It seems that for centuries women have been used by men. Some of the world’s most powerful sources, like the Bible, even suggest that women were literally made for men, which makes it no wonder that media advertisements today objectify women. One of the worst offenders of sexualizing and objectifying women is the fast food industry, particularly Carl’s Jr. One of their most ignoble ads is the “Borderball” commercial. It depicts a women’s volleyball game occurring over the Texas-Mexico border because the two teams are settling a disagreement over a burger’s identity: Texan or Mexican. Two men watching the game debate if they should tell the bikini-clad women that the burger actually involves aspects of both styles, but decide that they’d prefer …show more content…
For example, chicken breast is positioned near or next to a woman’s breast for the advertisement. The “Borderball” commercial is no exception to this, and makes associations with the buns on the burgers with the “buns” on the women. The end of the commercial features a conversation between two men, both extremely masculine and holding the Tex-Mex burgers being advertised. The commercial very quickly changes clips from the men and the burger to the backsides of the women, then back to the burger, and then back once more to a close up shot of a woman’s backside. The commercial closes with, yes, another shot of the women’s backsides, except this time one of the women is slapping the other woman’s butt before the clip quickly changes to an actual visual and audio advertisement of the burger. All of this—the images of ‘true’ masculinity and association of meat with equivalent female body parts—occurs within the last 25 seconds of the 52 second commercial. Without explicitly stating that women’s backsides are to be thought of like pieces of meat men can consume, the commercial still manages to imply just that through psychological techniques and conflation, and reinforce the values of the patriarchy that support the inferiority and resultant objectification of