Ads gone bad: hot chicks, burgers and the male nude
Posted at 11:53 AM Jul 06, 2009
By Andrea Grimes
Hey, America. Let's just be clear about what's okay and what's not okay when it comes to male and female sexuality.
Putting a reality show star on a beach in a gold bikini, writhing in near-orgasm while she eats a big, fat Carl's Jr. burger with her plump little mouth? Totally acceptable:
But having a male celebrity in a similar state of undress, if not close to being in a similar state of ecstasy?
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According to the New York Times, Targets, grocery stores and other establishments are hiding the GQ cover behind opaque covers and turning them around on shelves. Presumably because that's totally gross out ew ew ew don't let the kids see it this is a family establishment OMG! Get it, because naked ladies are totally sexy and awesome and moar! Moar! MOAR! While naked dudes are inappropriate. I smell a big ole' plate of double standard pie a-cooking.
The double standard, while not surprising, is nonetheless depressing. Women's bodies continue to be used as advertising currency, while the male body is too ... I don't know? Dangerous, sacred, threatening, gross or gay to be put on display? I'm not advocating for the hyper-sexualization of men to somehow even the score in the media industry; I am saying that the fact that somehow the male body--which, when nude, is frequently satirical--needs to be hidden while the female body is ripe for exploitation says something very disturbing about our society.
Feministing has posted today about the Carl's Jr. bikini ad, noting the incongruence of the tagline "More than just a piece of meat" and the, uh, treating a woman like a piece of meat. (Carl's Jr. is even now asking women to compete in a contest called "Hot Chicks Eating Burgers.") On the blog, Vanessa asks:
Carl's Jr.'s tagline is literally "More than just a piece of meat." So let's send them an email letting them know what that actually means to us. Or perhaps we can think of a good counter-campaign by sending them videos of what we really think of Carl's Jr. Any bright ideas?Unsurprisingly, the brilliant Feministing readers have some excellent ideas, from spoof ads featuring soldiers who'd rather have an MRE to barraging the company with photos of feminists holding signs/posters that say "More than just a piece of meat." Count me in on that one.
But the consensus seems to be that, regardless of Carl's Jr.'s offensive advertising, one thing remains: their burgers absolutely blow, no matter how many bikini-clad women they use to sell them. Then again, if Hooters can still be selling their atrocious hot wings after all these years, it does go to show that the power of sexism is stronger than some people's willpower when it comes to crappy food.
Comments
I'm not going to comment on the Carl's Jr ad, mainly because it's a waste of my time. However, it's a standard procedure to hide the covers of magazines deemed "too hot" for the checkout line. I definitely remember seeing the cover of Cosmo covered when I was recently at the grocery store.
Posted 07/06/2009 at 12:10:16 PMExactly. I'd like to see proof of the same stores that censored the Cohen issue NOT censoring an issue with a woman in a similar pose. (And naked)
My guess is you'll find covers with a woman in the same pose and state of undress also being censored by those stores.
Posted 07/06/2009 at 12:57:48 PMActually, the Issue of GQ with Jennifer Aniston (red, white, & blue tie, remember?) was not covered in anyplace I saw it at, but I can't say the same for the Bruno cover.
Posted 07/06/2009 at 06:33:59 PMI worked in a bookstore with an extensive magazine section for years, saw many covers with women posed and (un)dressed similar to Cohen's cover, and the question of censoring them never came up. Lowbrow publications (tattoo mags, porn, etc.) would routinely be covered, but something of GQ's caliber (or even Maxim's) would get prominent displays with very similar covers.
Posted 07/07/2009 at 04:16:23 AM