Am I the only one disturbed by the Burger King Singing Cowboy commercial?

If you give it only the slightest notice, you might see a retro commercial with a nice modern twist of a black singing cowboy (yes, there were and are black cowboys, but there were no Black Singing Cowboys ala Roy Rogers). He is good looking and sings well about “the breasts that grow on trees.”

All around him are women moving to a slightly slower tempo. They are dressed in camp vamp. They seem to be pulled forward by their breasts and rearward by their asses. They touch their open mouths, faces, flowing hair. They display a different hunger. They are nubile and comely. They are very soft porn — the kind of images that make a 13 year old boy take notice and hope his parents haven’t.

I don’t know what to make of the fact that all the men are black and all the women white. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Yes, one woman is Asian. Notice she occupies the lowest point in the frame AND exaggerates her legs to hide the fact that her breasts and ass were inadequate for a standing role.

And, yes, there is a white guy, the Top Dawg: the Burger King himself (though under the mask could be any gender or race). The BK occupies the highest point in the frame, towering, lording over his frolicking, fornicating subjects as he bangs his wench from the rear. She, surely a real porn star, raises her arms and cries, “Come and get it.” In the Director’s Cut, she is topless and cries, “Oh, god, yes! yes!”

Think I’m over doing it? We all know that sex sells very well. What alarms me is the pornicious hiphopification of mainstream advertising. Hip-hop music videos always feature an endless herd of sexy women, provocatively dressed, thrusting their breasts and grinding their hips while maintaining a strangely blank expression , as if they couldn’t care less about anything, or as if on bear tranquilizers. At least the BK girls look happy — maybe they know they don’t have to have sex with the star and his entire entourage after the shoot.

After I wrote this, I did a Google search and found another commentary, which confirms a couple of my thoughts, but is quite a different reaction (good piece, though).

Also, the Burger King website (which I refuse to link to), repeats aspects of this commercial (starting with “the breasts that grow on trees”) without any of the people. They thoughtfully provide a link to Black History Month, though not to Women’s History Month. mjh