I like to have my TV on while I work on my computer on my book auctions. (Well, it’s really a 2nd computer monitor hooked to a tuner, sort of HD before HD became popular, but that’s for a different blog…) Usually I just have it on as ‘background noise’ – that is, unless one of my favorite shows, like TORCHWOOD, HEROES or CASH IN THE ATTIC, is on and my attention is drawn from what I’m SUPPOSED to be doing to what I’d rather be doing.
Lately, though, for some reason I’ve been paying a little bit more attention to the commercials, too, and they really make me wonder WHAT the heck the advertisers think they’re doing.
Example: the latest Burger King commercial. The women in it are ‘jealous’ of the King’s newest ‘melt’ sandwich, fearing it’s too much like homemade and it’s impinging on their purvue. (In other words, their family prefers the King’s cooking to their own! Oh my!!)
So how do they solve the problem? Make better sandwiches? Take away their kids’ allowance so they can’t afford to buy them? Heck, no. The solution for the mothers is to try to run over and KILL the competition, i.e. the King. (Yup, murder is the solution offered.) I understand as an adult it’s supposed to be a joke, but if you watch the various versions of the commercial, it just seems to become a vendetta against the King, with a sandwich as the justification to run him over or off him in some other nefarious way…
Now, I think I’m beginning to better understand why it’s so hard to eradicate gang problems, especially when your food chains are now on TV championing taking out people permanently who bug you in any way. (What IS the world coming to?) Pretty dang sad, don’t you think, that they couldn’t come up with something a little less ‘final’ for an idea to sell their sandwiches?
Not only is Burger King advocating violence for dealing with your little disagreements, but now ABC Family is showing a movie called HOLIDAYS IN HANDCUFFS – a show where a girl solves her ‘datelessness’ problems by kidnapping a guy at gunpoint, only to have him fall in love with her by the end of the movie. Yeeesh. Wonder how many kids watching that ‘family show’ are going to think that’s a way to fix their inability to attract the opposite sex. (Okay, I personally admit if I managed to get Mario Lopez in handcuffs, I’d probably not let him out very quickly myself, but I’m old enough and experienced enough to know that putting him in them unwillingly in the first place is a BIG no-no… Willingly is a whole other ball of wax. ;)
I was going to send Burger King a quick note about my opinion of their campaign, but it seems that they don’t accept email anymore – citing problems with, to paraphrase the legalese, fear of being accused of stealing people’s ideas. So, I guess I’ll have to pull out pen and paper and send them a little snail mail… (Wonder if I remember how?…)
