Sex sells.
Sure it does.
But since when did sex start selling food?
In the following Quizno's commercial, an oven (with a radio announcer voice) acts as the seducer, who engages in a dialogue that has the semblance of foreplay with a sandwich-eater named Scott.
"Scott, I want you to do something."
"Not doing that again. That burnt."
"We both enjoyed that."
...
"The new tasty torpedo?"
"Yes, Scott. You make one."
"Me?
"Put it in me Scott."
...
"Say it sexy, Scott."
If we're looking at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, the most fundamental needs at the base of the pyramid are physiological - a category which includes both food and sex, and yet the intersection of the two can be uncomfortable, namely because we'd like to relegate the former to the quotidian and the latter to... well, the bedroom. The dovetailing of food and sex has quite a history of course. It's easy to conjure up images we've seen in art history of concubines feeding grapes to a fat king or pick out old wives' tales about aphrodisiac foods (e.g. oysters, saffron, ambergris). The word "carnal" has the same roots as the Spanish word for braised or roasted pork, "carnitas." Certainly, with our current culture's mega-obsession with gourmet and gourmandizing, eating is chalked up to be a sensual activity.
But still, these ads (the Quizno's TV commercial and the Burger King ad below) go far beyond labeling food as an aphrodisiac. In both ads, the sandwich is the penis. Are these companies trying to tell us that food is as pleasurable as sex? Or is it all one huge psychological advertising ploy that lionizes sex as the underlying motivation for the rest of or actions? Maybe these ads are playful, or maybe they are taking the food and sex combination a little too far. After all, the effectiveness of these ads is grounded the assumption that we are purely sexual creatures that cater only to our most primal instincts - which elicits the question: is advertising reductive and dehumanizing?
No comments:
Post a Comment