I haven’t eaten at Burger King ever since their “Man Food” commercials, (which wasn’t exactly a huge imposition since I didn’t think their food was that great in the first place); but if I ate there, this would be enough for me to kill it again.
Their newest ad campaign apparently decided that sexism wasn’t selling, so they went for the racism angle. The premise of it is this: they go to “remote” third-world villages, and give the people there a Burger King Whopper or a McDonald’s for the world’s “purest taste test”.
(My own Transcript after the Fold)
*Twangy psuedo- Thai music plays*
Announcer: What happens if you take remote Chang-Mai villagers, who’ve never seen a burger…who don’t even have a word for “burger” and ask them to compare Whopper vs Big Mac…in the world’s purest taste test? The Whopper is America’s favorite…but what will these people choose? The Whopper virgins will decide.
This is easy exploitation of other people; the “poor savages” practically comes screaming off the add. (Don’t even have a word for “Burger”? WTF? I bet they have a word for “sandwich” and I also bet that they have plenty of words we don’t have in English). Additionally, Whoppers and Big Mac would probably make them sick; most countries on the planet are not used to the high fat, high sugar, high beef, high salt diets of Americans. So, they’re giving them food, but they’re going to probably be immediately sick afterwards.
Burger King, you fail at making commercials.
hi…i think you are right!!! The comercial is soo stupid…i cant believe they would actually air that!! its like sayin our country is better…which it is not!! its like rubbing that we have food and they dont into their faces!! i find it wrong!
I had the exact same reaction when I saw that commercial. “Which will they choose?” I’m guessing they’ll choose the fresh fruits and vegetables of their native diet you fuckwads.
Dnigma’s right: a person not accustomed to the sugar and saturated fat bombs that are fast food burgers would probably throw up after such a taste test.
I’d stopped eating at BK years ago, except in very rare circumstances, after I began to suspect a nationwide franchise policy of pissing me off. From having managers point at me and shout “What is this gentleman waiting for??!!” to biting down on a foreign object in what was clearly pureed-and-mold-pressed chicken to getting a crossonwhich without egg (really? that’s the part you forget?) BK almost always fails to hit my even my reasonable standards for fast-food service.
However, I was working in media when the “Creepy King” ads started, and the industry magazine articles about those fuckers were hilarious.
Great post, Antigone, but I’m curious as to why you think all languages would have a word for ‘sandwich’ when i) it was the name of its populariser, and ii) even other Europeans are wont to borrow our word for it rather than making up their own.
I suspect that most countries have some kind of “let’s pack a salad inside some grain concoction and BAM! Potable Portable”. Not that I’m accusing BK of being edible. Amazingly, I actually managed to have a reaction somewhat similar to yours, anti. However, I did appreciate the King commercials, mostly because my sense of humor favors absurdity. Especially their “Wake up with the king”, in which a guy wakes up and discovers that the king is also in bed with him, with a Whopper on a plate.
Honestly, my reaction in such a situation is a tossup between beat the living crap out of the king (How the hell did he get in my f*cking HOUSE?) and screaming in terror.
TRH
I’m an African American revolutionary communist union activist, so I can spot racism very well.
I’ve seen that Burger King commercial – and I didn’t see any racism in it at all.
The gimmick was “find people who’ve never had either McDonalds or Burger King burgers, to do a truly neutral taste test”
Since American fast food is a VERY EXPENSIVE urban luxury in Third World coutries (our Whoppers and Big Macs are eaten by the local equivilants of affulent yuppies and trust fund baby hipsters in that part of the world) peasant farmers from remote areas are probably the least exposed to American style fast food folks in the world, they are perfect for this commercial.
Again, where’s the racism?
The Chang Mai probably DON’T have a word for Hamburger, since burgers were originally invented in Germany in the 19th century and came here in the 20th.
I love it when people try to post their “credentials”. It’s like: this is the internet; I don’t know you from Adam, and you don’t have a commenting history here, so your credibility is hovering around 5% already.
But, like I said, the racism comes from the “poor savages” tone screaming off the ad (they don’t have BURGER KING, can you BELIEVE it?!?) and the fact that it’s completely culturally insensitive to give food to people when you know (or should reasonably know) that it’s going to make them six kinds of sick.
Whatever, Burger King, even though you are the only fast food chain to have a veggie burger for us vegetarian freaks in every single Burger King, I am now full of hate for you and your stupid, racist, commercial. Antigone–you are right on this one. Disgusting. I’m writing to BK right now.
Well, I am not an African American revolutionary communist union activist, so maybe my credibility is negative, but I agree that the supposed racism is not obvious. As Mr. Butler said, the conceit of the commercial is that they are looking for people with no brand loyalty. The “poor savages” idea is your own invention of subtext. It would be more reasonable to assume that the commercial is simply underlining that the people in the taste test are approaching the products with no prior experience at all, since that is obviously the point. Or maybe you’re right that Burger King is saying to its customers that they should be like these “poor savages” and acknowledge the deliciousness that is the Burger King Whopper.
“Well, I am not an African American revolutionary communist union activist, so maybe my credibility is negative,”
Yes, those are the only people that we allow to make comments on here and be taken seriously. Now that you’ve outed yourself–shoo!
I would hesitate to brand it as racism unless there was a reason to believe that BK would reject white people who met the requirements of being a ‘whopper virgin’. Am I missing something? Where the person is from is what the ad is about, not what race they are.
As far as the language thing goes- I find it pretty silly to argue about the language of the people in the ads unless you actually know something about it.
Weirdly I saw a bk commercial with the same ‘whopper virgin’ theme tonight that featured people of many different races, including whites. I would say it had about 5-15 people in the ad from all over the world trying the hamburgers. I don’t know if it will make a difference to people here but I thought I would mention it since I remembered this post when I saw the commercial.
[...] Marion Nestle reluctantly wrote about the commercial on December 7, with an update on December 9. PunkAss Blog was a little more forthright in their response, as was Ann at Feministing, who quoted PAB in her response. I first found out about the [...]
You sound like a whiney bitch. “They don’t even have a word for burger” doesn’t mean they are primitive. It means… well… they don’t have a word for burger!
I’m seeing some racism in your assumptions though.. maybe there are some deeper emotions you are reaching out to.
Meh. Doesn’t matter. Burger King sucks, they always have and they always will.
On a different note, you are probably right about that stuff making them sick; it makes me sick and I live in the states.
Can we please stop frantically searching the planet for ways to create racism just so we can make ourselves feel better by complaining about it? When I see posts like this, I just think, “yeh, yeh. We know; you aren’t racist and you look down on anyone who is.” Phewww, I know that made me feel better.
You sound like a self-involved man with too much privelege. If you worry so much about people calling out Burger King on their racist tendancies, well, then maybe you have has some assumptions about your own racism that you don’t want to owning up to.
But, whatever, if you don’t find BK tasty, that’s CLEARLy relevant information to this thread. /snark
Oh, and I don’t have to look to terribly hard to find racism, and when I see it, it sure as hell doesn’t make me feel good. But I’m glad your “Oh, I’m so above this racism stuff” indifferent jackassery makes you feel so great you needed to share it.
I am as self-involved as the next person and I may or may not have privileged in life. My status in life is clearly unimportant on the internet.
I definitely should have been a bit more legato in my tone, but my opinion remains the same. I think you are trying to hard to find racism in things that are obviously relative to one’s culture and environment and you are doing it in a manner that is completely unhelpful to the cause you want us to believe you are fighting for.
For some reason you came to the conclusion that I am “worried about people calling out Burger King on their racist tenancies”. I’m far from worried about them… but rather worried about your ability to verbally express yourself in this blog. I think… again, I think, you are going about it the wrong way and, in doing so, wasting your and your reader’s time.
In response to your jab about me owning up to my own racism, I don’t have anything to ‘own up to’. I have always been very open about the cultural prejudices I, unfortunately, can’t seem to get away from. When I see a black guy wearing what I consider to be thuggish clothes, I assume thug; when I see a white guy wearing camouflage overalls, I automatically assume he is a redneck; when I see two guys walking down the street wearing black suits, a white shirt and a black tie, I think they are Jahovah Witnesses. When I see a Hispanic guy with a shaved head and tattoos from sleeve to sleeve, I assume he is in a gang. In all four of these cases, I would avoid interaction with these people. I don’t know who they really are or where they come from, so they immediately become victims of my cultural prejudice.
I, personally, believe everyone exercises some form of cultural prejudice, but I can’t speak for everyone so I will accept that I have a problem without excuse.
As I stated in my first post, THIS is what we need to work on and fight. I think that in some cases these automatic assumptions are a defensive mechanism ingrained into our society, but even so, it is unacceptable. I should not judge by the outer appearance of an individual, but sometimes I do.
Was this ad classless? Yes. Is it racist? Not really.
I can understand why people are calling you out for calling this ad ‘racist.’ They aren’t using race to discriminate here. They’re using socio-economic status primarily, which I suppose would make this class-ism. But they’re not really discriminating *against* these villagers; what they’re really doing here that is so offensive is completely ignoring cultural sensitivity and portraying these “Whopper Virgins” as some sort of rare species of human, and as backwoods third-world schmucks. “Americans already know that the Whopper is the best. What will ‘these people’ decide?” They will probably decide that both burgers taste like shit. They will probably decide that they need a toilet where they can vomit (oh, but do ‘these people’ know how something as fancy as a toilet works?!).
So, no, NOT racism. But definitely offensive.