Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Burger King advert

This post is about the new Burger King 'Whopper' advert that was released a few months ago... ok it's funny, it's mocking and extremely gender specific. I don't have a problem with that; the thing that bothers me about this advert is one specific line in the lyrics of the song which has since been revoked. Below are the lyrics as much as I can discern from the only copy of the advert I found with the original lyrics and here you can see the original advertisement on YouTube:

"I am man hear me roar in numbers to big to ignore and I'm way too hungry to settle for chick food. ‘Cause my stomachs starting to growl and I'm going on the prowl for a pure beef double whopper, man that's good. Oh yes I’m a guy, I'll admit I've been fed quiche. Wave tofu goodbye, now it’s for the purest beef I reach. I will eat this meat, 'til my inny turns into an outty. I am starved, I am encouragable, and I need to stuff this 100% pure beef flamed grilled good thing down, yeah I am hungry, I am encouragable, I am man."

The line that bothers me is "'Til my inny turns into an outty" relating to the size of one's belly... surely when reading the lyrics the people in charge of advertising for Burger King would have realised this did not give off particularly encouraging connotations to consume Burger King products?! Especially in the supposedly so much more health conscious world we are attempting to create.

The world appears to be split in two by health and fast food. There are companies pulling us in all directions through advertising, Burger King, McDonalds, KFC. A recent KFC "Family bucket meal" stated that Christmas was sorted - all you needed was their BUCKET of food... Christmas dinner, would you be thankful with greasy chips, slimy chicken and fat coated coleslaw all washed down with a litre or so of coke and a slab of ice cream? I know I wouldn't. How can anyone begin to imagine that any food that is supplied in a bucket is healthy? What are we doing?

Supermarkets and product manufacturers are taking a step in the right direction, slowly but surely showing us the healthier options on packaging but now there is the large debate about whether it should be numerical or colour coordinated... because merging the two is too difficult?.. Why can't we all just work together to create a better, healthier world? But at the moment, let’s face it - if we don't care enough to look after our own bodies how will we ever come to care enough about the world that we live in?


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