase is sometimes associated with Aldous Huxley's book Brave New World, though it does not actually appear in the text of the book.[citation needed]
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[edit] Use in music
- Album title from 1996 by Fatboy Slim.
- Song on the 2000 album Rated R by Queens of the Stone Age.
- Song on the 2005 album Planets by Adema.
- What's the Altitude (Featuring Hymnal) on the album The Audience's Listening by Cut Chemist.
[edit] References in popular media
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- US cable television station Nickelodeon used the slogan "Better living through television" for their adult-oriented Nick at Nite programming during the 1990s.
- Spider-Man used the phrase in Spider-Man: The Animated Series as he broke off a bomb attached to his wrist with liquid oxygen.
- "Better Living Through Chemistry" is the name of the recreational drug related forum on textfile and BBS website Totse.com.
- "Better Living Through Chemistry" is the name of a mission in the computer game Evil Genius
- Don DeLillo appropriated the slogan "Better Things for Better Living Through Chemistry" as the title for Part 5 of his 1997 novel Underworld.
- NBC aired an episode of Miami Vice named "Better Living Through Chemistry" on 14 Nov 1986. In the episode, Tubbs is framed by his former partner after the abduction of a chemist needed by drug dealers to complete the formula for a designer drug.
- The Army chemist in the film Jacob's Ladder (film) uses this phrase in a deleted scene (and alternate ending), where he finds a cure to Jacob's condition: "Better living through chemistry, that's my motto..."
- Deathcore band All Shall Perish titled a song "Better Living through Catastrophe" on their 2006 album The Price of Existence.
- "Better Living Through Chemistry" is the name of a chapter in the novel The Time Traveler's Wife
[edit] References
- ^ Trif Alatzas. "DuPont touts 'miracles'", The News Journal (Wilmington, DE), 1999-04-29. ""We need to get away from the word 'things,' " [DuPont Chairman and Chief Executive Charles O.] Holliday said. "Because we're also about providing knowledge.""
