(crossposted at Amplify Your Voice )
By now I'm sure all of you reading Feministing have seen Carl's Jr./Hardee's disgusting campaign called "Hot Chicks Eating Burgers". They are asking scantly clad young women to submit videos of themselves eating a burger. Preferably while they stare at the camera and suck on their fingers, like the video on their campaign's website:
You might wonder: how in the world did such a shameless, sexist, offensive, misogynyst campaign actually get approved by a nationwide fast-food chain? Well, take a look at the entire management team at CKE Restaurants , which owns Carl's Jr. and Hardee's.
Notice anything similar with them? Yea, me too. These are the white men who'll be going through all of the videos of young women wearing next to nothing, rubbing burgers all over themselves in order to be famous. Creepy and disgusting, no?
Young women already have to deal with too much misogyny in today's society, and they don't need the men who run Carl's Jr. and Hardee's acting like sleazy porn hustlers or Joe Francis (Girls Gone Wild).
Well, we've got the emails of the all-male CKE management team , so....
(you can edit the email to them if you want to send them your own personal message )
They are free to choose how they run their company, but they should know that if their business model is based on the degradation and exploitation of young women, we certainly won't buy their products. And I'm sure we're not alone.
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whoops, pic didn't attach. You can view the all white male management team here:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p125/cubswin39/carlsmanagement.jpg
Letter sent! I hope more people do this. I will spread the word.
Yuck, but are they forcing anyone to do anything? Are these girls not voluntarily submitting these videos, because they want to?
Also, what does the skin color of the management team have to do with anything?
Clearly we're racist against white people.
Good to know, but in the meantime I'd like answers to my questions.
Yes the women are choosing too but who's giving them the option too. And the sexist society we live in, I can see why they do. Everything our society bases young women off on is looks and sex appeal.
And the reason why it matters that a whole bunch of white men doing this is a tad annoying (at least for me) is because a successful white male is the most privileged thing to be in America and the fact that they are using their privilege to exploit young women is truly disgusting.
Even though no matter who was doing it, it would be disgusting.
Thank you for answering my questions. As I indicated, I find Carl's Burger commercials revolting. But the women sending in videos are choosing to without coercion, obviously they're getting something they want out of it. How is it exploiting them to give them the option? I wouldn't do it if I were a girl, I'd be pretty upset if my daughter did it. But they are freely making the decision to do something they want to do.
I also still don't see why the skin color of the villains deserved such emphasis in the original post, and hope the writer will explain.
I can never quite bother to get upset at ads just for being sexy. Show me some actual sexism and I'll be as pissed off as the next feminist but this doesn't really bother me.
I'm kind of amused by it. It manages -- completely accidentally, I'm sure -- to be kind of subversive. It equates a girl eating a big hearty calorie-laden meal with hotness. I spent most of high school embarrassed to eat anything more than a tiny snack in front of my friends, so I'm a little impressed by that.
At first glance this seems trivial, yes. But only in the context of all of the other sexist, objectifying commercials out there. Combine all of these "trivial" commercials, and we do have a problem. I don't want to use the word subliminal here, but it contributes to a world-view of women in general. It also implies that it's okay to eat a hearty meal, but only if you're a size two. Anything significantly larger, and you're just a fat cow. (that was meant to be sarcastic, and to show the oppressive nature of these commercials)
These commercials act as if it is abnormal for a woman to eat anything other than a salad. "Oh, everyone, come look at the pretty little female eating a man's burger." That is exactly what the commercial is playing off of. It is also turning that eating experience into something sexual, and condescending.
And last but definitely not least, is their slogan. It is the most offensive part of it all. "More than just a piece of meat." You better believe there is a double meaning to that. That is exactly why they chose it. Click on one of the links above and go to their campaign site. It shows a video with the camera starting off on the girl's breasts and then slowly moving up to her hand holding a burger. The slogan on the video reads: "My burger is up here." If you really think there is nothing wrong with that I really don't know what to say. They are literally calling women a piece of meat. Something feminists have been fighting for decades.
Not only that, but the ad's co-opting feminist rhetoric and using it to sell shitty burgers. That's offensive in every possible way. Fuck advertising.
"More than just a piece of meat" actually does bother me. There are a few different ways to read it, but the way a lot of people will read it is, "This burger is more than just a piece of meat. In contrast, this hot chick is not." That upsets me. That's worth complaining about.
I don't think sexualization is necessarily condescending. And food has been sexualized since the dawn of the time -- or at least, since the Romans -- so that's nothing new, or sexist.
There is a good section of the population that does see a sexualized woman as less than, but can't we hold them accountable for that rather than blaming the naked chick?
In this ad at least, I don't see anything about how women eating real food is abnormal. I did some looking around and found an Audrina Partridge ad that talked about how, "to look this hot, I have to give up, like, everything" or something along those lines, and that kind of bothered me.
I have to say I agree with nattles thing. I've never gotten too bothered by women being sexily portrayed, maybe because I don't think of them as only that. I'd rather get my 15 minutes for something other than eating a burger, but who am I to tell these women not to submit videos?
What I am wondering if anyone knows anything about is rumors I've head that the owners of Carl's Jr. contribute to anti-choice causes? I've googled and found this referenced on things like someone's Geocities site, but I'd like to see a source that's a little more substantial. If it's true, than them doing that has the potential to harm women a lot more than ogling some home videos of burger eating.
I am also with Nattles thing. I don't find it offensive, just silly. What I would like to see, rather than them eliminate this campaign, is have one with men also eating burgers sexily. Now THAT would appeal to me, as silly as the campaign is! :)
I love sexy women portrayed as sexy. I love sexy men portrayed that way too. I love that more and more men are being used to advertise products in the same way women have been used for years. It is about time! That's probably the only reason I ever go into an Abercrombie and Fitch store- to ogle the pretty boys splayed all over the walls.
I remember the first time I saw a man's body used to sell a product. It was a sign on a bus stop shelter on PCH in Huntington Beach, with a picture of a man's gorgeous torso, and he was holding a microwave oven. I can't remember the brand, but I definitely remember the delicious torso.
I love a sexual society and would hate to have sensually pleasing images eliminated in the name of anti-sexism. Just make it more equal! More naked men!
The sexism in this is hard for me to miss, especially when compared to other Hardee's commercials. They generally depict a man acting "manly" while being nagged by a conventionally attractive woman. Then there are the commercials that suggest their burgers are for "real men."Their whole advertising campaign is marketed around reinforcing the gender binary. They are not trying to show women as anything other than sexual objects, it's not about the women being sexual, but about them being sexy for men. They market their burgers to men, even when featuring only women in some of them. It is the same as the WWII Marine Corps recruiting posters that featured conventionally attractive women, but where really to recruit men.
What if the feminist community were do send in videos that drew attention to influence of the male gaze (and the often-implicit sexism), something similar to what the boys on the cars did in these photos: http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/07/08/satirizing-sitcoms/.
I'm not quite sure how it would be done. Maybe if men ate burgers in the same ridiculously sexualized manner, rather than, as Tracey T. points out, acting "manly"? Or if dozens of women who didn't conform to their "size 2" standard or beauty send in videos?
If everyone ended the video with the pointed message that this kind of sexist advertising is unacceptable, and if enough people submitted such videos, it would be much harder to ignore than box full of emails.
Perhaps it is reinforcing conventional gender roles. And the article on Sociological images was interesting (as were the comments). But I still don't think it is necessarily wrong. Of course I don't want to see men posed like that. I want to see men posed as I like them, in a way that I feel is sexy for men to pose. Now I completely understand that my perceptions of sexy are influenced heavily by popular gender/beauty conventions, but to some extent, I am not unhappy about those conventions. I am all for seeing those horizons broadened to include more, but I don't necessarily wish to exclude the oldies, either.
I love vintage pin-up shots, women in cheesecake poses, etc. They appeal to me. So do transmen who pose in traditional beef-cake styles (Buck Angel, anyone? YUM!). I find it all hot. Whatever type of erotic performance makes the person doing it feel sexy turns me on.
Is a lot of anti-sexism discourse really about anti-sex? I'd hate to live in a burlap bag world of sexless humans.