Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I had to take a tad bit of a fun break. If you haven’t already seen it, the Paris Hilton hamburger commercial is here. I was thinking these people had to be spoofing themselves with the ad until I watched their “Behind the Scenes with Paris” clip (no relation to the above). But perhaps not.
The first Santorum I love Paris in the Spring Time offering (sans Hilton).
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You are having your fun. Got that burnt on the edges feeling myself lately.
well, I’ll never eat a hamburger *quite* the same way again….
come to think of it, I might not *ever* eat a hamburger again.
I’m so seriously grossed out by this….the term “bad taste” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
My rambling, over-long take.
I’m reminded of Spinal Tap. “You should have seen the cover they wanted to use.”
Watching at least the long-play version I had a brief expectation that it doubled as a subversive tongue-in-cheek mocking of the whole “hot”, sex, car and hamburger thing. (And who knows how the cinematographers and editors and the guys who scored the music thought of it. Some musicians will sneak in their own side commentary in commercial work, because you can and can get away with it.) But watching the Behind the Scenes clip, and the clip of the ad people…nah. They’re just concerned with bringing in the money. “It’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot.” No sense of humor exhibited. Just selling the buzz. Hot.
This will sound bad of me, but I actually don’t have a problem with the commercial, not even the extended play one. Yes, I think it’s tasteless, bimbo advertising but it’s so out-there narcissistic I’m amused. I’m amused it’s called soft porn, when I don’t think it is, and that people are clamoring for it to be banned, and is being banned in some places, when it’s only suggestive and strikes me as 24 hours of the ad sex to be had on commercial television boiled down into 30 blatant seconds. She wears a bathing suit that isn’t as skimpy as people think, the cut gives the appearance of skimpy. Nothing is shown, there’s no focus on breasts because it’s all ass and though it’s shoved in our faces it’s well covered. I had a good laugh with Paris having a difficult time on her high heels rising from a seated position (which is why I made fun of it with her pushing the car, the wobbly ankles).
Is it good advertising? For the market they’re going for. Would I have thought up and made such a commercial. Only as a satire on America and sex in advertising, and I’ve written fiction much raunchier as satire. The big question is will I buy one of the jalapeno burgers? In that way the ad backfires with someone like me, but it’s not shooting for me. It is, as they say, marketing for a certain spectrum of young men and women.
I somehow don’t view this in the same way as Hooters, maybe because this is how Paris chooses to represent herself and she makes a hell of a lot of money doing it. I would more likely be put off the company for other reasons like unfair practices with workers etc rather than their using Paris as sex object to sell some meat. However, she probably made more doing that commercial than many will see in a lifetime, and that is offensive.
Yes, it’s sexist, it’s offensive but no more so than a lot of what’s out there. It’s advertising. Has nothing to do with the product. And that’s the way it is with the lion’s share of advertising. A problem with America is a lot of what’s supposedly “higher culture” (here there is meaning) has been hijacked by advertising sensibility and is no better. The appearance of something when there’s nothing there except people playing with commodities.
As far as how I live my life, obviously I’m offended by television/commodity culture because I don’t watch it. For me, what fuels commercials and most shows sucks the life out of life and leaves an empty bag of flesh hanging on the clothes line. I try to educate my son on the mechanics of advertising, as best as one can with a seven year old, that in order to get your money it’s 98 percent of the time creating a need rather than filling a real one.
I’m probably a mess of contradictions with my finding so little in the ad to be upset about. If I don’t buy the burger it’s because I don’t want to reward a company that thinks it’s pulling my strings. On the other hand, if someone came to me and said the company has great hiring practices, good wages and benefits, then I might just go out and buy one of the burgers. And knowing how these things go the burger I’d unwrap would be nothing like the big burger in the commercial with lettuce and other dressings hanging out all over the place, and I’d say, “Well, isn’t that how it always is.” It would instead be limp lettuce and greasy onion rings and jalopenos and a razor thin slice of tomato.
This ad has been sold as much as it sells the hamburger, which is what’s different. A market was created for the ad by all the pre-release ad hype given it. That was part of the plan. How many commercials have “Behind the scenes” videos done of them.
Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about bum cakes, my girl’s got ’em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?
Spinal Tap’s right on target with this ad. I probably keep thinking of Spinal Tap because this ad is also intended to be “different” in that it’s like music videos.
Paris Hilton is kind of plucky for a sweet decadent young billionaire. Obviously she doesn’t need the money. Yet she goes out and humiliates herself over and over. Normally the motive for that would be money, but in her case I don’t know what it is, fame maybe. Maybe it’s just the desire to actually do something, unlike anyone she is likely to know.
Has she starred in a major motion picture yet? I don’t get out much.
I don’t follow Paris’s doings but she was out in some movie recently. Look it up. Yes, here it is. House of Wax! Horror film of course.
Plucky Paris. Maybe there should be a “Perils of Paris” show.
Spinal Tap?….What’s wrong with being sexy…..
Hey, I damn near spilled coffee all over myself laughing at this one. Never expected Santorum to pop up.
Don’t tell me you’re not familiar with Spinal Tap!!
IMDB link
A Christopher Guest and Michael McKean film. Hysterical. The plot is Rob Reiner doing a documentary on a metal/hair band. Too painful.
Never seen the Paris spot (then again, Blagh has missed out on many of the pop culture fads, usually because by the time he pulled his nose out of a book, the fad had passed…Madonna? Who? Britney Who? J-Lo Who?).
Celebrity is the only thing I know that is guaranteed to pass (and usually, brutally, not soon enough), and so I don’t bother with Paris, Miss Lechey or Miss Married-a-money-grubbing-gutter-snipe (one guess who)….
And I think I’ll just keep it that way…but thanks for showing a snippet of what you’ve proven to me was not worth the initial fanfare…
Good one, ‘Puss…
Paris is wild but does have lovely eyes
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