Trigger warning for violent imagery, some of which involves female nudity, under the jump.**

A subsidiary of the department store Beymen, blender bills itself as a “concept store.” (Caution: meat-loving hipsters ahead!) The “concept” (scare quotes because the whole concept of a concept store is way too fucking pretentious for this thrift store shopper to stand), as you may have already surmised, involves the pairing of fashion with misogyny, the conflation of sex and violence, and the linkage of women and nonhuman animals: consumable objects, unite!

With several locations in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey, blender doesn’t just sell clothing and assorted shiny baubles; oh no! Nor are body dysmorphia and low self-esteem its only wares. Ever the hipster-catering douchebags, each blender store is also home to a butcher shop! Because nothing accents a $500 white angora scarf quite like ghastly blood smear stain. (No, really!)

Curiously, blender attempts to sell its audience on this concept by treating at least half of them like pieces of meat, too!

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After a nearly six month hiatus, I have a new post up at Animal Rights & AntiOppression! In an interview with humane educator Zoe Weil, we look at the connections between our treatment of nonhuman animals, the earth, and one another, and explore humane education as the bridge between seemingly disparate social justice movements – and the solution to our many (many!) human-made ills.

Check it: “The World Becomes What You Teach”: An Interview With Humane Educator Zoe Weil

Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (psych101 students, represent!), Ellyn Satter developed a corresponding hierarchy of food needs, arguing that one cannot “choose” to consume healthy products unless one’s more basic needs – such as having enough food to eat, having acceptable food, and having reliable, ongoing access to food – are already met.

Satter’s Hierarchy of Food Needs:
Bottom to top, the six needs are as follows: Enough food; Acceptable food; Reliable, ongoing access to food; Good-tasting food; Novel food; and Instrumental food.

The choice to consume vegan food (vs. the necessity of consuming vegan food) seems to rest at the apex of Satter’s hierarchy, and as such, can only be made “when all underlying needs are consistently satisfied”: “The person functioning at the apex of Satter’s Hierarchy of Food Needs reliably gets enough to eat of rewarding food and has food acceptance skills that are good enough to allow him or her to eat a variety of food. That person is thus in a position to consider choosing food for instrumental reasons: to achieve a desired physical, cognitive, or spiritual outcome. This description is analogous to Maslow’s concept of self actualization.”
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While this hierarchy is primarily being discussed in relation to our consumption (or lack thereof) of nutritious, healthy food, i.e.:

The graphic suggests that getting enough food to eat is the most important thing to people. Having food be acceptable (e.g., not rotten, something you are not allergic to) comes second. Once those two things are in place, people hope for reliable access to food and only then do they begin to worry about taste. If people have enough, acceptable, reliable, good-tasting food, then they seek out novel food experiences and begin to make choices as to what to eat for instrumental purposes (e.g., number of calories, nutritional balance).

As Michelle at The Fat Nutritionist writes, sometimes when a person chooses to eat nutritionally deficient or fattening foods, it is not because they are “stupid, ignorant, lazy, or just a bad, bad person who loves bad, bad food.” Sometimes, it’s “because other needs come first.” (Source: Sociological Images)

it’s equally applicable to veganism and vegan foods: obstacles such as hunger, poverty, food insecurity, lack of access to food, etc., severely constrict people’s ability to choose a vegan diet, on multiple levels (e.g., individual, community, population). As long as we’re serious about creating a vegan world, we must address these human inequities as well. (That, and it’s the right thing to do.)

Check out the Food Empowerment Project for more.

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An ad for Butch dog food, in two parts. The panel on the left shows neatly wrapped sausage, over which is superimposed the following text: “I’m as guilty as the next girl of licking the odd bone. But believe me, there’s no substitute for being stuffed full of meat.” In the right panel sits a small pug, an expectantly eager look on her face. Just in case her gender isn’t readily apparent, the ad is dripping in pink.

Writing about the life and death of porn star Stephen Hill – perhaps most famous for his role as Barack Obama in Palin: Erection 2008 – in Salon, journalist Susannah Breslin bemoans the fate of male porn actors, or “mopes”:

If porn is a joke — and, particularly these days, it most assuredly is — male porn stars are its punch line. Reams of text have been written about how porn supposedly victimizes the women who work in this branch of the sex trade, but inside the straight porn industry, it’s the female performers who have the greater power, higher status and bigger paycheck. [...] So-called woodsmen are paid significantly less than their female counterparts, for their efforts are treated like props on the movie sets where they perform near Herculean sex acts of which most men can only dream [...] and more often than not end up as decapitated, frantically thrusting tubes of meat in this industry’s final product. Due to the hardcore nature of the porn business and the toll it takes upon all its workers, the porn industry functions as a meat grinder for the human condition, and men are its offal. They may score bragging rights as professional cocksmen, but the reality is these are the working stiffs of a business that has virtually no interest in the men it employs and all the interest in the world in the women with whom its movies are forever preoccupied.

Just two paragraphs previous, Breslin described a visit to the set of a porn film, circa Valentine’s Day 2001:

From the outside, it’s one more stucco building on a suburban street in the San Fernando Valley. Inside, some 90 men have congregated to masturbate on a young woman for the making of an adult movie called “American Bukkake 13.”

Sabrina Jade, who has long, reddish brown hair and emerald green, catlike eyes, is seated on a towel in the middle of the floor. A plastic cone has been duct-taped around her neck like a funnel, or an Edwardian collar. Jim Powers, the director, came up with the idea when he saw a dog wearing a similar apparatus around its neck after a visit to the vet.

(Links and emphasis mine.)

Um, yeah. If men are “tubes of meat,” women are the farmed animals who are force-fed the least desirable pieces of their murdered and dismembered cousins. Forced into carnism and/or cannibalism; at once “meat” and “meat-eater.” Enslaved, caged, tortured. Right up until the time when they’re hoisted into the air, hung upside-down by a hook through the thigh, and left to die, throats slit, bleeding out. In the meantime, maybe some randomly passing slaughterhouse worker decides to jerk off into the dying animal’s eyes. Just so he knows, in that 30 seconds, that it’s not he at the bottom of the shitpile, nosiree.

Maybe, maybe not.

And that’s all I’ll say about that.*

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I can’t see the point in women being equal to men if men are not equal to each other. *

Yes!

And also:

I can’t see the point in nonhuman animals being equal to humans if humans are not equal to each other.

Think about it.

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Mars, Inc. wants you to know that a bitch is a bitch is a bitch – and, whether she be digging for gold or for bones, that bitch ain’t shit.

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Update, 1/14/10:

In the comments, Helen points out that all three animals – (pussy)cat, beaver and chicken (errr, rooster; read: cock) are euphemisms for female and male genitalia. I know, so obvious! How on earth did I miss it!? Especially when I caught the significance of the beaver! Clearly, I’ve been off my game lately.

Anyhow, it’s my feeling that these gendered/speciesist slurs actually make the whole ad campaign that much more distasteful. While the targeting of men in addition to women might help to level the playing field, gender-wise (well, as much as it can be in a culture that disproportionately values women’s physical appearance and beauty – however it is defined – as opposed to men), we’re still faced with the exploitation and mockery of three nonhuman animals in order to sell…waxing products. Add to this the fact that the animals were specifically chosen for their correspondence to sexual slang, and…yeah. Ick, all around.

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One part “sexy meat,” one part zoo porn, with a little child sexploitation thrown in for good measure, these ads for Queen Bee Waxing are all kinds of creepy, no matter which way you slice ‘em. (Not that I’m suggesting that you should slice them! They’re animals, not deli “meat”!)

Queen Bee Waxing operates a Salon & Spa in Culver City, California. Its services include tanning, mani/pedis, facials, eyelash extensions (!), and all manner of body waxing: full leg, half leg, eyebrows, full arm, half arm, back, chest, underarms, lip, genitals, anus – wherever your body generates unsightly hair, the friendly “waxologists” of QB will be there, ripping it violently from its roots.

One caveat: some forms of waxing will cost you extra if you’re a gross, hairy cave-dude. For reals! (Don’t you just love how they assume that all men are hairier than all women? In point o’ facts, my Italian ass just so happens to grow lusher body hair than my husband’s Irish one.)

To illustrate just how childishly smooth QB can strip your bits, they’ve demonstrated their mad skills on unsuspecting animals! (Not for reals – I’m guessing/hoping that the animals below have suffered these indignities in a digital sense only.)

From top to bottom, we have a cat, a beaver [insert obligatory joke re: women's genitals here] and a chicken. Each of them stand stark naked, seemingly bewildered by their own baldness.

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Update, 2/8/10: These lovely ladies are now shaking their meaty bits on Suicide Food!

Update, 1/7/10: In the comments, Cara pointed out that the cow isn’t in leaning on a bar counter as I first thought, but into a car window. She is indeed a prostitute – a “street walker,” if you will – picking up a john (that would be us, the viewer!). In this context, I think it likely that all three “food” animals are dressed as prostitutes from different decades: the ’80s, the ’50s, and the ’20s, maybe?

Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse.

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To date, all of the advertisements involving “sexy meat” that I’ve dissected have depicted, literally, “meat” – i.e., dead meat. While this conflation of sex with death and violence is incredibly disturbing, the advertisers’ motives for doing so are obvious: clearly, they want us to think not of the living, sentient beings these corpses used to be, but of the delicious, succulent foodstuffs that they have been processed into. Objectified, the animals are things to be bought, sold and consumed. Worse still, they are absent referents – invisible, erased beings whom we aren’t meant to consider at all.

In this context, I’m not sure whether these advertisements for Martini Bitter are more or less disturbing than those for Rachachuros and McCormick seasonings or the DIY tutorial for making bikini-clad turkeys.

Each image depicts a living “food” animal dressed to look like an “easy” woman.

From top to bottom, we have:

“Beef”: In a smoky, hazy (read: seedy) bar or night club, a cow leans suggestively on the counter, as if to order a drink or “pick up” the man standing next to her – that is, the man behind the camera (hello, male gaze!). Her hoofs – which, somewhat suggestively, resemble the tips of two penises* – are crossed loosely at the wrists (ankles?). She’s white, with a full head of flowing white hair. However, the lighting in the bar casts a soft pink hue on her fur.

We know that the cow is a “she” because her body has all the trappings of femininity: she wears a tight blue dress, complete with cleavage and plunging neckline (instead of multiple udders, the cow has been enhanced with two D-cups!); her outfit is accessorized with multiple necklaces and bracelets; and she carries a pink purse slung over one shoulder. (In fact, her garish pink purse doesn’t quite obscure the subtle curve of her ass; you can spot it, hiding in the shadows – if you dare!) The cow wears makeup, too: a hint of pink eyeshadow and lipstick. Sadly, the makeup might be the most tasteful aspect of this “artwork”!

All in all, the “beef” ad has a very ’80s feel about it. Possibly the cow is just a “loose,” liberated women, looking for a one-night stand; or perhaps she’s a (*ahem*) “working girl.” Either way, the viewer is meant to understand that she (*gasp*) enjoys sex – and quite a bit of it, at that.

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The recent spate of probiotic/fiber-filled yogurt commercials is starting to make me loathe yogurt – even the vegan kind. And I freaking adore cherry and lemon Whole Soy!

These dairy-based offenses have become so frequent that even Sarah Haskins – who has poked fun at yogurt ads not once, but twice – cannot keep up with all the stupid.

First, we have this uber-obnoxious ad from Fiber One:

In case you can’t view the video, here’s the gist: A thin, blonde, WASP-y looking woman – who, incidentally, appears to have stepped straight out of the ’80s – runs into a friend at a Fiber One sample station, located outside the supermarket’s exit. Our fair WASP is dressed head-to-toe in oversized accessories: softball-sized “pearl” earrings and necklace; a bracelet that might have been fashioned out of a mug from Central Perk; huge, Pee Wee Herman sunglasses; a purse the size of a backpack; a heart-shaped pendant nearly as big as her head. And…a large dog. A Great Dane, perhaps?

The large accessories are supposed to make her body look smaller and thinner when viewed next to their comical monstrosity. Why resort to such crazy antics, the commercial suggests, when you can just go on a semi-liquid Fiber One yogurt diet and slurp your way to an eating disorder?

Aside from the emphasis on thinness (incidentally, neither of the two women are what you’d call “fat,” yet the need for dieting is not questioned, but reinforced), there’s some pretty casual and nefarious speciesism at play here. The dog is likened to an object, a fashion accessory, a tool of sorts; something to be disposed of when no longer needed. He’s not treated as someone, but something. Earrings, necklace, bracelet, sunglasses, purse, pendant, dog: one of these things is not like the other.

The disposal of “pets,” by the by, is a pretty serious problem. Perhaps this commercial might seem like a harmless joke – but try explaining the punch line to the three to four millions cats and dogs killed in U.S. shelters each year.

Thankfully, the next offender isn’t speciesist, rather, it’s just plain stupid.

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Via Kelsey Wallace at Bitch blogs (whose title works just as well as my own, to wit, Hardee’s: No One Wants You to Dip Your Balls in It) comes news of Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr.’s latest ad campaign, Hardee’s Biscuit Holes, which the company describes thusly:

Man-on-the-street survey asks for new names for Hardee’s Biscuit Holes. Wait until you see what they come up with! Got a better name? Tell us at www.NameOurHoles.com and star in your own commercial.

To the extent that it focuses on male anatomy, this commercial is a welcome relief from the company’s traditional, misogynist fare:
 

 
Naturally, there’s a bit of a conflict here: are the biscuit holes to be taken literally or figuratively? As in, are they holes (read: assholes; cue: fears of anal and/or “gay” sex) or balls (bis-ticles, hehehe)? The former is potentially homophobic and thus not-so-funny, while the latter is, well, long overdue. Hardee’s has been exploiting the bodies of women to sell cruelty-laden products for going on a decade or more, and it’s about time the dudes got their due. (In a fun and lighthearted way, I mean; I’d rather no animal bodies be shamed, objectified, or exploited in any manner, thankyouverymuch.)

But that’s not to suggest that the Biscuit Holes campaign evens the scoreboard. As I told my husband, the “misandry” will only begin to rival the misogyny* once Hardee’s starts lacing its commercials with gratuitous close-ups of bouncing, disembodied balls being dunked into coffee mugs or casting hairy-chested, mankini-wearing men in its softcore necrophilic fetish ads – for the sex, not the funny. So far, Hardee’s is all talk, no (live) action.

Given Hardee’s long (long!) history of exploiting women to hawk their wares, Ben Mayo Boddie’s objection to the Biscuit Holes campaign – and, as best I can tell, only to the Biscuit Holes campaign – is all kinds of offensive:

The Rocky Mount, N.C., franchisee of Hardee’s restaurants, the company’s largest franchisee, is blasting the burger chain’s newest advertising campaign and says it will not place the spots in any of the markets in which it operates eateries.

In a letter responding to complaints from the Parents Television Council, Ben Mayo Boddie, chairman of franchisee Boddie-Noell Enterprises, states: “Thank you for your recent letter complaining about the biscuit hole advertising. I agree with you 100 percent. Why in heavens name does Hardee’s Food Systems and Mendelsohn Zien Advertising want to put Hardee’s in a category that diminishes not only the product but the brand itself?”

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Again, the feminist blogospheres have already spoken re: this saucy (the puns, I’m full of ‘em!) Carl’s Jr. Western Bacon Cheeseburger commercial starring Top Chef Padma Lakshmi. But I’ve yet to see a vegan feminist response, so here we go.

(A word of warning: I’ve embedded seven – yes, seven! – videos below. While I don’t expect y’all to watch the uber-exploitative extended cuts, the other five are must sees.)

 

 

The commercial shows a scantily-clad (hiked skirt, plunging neckline, push-up bra) Padma strolling through an open air market, eying the fresh fruits and veggies with approval. The soundtrack is sensual, jazzy, worldly; the lyrics “’round the world” repeat on a loop. The viewer feels as though Padma could be anywhere: Istanbul, Paris, Barcelona.

And then, the voice over: “I’ve always had a love affair with food. I think I’ve tasted every flavor imaginable.”

Padma, seemingly arriving at her destination, plops down at the foot of an urban stoop, the distinctive white Carl’s Jr. bag in one hand. Suddenly, the atmosphere is very American – NYC, to be exact – and unappealingly so (read: inescapable American fast food chains).

Anyhow, Padma plops down, feet placed wide apart, so that the audience is treated to an almost-upskirt shot. Apparently we’re voyeurs now. (I didn’t sign up for this! I just wanted to watch 30 Rock in peace, dammit!)

“But there’s something about Western Bacon.”

Padma pulls a ridiculously large burger from her sack, and thrusts it into her mouth. She yanks a strip of “bacon” out from under the bun, and dangle-drops it into her mouth, all sexy-like. Probably Carl’s Jr. would like all the het dudes watching to imagine that she’s fellating it. The bacon. A pig corpse. Shudder.

“It reminds me of being in high school…”

Inexplicably, Padma hikes the skirt of her dress up to mid-thigh at this point. While, um, still scarfing the burger with her other hand. Sweet jeebus, who does that!?

“…sneaking out before dinner to savor that sweet, spicy sauce…”

Cue gratuitous tit shot.

Somewhat fortuitously (yeah right!), the aforementioned sweet and spicy sauce is now beginning to drip from the burger, down Padma’s hand and wrist. Naturally, she licks it off with an extended tongue – the likes of which I’ve only seen on my dog-kids, while attempting to dislodge peanut butter from the roofs of their mouths.

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