Or very little wrapper...
Posted on 07/12/2014 10:21:32 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Last week, Burger King unveiled the greatest monument to ad decadence this year (so far): The Proud Whopper.
What, pray tell, is a Proud Whopper? It's a whopper with a rainbow-colored wrapper. Outside of that, it's identical to a normal whopper—and that's the point Burger King is trying to make. When the wrapper is opened, it states “we are all the same inside.” Just so, an asexual person or a gay person is the same on the inside as a straight person; we're all blood, guts, and bones with sinews holding it all together.
A Burger King PR rep will tell you it's a show of Burger King's solidarity with and love towards the LGBTQIA community. “We felt [the Proud Whopper] could bring to life a message of equality, self-expression, authenticity, and just being who you are,” a Burger King senior vice president of global branding told TIME.
However, to someone who's not a soulless marketing drone, the Proud Whopper is naught but pandering that doesn't help progress so much as it helps Burger King. You can just see old ad-men in Burger King HQ saying to himself, “Hmm, being gay is in now? How can we make money off this?”
But Burger King isn't the first brand to try and cash in on the zeitgeist's zeal towards social justice, diversity, and tolerance. The whole advertising world is going gay—from Target to Chevrolet. While this seems like a cause waving the rainbow flag in glee over, it's not. Advertising is a world of heartless cutthroats all with a predilection towards mendacity. Advertisers don't care about social causes, they care about how they can hijack social causes to further their own ends. Brands are not benevolent. As Salon's Daniel D'Addario noted:
“That's right—appealing to minority communities is what corporations should do in order to make sure they don't miss out on those sweet gay dollars. It's transparently what advertising has always been about, but in an era in which high-profile ad campaigns like the Cheerios spot featuring a multiracial family have been treated as a self-explanatory social good, the discerning gay consumer will hopefully not be too swayed by ads that are meant just to cash in on demographic identity."
An established brand pushing a social justice isn't activism, it's marketing—but even prestigious publications like The Wall Street Journal fall for the ploy. They considered Burger King's ridiculous Proud Whopper as a sign of the company “stepping up” for LGBT rights. They also noted that the video of people unveiling the Proud Whopper has more than 4.3 million views on YouTube.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
That's great, right? Well it's great if you're Burger King. Now 4.3 million people (and counting) are going to have a positive image of your brand. Burger King isn't only a fast food chain—they're an ally They care.
But where were Burger King and the other LGBT-friendly brands when the potential loss of tenure in San Fransisco threatened to put the jobs of many LGBT teachers in jeopardy? Are they on the front lines of the LGBT struggle in Ukraine? Are they trying to address the fact that LGBT employees feel less satisfied and less empowered at work? What about the very real, very disturbing hiring bias the LGBT community faces? LGBT discrimination is still here, and a shiny wrapper won't make it go anywhere.
The Proud Whopper didn't solve any problems. It didn't “support” the LGBT community. It supported Burger King's ad-ops division. It supported their whopper sales.
I'm sure you're thinking, “Oh, of course, it didn't; it's just a burger.”
True, it's just a burger. But that LGBT-friendly burger got media coverage at all the web's top sites. The day-to-day instances of discrimination people face (whether due to sexual orientation, skin color, or whatever other reason) can rarely boast this claim. Nine times out of 10 we only hear about the former.
“Look how progressive the world is becoming,” we say as we watch a gay couple open a Proud Whopper on YouTube. As we're transfixed by the feels, countless acts of prejudice are happening right around us, of which we remain blissfully unaware. Transgender people just received federal employment protection last month. It took that long to enact something that should've happened ages ago. But who gives a rat's derriere, society is saved because gay couples are in commercials and there's a gay-friendly whopper. Truly, we live in enlightened times.
And this isn't just a problem for LGBT issues. Remember Dove's “Real Beauty Sketches?” It became the most viral ad of all time thanks to its premise of teaching women to respect themselves—so long as “respecting themselves” meant buying Dove skin car products, natch. The new #LikeAGirl campaign from Always is equally farcical: Be sure to be strong and confident, ladies...but be sure you do that by purchasing Always products.
And, of course, the #LikeAGirl commercial features a conventionally attractive white woman as the star. Do you think #LikeAGirl will help dispel the circumstances that led to #YesAllWomen or stop any other problem women face?
Social justice-conscious advertising mimics the symptoms of progress. It creates illusions of progress that allow us to think society is more progressive than it truly is. When we see commercials touting trendy activist topics, it tricks us into believing the world is moving on from prejudice and doubt. In reality, however, the commercials are a form of prejudice in and of themselves. “Gay's are safe enough to advertise to,” “Women lack confidence and we can exploit that,” etc.
Advertisers are friends to no one. We would all do well to remember that.
*****
Matt Saccaro has contrbuted to Salon, Thought Catalog, Medium, and BuzzFeed. He’s the author of the eBook, Sex, Lies, and Scantrons, as well as an eBook about U.S. diplomatic history.
But we are not all the same on the inside. On the inside homosexuals have a disordered brain that causes them to act out deviant behavior that 99% of the population would never act on, SO............
Shorter Saccaro: BURGER KING TOUTS GAYS - GAYS HARDEST HIT
I predict an undeniable dip in BK product sales in the near future.
BINGO! Go to a McDonalds or Burger King and DON”T buy from the specials or the dollar menu and a single person spends $8 to $10 bucks for lunch. Not a good deal for what is practically a stomach ache wrapped up in a rainbow.
I don’t like Burger King, they microwave their burgers. What’s up with that?
It’d be cheaper to make one yourself at home, and a lot better tasting.
Or very little wrapper...
Whatever, They are deviants. I like to think that they struggle with temptation. But let’s face it, few struggle, most of them embrace it. Often at the rest stop of a turnpike.
>> LGBTQIA community<<
What the h*ll does that mean?
What does all that stand for?
I wish there was a Chick-Fil-A near me. Or even in my state.
She got the specials, dinner box $9.99 and 2 - 20 piece McNuggets and two large fries. Hey there are five boys under 7 here today. Most days. First time in months I bought any food I didn't make at home.
Still don't feel too good.
I sent BK corp an email and will never eat there again.
When I want fast food I go to Chick-fil-a or Zaxby’s. Zaxby’s is actually pretty good.
Lesbian: Woman Too ugly and bitchy for most men.
Gay: Homosexual Man
Bi-Sexual: Garden variety pervert. Sleep with anything.
Transgendered: Crazy person. If they claimed they where a plant would we be unsympathetic to not water them and feed them plant food? Come on their nuts!
Questioning: If there is a question, are they really born that way. Probably where abused by a gay and are questioning what it means. 30% of all pedophiles are self described homosexuals. that means that a vast majority of Homosexuals are also pedophiles. In reality they are generally Ephebophiles. They like pubescent boys.
Intersex: Someone who’s physical sex characteristics are not categorized as exclusively male or exclusively female. (This is a physical deformity that does not need to be a problem anymore as a simple DNA test will determine the sex and the doctors can remove or shape whatever needs to occur to help the person attain a normal life)
Asexual and ally: No sexual orientation. OK and good friends to the homo’s who promote their causes but like normal sex or no sex at all .
I had to look it up. I really only knew of the LBGT part. I mean who doesn’t. every other story.
The Love that dare not STFU already!
Jim, it’s not really about disorders or deviancy.
It’s about social norms. Seems to me that in some college courses I took decades ago that called them Social morays. I prefer to call them cultural norms.
What they are trying to do is to tear them all down. This is what the “free love” generation of the 60s was all about, but it goes much further back into our history.
Today, the real target is religion. They want it done away with. They see it as the origin of all that is bad about society.
I am not a religious person by any means, but many of the “social norms” or mores (morals) that originated with religion ie” Christianity, are necessary to guide humans through life. Without which many humans are literally rudderless ships with no steering, no destination, and no future.
Marriage between a man and a woman and the social avoidance of same sex relationships are cornerstone guidance passed on for well over 2500 years to guide society because all these mistakes were made before and multiple times and were found to be damaging to society.
Not all of the moral or social/cultural norms has this sort of importance to society so some of them were crap and other absolutely necessary. So I believe it’s a huge mistake to jettison these guidelines in the name of “progress” or progressive thought, which has proliferated like a disease on the entire planet.
Nothing that I can see is wrong with their brains. What is wrong is that the guidelines that were in place, have been damaged severely or totally removed, allowing any individual to simply act on impulse.
As humans, we are way too complicated emotionally to deal with out base instincts and desires, without some sort of guidance in the form of social structure.
It’s like erasing all the lines painted on the highways.
Well it may be backfiring in more ways than one. Obviously this gay or gay-friendly writer isn’t thrilled at being pandered to.
I mean most of them are nuts,
Homosexuals are involved in incredibly physically risky and emotionally exhausting behavior.
Transgenders are complete psychotics and bisexuals would have sex with the garden rake if they could get away with it.
They are crazy people.
When we stopped calling them crazy. They decided that religion and societal norms where the crazy thing. They have been attacking them quite successfully for a half century.
I kind of like McNuggets even though they aren’t as satisfying as they were a long time ago. The $5 for 20 is pretty good deal.
There aren’t enough letters in the alphabet to cover all the gender choices in Facebook (51).
“we are all the same inside.”A big lie.
It's not skin color or hair style that make people different.
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