Why is SpongeBob in a Sexy Commercial?

Posted on April 7, 2009 at 10:31 pm

What were they thinking? The latest Burger King ad for a Kids Meal featuring a SpongeBob Squarepants toy is a booty-shaking adaptation of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s famous musical salute to ladies’ rear ends. This is what the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has to say:

Nickelodeon and Burger King have reached a new low. They’ve partnered to produce a new, highly sexualized, ad for a Burger King SpongeBob SquarePants Kids Meal. The commercial, which ran during the men’s NCAA basketball championship last night, features The King singing a remix of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 1990’s hit song, “Baby Got Back” with the new lyrics, “I like square butts and I cannot lie.” The ad shows images of The King singing in front of women shaking their behinds for the camera intercut with images of SpongeBob dancing along. The King even measures the behind of one of the woman who has stuffed a phonebook under her dress. After the King informs children about the free SpongeBob toy they get with the purchase of a Burger King Kids Meal, the ad ends with Sir Mix-A-Lot, lounging on a couch with two female admirers, saying, “Booty is booty.”

It’s harmful enough when a beloved media icon advertises junk food to children, but it’s utterly reprehensible when SpongeBob simultaneously promotes the objectification of women through sexualized imagery.

If you find this ad campaign directed at children offensive, the easiest way to express your views is by sending an email to Nickelodeon and Burger King via CCFC’s website.

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Jessica Alba ‘Enhanced’ for Campari

Posted on December 9, 2008 at 11:16 am

ALBA-large.jpgWhat kind of lunatic would try to improve on Jessica Alba? Apparently the folks at Campari felt that the beautifully curvy star was just a little too curvy and they retouched her photo to make her look slimmer.
It is just this kind of nonsense that sends a message of impossible standards to young girls and women. Anyone who thinks the retouched picture is more attractive than the original has a distorted idea of beauty and of reality — two concepts that did not used to be considered mutually exclusive.

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When Television Changed Politics: Stevenson/Eisenhower

Posted on October 15, 2008 at 11:15 pm

NPR has a great series about political firsts, including the first woman candidate for President (Victoria Woodhull, who ran in 1872, 48 years before women got the vote) and the impact of television on political campaigns in 1952, when Adlai Stevenson ran an old-school race based on speeches and Eisenhower ran television ads designed by the man who created M&M commercials. Listen for my dad, Newton Minow, recalling his experiences in the Stevenson campaign.

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