'Company Town: Seduced By A Juicy Burger'

Improved Essays
In Dan Neil’s article “Company Town: Seduced by a Juicy Burger” published in the LA Times, he criticizes the fast food advertising industry in a sarcastic manner while wondering if the industry has gone too far. The article, written in 2009, is almost laughably outdated compared to today’s carnal advertisements. Today it seems unfeasible for companies not to objectify women in their commercials. This primitive approach fuels the fire in that women are nearly props more so than the product that they’re supposed to be selling. The particular focus of Neil’s article is a Carl’s Jr.’s commercial starring Padma Lakshmi. Lakshmi, a renowned author, chef, television host, and model is only utilized as one of those in the commercial. Rather than using her cooking expertise as a “Top Chef” host, the ad chooses to concentrate on another one of her “assets”. The seductive ad features her “cramming the giant burger into her educated maw and sucking barbecue sauce from her fingers and wrists” (paragraph one) whilst wearing “a clingy sundress hiked up mid-thigh” (paragraph one). Nevertheless, Neil mocks the commercial by referring to her “educated maw” (paragraph one) as Mendelsohn Zien Advertising, the company responsible for the campaign, chose to exploit her sexuality rather than her knowledge. Moreover, the company seems to jeer at feminists by ending the commercial with the tagline: More Than Just a Piece of Meat. As Neil states, “this was the cri de coeur of feminism back in the day, and though it refers to the burger, it is also a tweak of conscience to males slobbering over the accomplished actress-author-chef” (paragraph eight). After having “Padma Lakshmi make hot, sweet love to a Western Bacon Cheeseburger” (paragraph one), the viewers as are made out to feel guilty for their drifting minds and morals. This feeble attempt of pseudo-feminism only makes Carl’s Jr. look hypocritical with Neil sarcastically adding, “take that, you objectifying pig” (paragraph eight). Carl’s Jr. may be a guilty culprit in the oversexualized advertising industry, …show more content…
and Quiznos in the guilty line-up is Burger King. The commercial that Neil refers to has children’s cartoon character Spongebob’s Kids’ Meal being “oddly sexualized” (paragraph thirteen). This is an accurate description of the commercial in which “involves the King riffing to Sir Mix-a-Lot’s ‘Baby Got Back’ while a bunch of orthogonally rumped hotties dance around” (paragraph thirteen). The truly disturbing aspect of the ad, is that it’s key demographic is targeted towards children. Nevertheless, Neil believes that the younger generation has “had their normative values defined by life online, which is generally pretty risque” (paragraph …show more content…
Referring to the Burger King advertisement, Linn adds “it’s bad enough when companies use a beloved media character like Spongebob to promote junk food to children, but it’s utterly reprehensible when that character simultaneously promotes objectified, sexualized images of women” (paragraph fourteen). Regardless, it seems futile to try and use sex as a point of interest during a commercial directed towards kids. The underlying sexual message would just go over their hands and they would find the concept of the commercial funny instead. Neil believes that next to sex, humor is the advertising industry’s fall back as it’s “the only defense advertiser have against the commercial-skipping fast-forward button on the DVR” (paragraph sixteen). It makes one wonder why with humor being the next best thing, why not use that on a more suited audience like

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