NOTHING says summertime in America like a juicy hamburger right off the grill. Particularly if that hamburger is being handled by a scantily clad blonde gyrating against a sports car. And nothing is more all-American than a healthily dose of self-righteous and misguided outrage.
Last month, the so-called "family values" lobby went apoplectic over a now-infamous sexually suggestive ad featuring Paris Hilton for the Carl's Jr. burger chain. The Christian conservative set was called to arms by Focus on the Family and the American Family Association who demanded boycotts of the burger joint and who flooded the media with their sputtering indignation. Daniel Weiss, an analyst for media and sexuality issues at Focus on the Family, rallied the troops with his cries about how "Carl's Jr. needs to know it's hurting families by exposing children to images like this."
So a moratorium on the Spicy Barbeque Burger, then, is brought to you by the same folks that are currently demanding boycotts on Kraft Foods (for its sponsorship of the 2006 Gay Games), Mary Kay Cosmetics, Old Navy stores (for advertising on ABC's prime-time soap opera "Desperate Housewives") and NutriSystem Inc., the weight-loss company. Only recently did they lift their ban on Mickey and Minnie over at Disney.
Indulge some bleeding heart statistics to put this all in perspective: There are nine million children without health insurance in this country and thirteen million who are either hungry or in immediate danger of going hungry. More than 17 percent of kids in the United States live in poverty. Perhaps we should be a little less concerned about covering the ears and eyes of American children and a little more concerned about protecting their lives.
Yet the curious denunciations aren't limited to the hypocrisy of the Christian right preaching from their family values soapbox while real families suffer. The latest installment of the food-plus-half-naked-women-equals-scandal saga emerged last week over a TBS promotional spot for their series The Real Gilligan's Island, featuring Ginger and Mary Ann wrestling in pie. The 30-second video is a homage of sorts to the trailblazer of these ad campaigns, the Miller Light girls who catfought their way into the national spotlight a couple years back.
The coconut cream pie debate adds a new wrinkle: Rather than just the family values crusaders leading the charge, this time they're joined by women's advocates infuriated that a link to the objectifying TBS ad was posted on hundreds of blogs, many of which even have a progressive bent. The old maxim about politics making for strange bedfellows springs to mind.
But just as obviously as watching a B-list celebrity shill for a B-list burger joint is not the source of American juvenile delinquency, Ginger and Mary Ann are a symptom, not the source, of women's oppression. Acting as though they are sources only diverts resources and energy away from the real battles. We absolutely need to rethink -- and rethink seriously -- the way trashy media portrays women (and men, for that matter). Getting hysterical, however, only attracts attention to something so moronic as to hardly merit it. According to Steve Koonin, executive vice president of TBS, traffic on the TBS web site has doubled to its highest level ever since the controversy started brewing. Most feminists are striving toward equality in the workplace and autonomy over private lives; while fair and non-demeaning representation in popular culture is critical to achieving these goals, bringing in business for sexist advertisers seems like a dubious strategy to get there.
It's summertime and the bitching is easy. But those who grouse the loudest would be well served to stop protesting long enough to realize the triviality, or at least the consequences, of their complaints.
Katie Cristol is a Cavalier Daily columnist. She can be reached at kcristol@cavalierdaily.com.
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