Food
and Gender Go Hand in Hand
Advertisements for food appear
everywhere. They are on billboards, in magazines, bus stops, grocery stores and
even on Facebook. It seems as though we
cannot escape these advertisements. At first glance we see something tasty and
perhaps even want to purchase it. But perhaps these food advertisements serve
another purpose other than advertising our food. Perhaps these advertisements
are meant to police and reinforce gender stereotypes.
Sifting through the numerous food
advertisements that Google has to offer I noticed a trend starting to form. I
noticed that high calorie foods such as hamburgers were more often than not
marketed toward men. The backgrounds to these foods were usually masculine
colors such as black, with big bold letters. While scanning through the various
advertisements that Google has to offer a Burger King ad caught my attention.
The focus of the ad was a Burger King Whopper, which perfectly displayed the
themes that I began to see. Upon seeing a ton of masculinized ads I went
looking for ads specifically targeted toward women. Shifting my focus to
McDonalds I began seeing trends in their advertising as well. McDonalds’ “healthy”
foods such as salads were more than not targeted toward women than men. I
noticed that salads and diet foods were marketed specifically toward women
whereas high calorie fatty foods were marketed specifically toward men.
As mentioned above a Burger King
advertisement of their wildly famous and popular Whopper hamburger caught my
attention. This hamburger ad particularly caught my attention because of its
target toward males and how it was targeting them. The background of the ad is
black with big bold white words that exclaim, “Silly Whopper That’s a Big Mac
Box”. The ad is poking fun at how small the Big Mac is compared to the Whopper.
Society expects males to be big, tough,
and muscular. However this advertisement has deeper implications. By using pathos the advertisement is playing
with the idea that the Whopper is the more masculine sandwich because of its
size. The ad is meant to look tough through the all black background. Black
traditionally is thought to be more of a masculine color as opposed to
feminine. The main focal point of the ad is Burger King’s Whopper. The Whopper
is so large that it simply cannot fit into the Big Mac box. This advertisement
because of the above components is explicitly marketed toward men. Men in
society are expected to eat a lot in order to be big and perceived as
masculine. According to C. Wesley Buerkle “As meal size increases women are
perceived by others as less feminine whereas men are seen as just as masculine
if not more so” (Buerkle 80). Buerkle’s quote on this matter only reaffirms
this notion that to eat a lot earns the perception of being masculine. This ad
is suggesting that males eating this burger will be perceived as masculine. Men
in our society are allowed to eat whatever they like and as much as they like
without society questioning them. Buerkle backs up this notion by offering that
“men participate in a performance of privilege in which they may eat
expansively and without concern for social repercussions” (Buerkle 81). Seldom
does society scorn men for eating a lot. In fact it is almost expected.
Frequently men especially young men are praised for how much they can eat.
The Burger King ad also implies that it
is better to be big and not small. However what is interesting is that this ad
appeals little to most women in American society. Women generally like visually
appealing ads that catch their attention. This ad provides none of that. It is
a simple background with simple words. By excluding women reinforces the idea
that women do not have the privilege to eat high calorie foods like Burger
King’s Whopper. Knowing that Men have
the privilege to eat whatever they like they advertise their whopper to show
this big burger that is meant to be eaten by men not women.
The next ad worthy of exploration was a
McDonald’s salad ad. It is not hard to tell whom McDonalds is trying to target.
The background of the advertisement is a visually appealing red-orange color.
Within the background are sketches of shoes, flowers, purses, and people having
a good time. These are all things that supposedly appeal to women. In the forefront is a thin woman eating the
new Southwest salad. From the plate there are numerous swirls coming off of it.
The picture of the women only shows the top half of her body. She is eating the
salad and looking off into the distance as if she is looking forward to the
future. To the right of her is an image of her showing off what appears to be
her “new” body. The picture shows her whole body, as opposed to just her torso.
To the right of the advertisement are skinny white words, compared to the
Burger King ad, which state, “ A Taste That Inspires”. Below those words is a
checklist with the phrases, “New Hairstyle”, “New Outfit”, and “New Southwest
Salad”. All three of these items are checked off. This ad uses logos to appeal
to its female audience. The advertisement suggests that if you eat this salad
you will be able to look great in that new dress that you just purchased. It
also suggests that just by eating this salad you will automatically look
better. This ad infers that women must look good and more importantly are thin.
McDonalds through production of this ad is reaffirming societies belief that to
be classified as a woman you have to look good, and that the only thing that
matters is appearance. Buerkle suggests that advertisements much like the
McDonalds’ ad “demonstrate women’s subjection to heteromasculine norms and the
demand that they carefully regulate their bodies to those ideals” (Buerkle
81). This is why health foods and salads
are marketed toward women. Women are supposed to have bodies that appear in
shape and trim in order to be perceived as desirable to society. Women
according to this ad should be thin and are regulated to eat healthy foods such
as salad to maintain a thin body.
By McDonalds using a skinny model in
their ad as opposed to someone of average weight or overweight has deeper
implications. In a Journal article entitled Women’s
and Men’s Eating Disorders makes the claim that “undergraduate women
exposed to thin, as opposed to average or oversized, models had the most
negative subsequent evaluations of their own bodies, regardless of their degree
of disordered eating” (p.3). Women
seeing the image of a thin model for a salad ad may look upon themselves in a
negative light if they do not look like the model. Thus they will turn to
healthy foods in an effort to achieve the “perfect” body like the model has.
It is important to note that McDonald’s
and Burger King aren’t the only one’s that target their products toward
specific genders. Through scanning the numerous food ads you can clearly see
what gender is targeted based upon the product. For instance healthier snack
foods such as yogurt are targeted toward females. Yogurt ads like to play with
the idea that you can eat the yogurt without feelings of guilt. The yogurt
likes to tout that it comes in a variety of dessert themed flavors with all the
taste and none of the guilt. The advertisements usually show women eating them
with a visually appealing backdrop. It is clear through these types of ads that
this food is meant to be eaten by women only. Food products that contain meat
and are high in calories are more often than not targeted toward men. These ads
like the Burger King ad feature big bold words and a masculine color scheme to
target males. The ads usually contain wording to suggest that it is not a diet
product and that it contains real meat. According to the article Prime Beef Cuts: Culinary Images for
Thinking ‘Men” argues that masculine food ads “work
to simultaneously reinforce and conceal traditional notions of masculine”
(Brownlie and Hewer 243). Advertisements of high calorie foods marketed toward
men only serve to reinforce the traditional ideals of what it means to be
masculine.
The way advertisers advertise their
products speak to how we as a society and culture view gender and food. Through
the exploration of food advertisements we can see how food is valued in our
culture and what it means to eat certain foods. Our society is very stagnant.
We have set ideals of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a
woman. Food advertisements are just one facet of society that police how we
perceive and perform our genders. It is clear through health food
advertisements that women should constantly be conscious of their weight and
their bodies. Food advertisements police men in that they should be tough and
eat a lot in order to be perceived as masculine. We currently live in a body
obsessed culture which oddly enough is policed through the kinds of foods that
we eat.
Advertisement Links:
Citations:
Buerkle , C. W. "Metrosexuality can Stuff
it: Beef Consumption as (Heteromasculine) Fortification." Text and
Performance Quarterly 29.1 (2009): 77-93. Print.
Brownlie, Douglas , and Paul Hewer.
"Prime Beef Cuts: Culinary Images for Thinking ‘Men’." Consumption,
Markets and Culture 10.3 (2007): 229-250.
coroflot.com. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.coroflot.com/melissa_hlebasko/Advertising/7>.
flikr.com. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/66647783@N00/2180282600/>.
"Really, I Couldn’t Eat Another Bite:
Women’s and Men’s Eating Behavior Following Exposure to Ideal-Body Images and
Text." International Communication Association Print.
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