(cross-posted from IMAO)

Via Right Wing Nation, I found an offended feminist complaining about this Carl's Jr. commercial wherein Dr. 90210 recommends breast augmentation... the punchline being that he's talking to a chicken, and chicken sandwiches are what's being advertised. But yon offended feminist claims that it's not "just a commercial"

It's not "just" anything. It's an ideological piece of propaganda designed to justify two things: the annihilation of chicken's lives and the annihilation of the human female's self esteem.

Gotta disagree.

Here's what the commercial is designed to do:

Sell chicken sandwiches.

But what the hell does a cosmetic surgeon have to do with food?

Here's the deal - prior to about 1950 or so, advertisements took the direct approach. They told people why a product was good and asked them to buy it. Maybe they threw in a jingle to help folks remember the product's name.

But somewhere in the early 50's, marketing researchers discovered that listing the features and asking for the sale wasn't necessary. Just the jingle. Because people don't choose which products to buy for logical reasons, they buy them for emotional ones, and make up the logical ones afterwards to justify it.

Ultimately resulting in marketers designing ad campaigns that went straight for the emotions.

The way they do this is to spend the bulk of the commercial using sensory stimuli designed to put you into a particular emotional state - usually a positive one - and then telling you what they want you to buy in the hopes that the product will become associated in your mind with the positive state.

Does this mean that every time you pass a Carl's Jr., you'll slam on the brakes and zombie-shuffle into the store to buy a chicken sandwich?

No.

But if you're hungry and you're driving around and you see a Carl's Jr. sign, when you ask yourself "should I stop here?", a quick mental Googling of your inner database will turn up a response of "I've heard of Carl's Jr. and my general feelings toward it are more or less positive".

You may stop at Carl's Jr., you may not. But the commercial upped the odds somewhat.

But why would Carl's Jr. advocate murdering chickens and demeaning women in an attempt to make people feel good?

They. Didn't.

It was a joke. It was funny. Here's why:

In order for something to be funny, it needs both truth and exaggeration. If it's only exaggeration, it's just a lie. If it has only truth, it's a physics textbook. You need both.

However, if you don't have any truth handy, a popularly accepted stereotype will work almost as well, since a stereotype is something that's true for a significant portion - but not all - of a given group of people.

In this case, the stereotype is that women are insecure about their physical appearance, and some will seek to correct that through breast augmentation. The exaggeration is that this would apply to a chicken.

Throw in a pun on the word "breast" and you have humor. Which is designed to make you laugh so that you feel good so that you'll associate Carl's Jr. with that good feeling and stop into one of their restaurants to spend your money which they'll spend on more funny commercials.

Thus completing the Circle of Corporate Life.

The next logical "offended feminist" question is, "But doesn't it say something about the corporation that they chose to joke about women's breasts instead of, say, professional football, like in those nice Creepy-the-King burger commercials?"

Probably not. It's more likely that it's just what came off the top of the ad agency's head that morning.

As a self-described humor writer, I know how the creative process works, and it's something like this: you pick a topic, you free-associate some facts & stereotypes, and when you find one that takes you off on an unexpected tangent, you make a punch line out of it.

In this case, Mr. Ad Man had to make a chicken joke; thought about feathers, beaks, eggs, farms, and roosters before the idea of breasts; then - knowing "sex sells" - connected it to human female breasts, and eventually decided to use breast augmentation surgery as the segue between the two.

A joke was made, people laughed, a commercial was produced, and chicken sandwiches were sold by the ton.

Except to offended feminists, who will never go to Carl's Jr. ever again, on the assinine assumption that Mr. Ad Man's first thought was "How can I demean women today?" and not "How can I make a joke about chicken?"

But that's how it goes with humor. When you use stereotypes instead of truth, the joke will fail for the people to whom the stereotype does not apply. One man's funny is another feminist's annihilation propaganda. So when you write, the best you can do is aim for the bulk of your target audience, ignore the offended, and hope that next time you have to write a joke, the truth or stereotype you base your humor on is more universal.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go assuage my hunger with a Carl's Jr. chicken breast sandwich.

Heh. I said "breast"

*snicker*

Posted by: Harvey at 08:47 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 887 words, total size 5 kb.

1 So if I thought it was funny does that mean I'm *not* a femminist?? ... ... ... Well thank heavens.

Posted by: Richmond at May 14, 2006 01:40 PM (e8QFP)

2 Why didn't they mention the fried zucchini?

Posted by: shimauma at May 14, 2006 03:54 PM (YKu7i)

3 Like she's ever going in a Carl's Jr. Girl, just because you don't want to patronize a business doesn't mean you have the right to say I can't patronize that business.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg at May 14, 2006 06:22 PM (VdfnG)

4 I think your article got the most spams EVER Harv. Do I still have to sit in time out for like big juicy breasts and hamhocks?

Posted by: shimauma at May 15, 2006 06:48 AM (oH+XM)

5 Shimauma - Stop saying "juicy breasts"... it's VERY distracting! :-) Meanwhile I deleted all those spams. In case anyone's wondering, there were about 20 of 'em. Mostly for cheap prescription drugs.

Posted by: Harvey at May 15, 2006 09:12 AM (L7a63)

6 Note to Harv's wife...Talk about sandwiches; apparently they get him excited. And don't forget the big juicy...HAMHOCKS!!

Posted by: shimauma at May 15, 2006 10:47 AM (oH+XM)

7 I think the spams were from the title. I've been trying to analyze what brings the spammers out in force and in the last two weeks, certain words in post titles are bringing them out: "Ads," and "Links" are big for me, so I'm betting "commercial" did it for you.

Posted by: Ogre at May 15, 2006 11:33 AM (/k+l4)

8 I was SO going to give them my business exactly because it was about bigger titties and dead chickens... Now I'm crushed. Thanks for nothing, Harv!

Posted by: Graumagus at May 15, 2006 11:43 AM (iwJET)

9 Google your inner database... What the fuck???? You jack-off idiot!

Posted by: Madfish Willie at May 15, 2006 07:44 PM (UyJtB)

10 MW - congrats on guessing what "google your inner database" is a euphemism for :-P

Posted by: Harvey at May 15, 2006 10:02 PM (L7a63)

11 Since we don't have a Carl's Jr ... I'm going to Hardee's for supper tonight!

Posted by: basil at May 16, 2006 08:40 AM (4Ek1C)

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