In 2014 the fast food restaurant Carl's Jr ran an ad for the super bowl. In the ad was a almost naked woman "advertising" a menu item for Carl's junior. In the ad she makes sexual poses with food, and even takes it as far as letting the sauce from the food drip onto her breasts. The ad also shows the woman winking at the camera with the food in their mouth multiple times. This ad came with a lot of backlash due to its objectifying of the woman. This ad came on during the Super bowl in 2014, when over 100 million people were watching. Many of these people could have been kids, and being very impressionable kids might take this seriously. Many little girls could believe their bodies are only objects and they are only used to satisfy men.
In this very explicit ad it was more than likely meant to use the woman's body to help Carl's Jr market their new food. The creators of this ad wanted to appeal to the adult audience with the content of this ad. For example, they picked out a very small pair of shorts, and crop top for the actress in the ad. The creators of the ad did this without thinking about a way to advertise the food, but to objectify the woman in the video. This is proven by the camera in the ad focusing more on the woman then the actual food itself. The shots in the video look at the woman's body with her running her hand over the back of her thigh. In Kilbourne's article "Two ways a Woman Can Get Hurt" she states "we know that advertisers use sex to get our attention (577). This is true, because in the commercial the creators use a half naked woman to advertise their food. They possibly did this to get the male audience to buy into them and be more interested in their company. Kilbourne also states that "sex in advertising is more about disconnection and distance then connection and closeness" (489). This connects with the advertisement, because the woman's body has nothing to do with the food, making it disconnected and completely irrelevant to the ad. An ad can be successful with just showing what it is advertising and nothing else.
Figure 3
The food in the woman's mouth
Fig 4- woman spanking herself
Throughout this commercial there are many suggestive themes. For example in the commercial it shows the woman putting a banana down her throat and licking it as shown in figure 3. The creators wanted to create a pornographic theme for this ad. The actress is even seen spanking herself as see in fig 4 . The camera angles capture more of her body for no reason except to appeal to the male audience. The creators never care about actually advertising their product, but instead care about women's bodies, and how they look. In Kilbourne's "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt" the author states that, "between the objectification of men and woman there is no danger for most men, whereas women are always at risk" (501). This relates to the commercial because, having the actress's body portrayed like that could have been dangerous for her. She could have been harassed with men who want her, or judged harshly to make her feel bad about herself.
In conclusion this commercial was meant to objectify women and paint them as objects. The creators of this ad did not care about their actual product they wanted to advertise, but instead care about making the woman's body appealing to the male audience. Since the creators marketed the ad in a pornographic way it was not very successful, since it came on during the super bowl which many kids watch. The creators of this ad received lots of backlash from people all across the world due to it's sexism.
Kilbourne, Jean. "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt." Rereading America, edited by Colombo, Cullen, and Lisle, Macmillen, 2016