I don’t know if you’ve been watching television lately, but
I spent many hours watching TV when I was home for Spring Break. Some of this
TV was live and so this meant I was forced to watch commercials - like in the
olden days when we didn’t have Tivo. One commercial in particular caught my
eye. It was the latest Carl’s Jr. commercial and trust me, this commercial
would catch your attention too.
In the commercial a beautiful blonde walks through an
outdoor market… seemingly naked. (Yup… naked!!!) Not only is she naked but she
shoots seductive looks at the men she passes by (who ogle at her) and through fruit imagery viewers' attention is drawn to her boobs and butt (i.e. in one scene melons obstruct the
camera’s view where her boobs should be and in another scene apples obstruct
the camera’s view of where her butt should be). In the end the camera shows that the beautiful woman is in fact wearing clothes - but it is a skimpy bikini and the commercial is without a doubt designed to
fool the audience into thinking the blonde is wearing no clothes. This
commercial is for burgers? Seriously? … Yes, seriously. In the last second the
blonde takes a sexualized bite of a Carl’s Jr. burger (that magically appears in her hand out of nowhere). For fun, want to guess what this burger is called? It is the
“All Natural” Burger. So in case you didn’t get the joke - the naked woman is
all natural and so is the burger. Welcome to modern advertising and the
sexualized way products are sold today.
After watching this commercial I was reminded of the Paris
Hilton Carl’s Jr. commercial that was famous quite a few years ago and so I
felt prompted to look up Carl’s Jr. commercials on YouTube and to see if this
sexualization was a trend for the fast food chain… It certainly was. I watched
a 10 minute YouTube video compilation of Carl’s Jr.’s hottest commercials and I
was appalled at how sexy these commercials were and how women were used in
sexualized ways to sell these burgers.
While all of these commercials were somewhat appalling as a
feminist, one commercial literally was jaw dropping. I did some research and it
turns out that it was banned, but that it was going to be shown (prior to being
banned) during the 2015 Superbowl. The commercial can be found on YouTube as
the “Big Sausage” Commercial 2015. In case your mind hasn’t already made the
connection between sausage and sex appeal – the commercial sells a sausage via
a hot women licking it slowly and sexually like a penis. She licks the sausage
up and down, and moves her tongue around it slowly. Eventually in the
commercial the woman gets mayo (or some form of sauce) on her breast and she
slowly picks it up with her finger and licks it off with her tongue. The
imagery was truly too visual and I can most definitely see why this commercial
was banned.
What bothers me about all of these commercials is the
messages they send. Specifically, they promote the feminine courtship strategies
of the heterosexual script. This script promotes the concept of women
objectifying themselves to win the male gaze and additionally perpetuates the
idea that women are valued primarily in our society for their physical
appearance (Kim, Sorsoli, Collins,
Zylbergold, Schooler, & Tolman, 2007). The heterosexual script encourages
women to use alluring strategies to win men’s attention and diminishes the
importance of a woman’s self worth, dignity, and other attributes (i.e.
personality). Additionally, there are further negative consequences that result
from viewing media such as these Carl’s Jr. commercials. A study was done in
1995 that showed that exposure to rap videos that featured women in “sexually
subordinate and promiscuous roles… led to increased acceptance of dating
violence against adolescent girls” (Ferguson, Berlin, Noles, Johnson, Reed,
& Spicer, 2005). While this study was done on rap videos, it is implied
that exposure to any media depicting women in sexually subordinate and
promiscuous roles (i.e. these Carl’s Jr. videos) can have negative consequences
for a woman’s respect and safety.
To end, I leave you food for thought... If media is a
super-peer and is in fact providing scripts for adolescents to learn from (Drury &
Bukowski, 2013) what kind of world are we
living in, and what kind of horrendous values will today’s easily influenced adolescents grow up with?
Carl's Jr. Hottest Commercials Compilation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnfKCOwKviE
Works Cited
Drury, K. M. & Bukowski, W. M. (2013). Sexual
development. In Bromberg, D. & O’Donohue, W.T. (Eds.), Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexuality (pp. 115-144).
Ferguson, T., Berlin, J., Noles, E., Johnson, J., Reed, W.,
& Spicer, C. V. (2005). Variation in the application of the “Promiscuous Female”
Stereotype and the nature of the application domain: Influences on sexual
harassment judgments after exposure to the Jerry
Springer Show. Sex Roles, 52 (7/8), 477-487.
Kim, J.,
Sorsoli, C. L., Collins, K., Zylbergold, B., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D.
(2007). From Sex to Sexuality: Exposing the Heterosexual Script on Primetime
Network Television. Journal of Sex Research, 44, 145-157.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.