Okay, so this commercial advertising a new line* of “real milk / real ice cram” milk shakes technically comes from Hardee’s, but hells bells, they’re identical franchises (right down to the logo) belonging to the same company. *Shrug* So sue me.
 

 
The thirty-second spot shows a nondescript white dude - your normal Hardee’s customer, I would assume - “shaking” a “dairy” cow. The idea being, of course, that he’s whipping up the milk inside the cow in order to make a milkshake.

Or, to put it more succinctly, the cow is but a mere container for the milk inside her. She is a milk container. Nope, no sentience there! (Sound familiar?)

Of course, one can’t exactly pick up a cow and shake her like a milk carton, so nondescript white dude is instead forced to act out the “shake” on her body, i.e., by kind of shimmying her skin to and fro. Which he does while dancing - not with her, exactly, but on her - to a rap/R&B number. The result being that it looks as though dude is “housing” (or dirty dancing or whatever teh kidz r calling it nowadays; holy Jebus am I getting old) with a cow. It’s all strangely obscene.

To make matters worse, the short video features at least one gratuitous close-up of the cow’s udders (read: cleavage), and the dancer slaps her on the ass, to boot. And, um, did I mention that said slap is accompanied by the sound of a whip, BDSM style? *shudder*

But wait! It gets worse! Behold: the techno version!

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I re-discovered the following ad from Rustlers last week while “spring cleaning” some of my online accounts (in this case, You Tube - see all the pretty new playlists?). It’s more than two years old now, but meh - the message is still as relevant as ever, as we shall soon see.

Rustlers, by the by, is a fast food chain in the UK:

Rustlers are a range of burgers and hot sandwiches produced by Kepak Convenience Foods, based in Kirkham, Lancashire, England. The parent company, Kepak, is based in Dublin, Ireland. Each product in the range comes packed with a sachet of sauce appropriate for the food. Several products are now also packaged with a slice of processed cheese or a rasher of bacon.

The focus of the marketing is on the short cooking time and the use of a microwave oven to reheat the food. The brand’s slogan is “0 to Tasty in Seconds”, recently modified from “0 to Tasty in 70 Seconds”.

This Rustlers commercial is somewhat appropriately titled “Date,” and is available on the You Tube Channel I Love Rustlers.
 

 
In case you can’t view the video, this particular Rustlers tv commercial shows a semi-nerdy lad* welcoming a fetching young lass into his apartment, seemingly after the couple’s first date together. The woman comes off as a bit disinterested - in more sexist terms, frigid - declining her date’s offer to take her coat with a demur request for a quick cup of coffee. The message is clear: as eager as the young man appears, he’s not getting any action tonight.

Until, that is, our “hero” breaks out his secret weapon! Under the pretense of making coffee, he pops into the kitchen…which is actually a control room of some sort, outfitted with a keypad and an observation window that looks out onto the living room. As the audience gazes upon the nerd’s date, perched all prim and proper-like on the edge of the couch, nerd-boy excitedly pokes at the keypad’s buttons, which set the couch a-spinning, like a turntable. With one 360-degree rotation of the couch, the date has lost all of her inhibitions - and clothing (save for her black, lacy lingerie…this is family tv, after all). From Liberty University co-ed to FHM cover model in 70 seconds flat.

Tag line: “If only everything was as quick as Rustlers. (You’re so hot.) Rustlers. Naught to Tasty in 70 Seconds.”

Cut to another scene, this one of a Rustlers “burger” spinning on a microwave turntable, and then of same nerd-boy hungrily showing down on the prepackaged animal corpse.

Because women (and female sexuality) are exactly like pieces of “meat” (or rather, they should be): just heat in the microwave for 70 seconds and then enjoy!

Also worth noting - in half a minute, Rustlers manages to trot out the following tired memes:

- Women are “tasty,” like morsels of food (in this case, “meat,” or food which was formerly living, sentient beings);

- Obtaining women’s consent for sexual activity is a huge pain in the ass, and wouldn’t it be awesome if you could just heat those cold bitches up like the pieces of “meat” that they are? (And, along those lines, Foreplay? What’s foreplay?)

- “Meat” is a form of sex, or sexually arousing;

- Women are “meat”; attractive women are sexy “meat.”

Even the company’s name is significant; “Rustlers” is an obvious reference to cattle rustling (in which cattle are the living embodiments of the consumable “meat”), a phrase which means “to steal (livestock, especially cattle).” In the context of Rustler’s “Date” ad, then, the woman also functions as livestock, the nerd-boy, as a cattle rustler/rapist.

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As a follow-up to last week’s Sexy Meat post, I bring you another series of advertisements for Rachachuros Seasoning.

(Courtesy of Ben at Suicide Food, who covered these ads last year. Timely, I am not.)

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Apropos my reintroduction of the “consuming women” series last week, I decided to create a second series of similar images I like to call “sexy meat.”

“Sexy meat” is a sort of hybrid of “consuming women” and “suicide food.” Whereas the “consuming women” series features women who are posed to resemble “meat” (or other consumable animal products), “sexy meat” is just that - “meat” that’s been sexed up, usually in a traditionally “feminine” manner (women, of course, being the sex class). Oftentimes, this “sexy meat” is flirtatious in appearance, seemingly beckoning the audience to devour her, hence the “suicide food” angle.

Possibly, the two types of images are so closely related - each is essentially an inverse of the other - that they might be grouped together, but I chose to tease out the differences for maximum visual impact.

The first series of photos I’d like to share is a collection of three adverts for Rachachuros Seasoning. Each ad features an animal corpse, arranged in a pornorific pose for the camera (i.e., the male gaze), a concept which is reinforced by the product’s tag line, “The Temptation of Taste”:

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Some time ago - we’re talking two years plus - I started a series on this blog called “Consuming Women.” My intention was to highlight examples of advertising campaigns in which the consumption of “meat” is likened to the consumption of women, usually by depicting women as obviously edible foodstuffs. My own personal Pornography of Meat, if you will.

Because I’m a scatterbrain and tend to bite off more than I can chew, I never got past post #2 in the series. Which is a shame - but, luckily, one that’s easily remedied!

For now, let’s start simple and return to the series’ roots: woman-as-fish. Classy.

For those who can’t view the image, the ad depicts a woman - a mermaid - lounging seductively on a table in what appears to be a fancy restaurant. Our mermaiden is surrounded by spoons, forks and knives, all of which will presumably be used to murder, dismember and eat her. And did I mention that she’s totally succulent and mouth-watering, in more ways than one?

In addition to reducing both women and fish to consumable commodities, something to be bought, sold and eaten, this ad for The Seafood International Market and Restaurant also draws upon a fairly popular gendered insult, in which women’s lady bits are likened to fish.

To be fair, I should note that the restaurant in question is located in Singapore; perhaps their slang differs in this regard. Would any international readers care to weigh in?

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In the latest installment of Target Women, Sarah Haskins takes on the meat-peddling, woman-hating fast food chain Carl’s Jr. for its extreme douchebaggery. While the “meat as sex” and “real men eat meat” memes are only tangentially explored, Haskins is in typical hilarious form, and demonstrates how the Carl’s Jr. (et al) commercials promote sexist stereotypes in the course of exploiting non-human animals. All in a day’s work, eh?
 

 
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Last month, I blogged about a series of ads for Hobie Kayaks, aimed at fishermen (”people,” I should say, except all the ads seem to depict men). The gist of the marketing concept is that the kayaks are so quiet that fishermen can stalk and overtake their prey with serial killer-like coldness and precision. Fittingly, shadowy fishermen in fedoras and trench coats are shown choking, knifing and shooting three very terrified fish. Fishermen as stone-cold killers, indeed.

As shocking as I initially found the ads, now I’m starting to wonder whether this is the beginning of a meme.

Take, for example, this ad series from Bass Pro Shops. The general concept actually isn’t all that objectionable; the three print ads are touting Bass Pro Shop’s camp sale with the slogan “Get the family ready. Bass Pro Shops camp sale.” (C’mon, who doesn’t love camping!?)

In the first ad, someone (Dad, presumably) has put some greenery around the toilet, in order to get the family ready to do their biz in the bushes:

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While searching the internets for the latest “meat-as-sex” Burger King commercial (BK’s Burger Shots, natch), I stumbled upon this SNL parody of BK’s “Whopper Virgins” series. I’m fairly certain that SNL is poking fun at BK for devising such an absurd and culturally insensitive campaign, but with varying levels of success.
 

 
Take, for example, the man who tried to run away with the Whoppers: “This food could feed my village for a month!” Here, Western excess as exemplified by Burger King is the butt of the joke, as opposed to the impoverished villager himself.

Other “subjects” seem puzzled; they’ve never seen a burger before, so they’re unsure what to do with it. The “Whopper as a hat” bit is deliberately over the top, but in trying to poke fun at BK’s idiotic PR stunt, SNL also mocks (unintentionally?) “those silly foreigners.” Or perhaps SNL means to imply that the BK “researchers” are the stooges, seemingly for expecting such behavior from the uncivilized heathens to begin with?

I only wish SNL had aimed their axe at the root of the problem, namely, the conflating of “meat” with sex, and “meat”-eating with masculinity.

Your thoughts?

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Usually, the makers and marketers of “meat”-based foodstuffs attempt to remove the finished product from its live animal origins as much as possible; by dismembering, reconstructing and altering animal corpses, then, butchers make it easier for consumers to conveniently “forget” that they’re consuming formerly sentient creatures.

Not Royco! Nope, they want you to know that those chicken and “beef” bouillon cubes are the real thing, baby! Whereas most people see an innocuous, flavorful cube of powder when they unwrap a bouillon, Royco makes it clear that there’s really a live (dead) animal buried within those indistinguishable powder particles.

First, their chicken bouillon:

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While I understand what they’re getting at, this series of print ads for Lifebuoy hand wash are unfortunate, to say the least:

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