McRIB!
It's neither animal, vegetable, nor mineral. <|:)~
Posted on 12/18/2002 5:08:18 PM PST by Stultis
Maybe it is because the country has been immersed in the saga of U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., that a currently running fast food TV commercial hit me the wrong way when I first saw it Sunday afternoon.
But I think not.
No, the more I think of the ad -- designed to get the viewer to try two new sandwiches offered by the restaurant chain -- the more I'm convinced that it is a not-so-subtle play on the overt racial discrimination that once was the norm in this country.
I'm so offended, in fact, that I think Wendy's, the nation's third-largest hamburger chain with more than 6,000 restaurants in North America, ought to pull the advertisement.
The commercial caught me by surprise while I was tuned in to the Cowboys-Giants football game.
Wendy's had already introduced its new Bacon Swiss Cheeseburger and Chicken Bacon Swiss sandwiches, and from the beginning the ad campaign seemed aimed at getting people to try both to see which one they would like most.
In the tradition of the company, but without its late founder Dave Thomas pitching the products, the early promotional spots were lighthearted and appeared to do the job of describing the products and making them appealing, at least for people who like bacon and cheese on their sandwiches. It seemed the emphasis was on the difficulty of choosing between two great products.
But this latest ad, with a series of vignettes of people who had chosen one sandwich over the other, goes much further than people simply debating the merits of which meat goes better with the added cholesterol: chicken or beef.
It actually suggests that if you're on the wrong side of the sandwich issue, then there is something wrong with you. Not just that you don't have good taste, but that others who disagree have the right to target, taunt and discriminate against you.
The commercial shows how the issue is dividing communities and families, and then it closes with a disturbing scene and a cutting last line that is definitely a throwback to the days of Jim Crow.
The final scene depicts a woman working in her yard when some young boys drive in front of the house and skid to a halt.
"Chicken lover!" one of them yells.
There is a closeup of the woman's surprised face as the car speeds off again.
"Chicken lover!"
Perhaps to the average viewer and hearer, this was a very clever and funny line. But I'll bet anyone who ever heard a similar phrase -- with exactly the same number of syllables, I might add -- cannot hear the commercial stinger line without hearing the familiar epithet of days gone by.
I'm sure there will be those who become incensed that I could be so riled by a stupid TV commercial, but unless you've felt the sting of racism and all the reminders of it that come in symbols and coded speech (a la Trent Lott longing for the land and the good ol' days of Dixie), then it might be difficult to imagine.
Aside from the racial implications, the idea of discriminating against anyone who is different is a repulsive notion that ought not to be reinforced in a 30- or 60-second TV spot, especially in these days of heightened insensitivity in America.
There was nothing clever about this ad, except in the most banal, juvenile way, and it certainly wasn't funny.
I don't think Thomas would have found it funny, either. Without knowing the man, who died this year of liver cancer, I don't think he would have approved it.
Perhaps I'm the only one in America who does not appreciate this latest approach in advertising. Perhaps -- just perhaps -- it is exactly the kind of ad that will keep the company's brand in the minds of the consumers.
I, however, find it repugnant because it plays on one of the worst emotions of human beings -- prejudice. And while I obviously remember the commercial and the products it was touting, it did not make me want to run out and buy a hamburger or chicken sandwich with bacon and Swiss cheese.
Wendy's ad agency didn't get it right this time. So, the restaurant chain should do what a customer does when an order is botched at the drive-through window: send it back.
NOTICE TO GOV. RICK PERRY: James L. Byrd has now spent five years, six months and one day behind bars for a crime he did not commit. It is time for him to be set free.
You're right.. I bet every time Larry Flynt hears "Chicken Lover" he has flashbacks.
Then again, maybe you're just an idiot with a word processor..
at least for people who like bacon and cheese on their sandwiches
Then, at the end, he brings in the heavy artillery, to fire some blanks:
And while I obviously remember the commercial and the products it was touting, it did not make me want to run out and buy a hamburger or chicken sandwich with bacon and Swiss cheese.
He's such an inept, humorless writer, that he undermined his own credibility. He's a guy who doesn't eat the product (and probably never eats at Wendy's, period), writing for other humorless phonies who will also dishonestly claim that this ad soured them on Wendy's.
But how much you wanna bet, that after this moron gets other people repeating his talking points, that the corporate weasels wimp out, and pull the ad?
McRIB!
It's neither animal, vegetable, nor mineral. <|:)~
Man, what does that make this guy's editor?
P.S. This guy doesn't sound like a football fan to me. I suspect him of trying to contrive some "regular guy," populist credentials. Maybe someone who had watched the game told him about the ad.
It also appears that he is seeking to exploit the Trent Lott story to pile on with opportunistic white-baiting.
But since that has racial undertones, and I don't want the lynch mob outside my house I will apologize in advance for almost posting what I was going to post before thinking better of it and deciding not to because it sounded racist.
And if anyone is mad about it, just tell them I am a Democrat.
There...
When I first saw your column, I thought "this has to be from the Onion." But, upon further review, it's apparently a real live column. Don't worry, I'm not incensed. In fact, I'm still laughing. Just out of curiosity, did you write a similar column when Will Smith shot a cardboard cutout of an eleven year old white girl in "Men in Black"? How about when Michael J. Fox tried to steal credit for Johnny B. Good in "Back to the Future"?Anyway, thanks for the column. That was the funniest thing I read all week. However, you'll find you'll enjoy life a lot more if you quit looking for Klansmen under the bed every night.
The commercial caught me by surprise while I was tuned in to the Cowboys-Giants football game.
This is another clue that the guy needs a life. Good grief, I've watched the Cowboys since 65, but I don't know how anyone could watch that corpse masquerading as a football team (I hung in for nearly ten minutes).
Honestly, I think he didn't have anything to write about so he made this up. Basically he has to get paid, if I was the editor, I would have went ballistic and felt conned. This is pure drivel, and shows absolutley no effort. I have a hunch he wrote this up right before the deadline to hand it in.
This presstitute POS is the kind of idiot that keeps racism alive ! He profits on keeping people of any color at each others throats. A Sh*t & Shineola Spinmaster of the worst kind IMO.
Stay Safe CMSGOP !
(start letter)
Y'know, Bob Ray...
...as one who is old enough to remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1964 Civil Rights Act first hand, I thought your "chicken lover" column was a joke at first reading. When I finished it, and found that you're actually serious, I can only shake my head, and sadly at that.
The whole point of the civil rights movement was to make race a non-issue in America. Unfortunately, we've been using race, gender and ethnicity as a factor in everything we do, from hiring, to firing, to prosecution, to education, and even when selecting actors for TV and models for print. In order to make race a non-factor, as Dr. King implored us, we've made it everything instead. The cure has become far worse than the disease, increasing tensions between self-hyphenated Americans instead.
Finding racist understones in the phrase "chicken lover", presented in a light hearted manner during a TV ad, confirms my suspicion that some people can find racism in absolutely anything, given the motivation.
PETA is currently all in a lather over the current crop of ingenious and very funny California Cow radio and TV ads, demanding that they be pulled because in reality, "Cows never have a nice day." Their single-issue, lock-stepped, monotone, talking point existence indicates to me that these people, no matter how well intentioned, want to make the rest of society as miserable as they are by demanding that we boycott those who give these wonderful, humorous moments of levity.
I would hope that newspaper columnists would have the objectivity and common sense not to sensationalize the overheated issue of race, especially as we consider the media feeding frenzy over Trent Lott's ill advised remarks at a birthday party. (So where's the companion frenzy over Robert Byrd, an admitted Klan member?)
Surely, you can do better than inventing a race issue to attract readership.
I'm disappointed.
(name redacted)
My comment: a BIG bump for being reality-based!
LOL, that was Venus and Serena Williams.
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