Carl's Jr. Letter

Attn: Brad R. Haley & Andrew F. Puzder

Dear Carl’s Jr. Executives,

I am writing to address my concern with your advertising for your products. I am sure I am not alone, nor the first, to inform you that the sexual objectification of women displayed in your marketing is both offensive and highly distasteful. I hope to be more than just another nagging voice, however, by offering some pertinent research perspectives on the matter.

The most interesting to you I assume would be that, while individual studies do suggest that sexual content in advertising does increase attention-getting, but also that sex is distracting from the product being promoted and can thus decrease attention and memory, and that sex does not generally appeal to women and can turn women, particularly conservatives, away from the product. Most importantly a study done just last year complied data from 44 different studies on sex in advertising and performed a meta analysis on it, resulting in the conclusions that brands that used sex as a marketing tool were evaluated less liked, there was no effect on purchasing intent, and as the sexuality of the ad increased, the purchasing intentions actually decreased. See Reichert 2001, Dahl 2008; 2009, Lull & Bushman 2015 – meta analysis for reference.

In addition to its impact on the direct profit of advertising, sexual objectification of women teaches women who are exposed to it that they should view themselves and others as objects, feel less competent, have body dissatisfaction, and etc. So not only are you making enemies of women by the objectification in ads, you are helping to corrupt their self-worth, and this impact even children who see this media. I would assume you would want your product associated with positive emotions instead of negative connotations.

I personally quite like the food at Carl’s Jr.; I enjoy eating at your establishment. But I cannot justify patronage to a company that has such a blatant disregard for the value of women. Carl’s Jr. is a place where I cannot even suggest when eating out, for fear of being associated with approval or acceptance of those awful ads. Your marketing actively turns me away from your product, which to my mind seems counterintuitive. I would heartily request that you change your marketing strategy; I would be glad to return my patronage to your establishment and only hope you at least consider the arguments presented in this email and realize what you are saying about women with your ads. Thank you for your time.

-Amanda Cottle

Movie Magic

The past few days I've been thinking about the power that movies have. You know when you've recently watched a movie and it keeps popping back up, or it can affect your mood for days (particularly the scary ones in my case), or when you randomly remember a quote from it years later, etc. Media definitely has an impact, and it was brought to my attention by watching a clip from Phantom of the Opera, and realizing that Raoul is Lynch from The A-Team. Kinda blew my mind a little bit. It's crazy that we can get so attached to the actors in their role that it perturbs us to see them acting differently to "how they are". When I first saw Maleficent, (which I feel is very well done and I enjoy) I saw that Murdock from A-Team was the evil idiot king and I was so sad because he's awesome in A-Team. Anyway, just impressive how much what we watch can really impact our minds.

Disney Deception

So as I was listening to a Disney songs playlist the other day, the song "Kiss the Girl" came on, I started thinking about The Little Mermaid and realized that I had never thought through how the movie would have gone if during that part Ariel hadn't been thwarted and had gotten her kiss. It's an aggravating part of the movie, but if Eric had kissed her it would have been super awkward. "Yes, now I can stay human and stay with you!" "You can talk?! What do you mean stay human?!" "Oh, about that, I was kinda  a mermaid and temporarily traded my voice away..." Awkward. The way it plays out, Eric chooses her knowing what she is, which is much more sound of a decision. But there are no repercussions for her deception, like there are often not repercussions for violence.

Zootopia

So I went and saw Zootopia this week, and firstly, it was quite good. Maybe not as hilarious as people say it is, but a good solid show. However, due to the influence of my media class, I couldn't help noticing a few things, like the fact that the female animals were sexualized! The main rabbit character has an hourglass figure and a bulletproof bra essentially instead of a fully-covering vest, and the pop figure that is woven throughout the movie is wearing a sparkly pink fringe bra and miniskirt set with curled hair covering half her face, she also swings her hips a lot. It drove me a little crazy. Still a good movie, but I was annoyed at the messages that young girls are getting even in movies with animal characters that you need to have a certain body type.

Prosocial Songs

I really don't listen to music much unless I'm doing a massive pile of dishes or during one hour at work, so I'm usually pretty behind on what's new and cool. Thus, it's likely that everyone else has already heard this song, but I discovered this week "One Call Away" by Charlie Puth. The music video gives it a Taylor Swift "You Belong with Me" feel, and overall the purpose of the song is "come be with me, I will make your life great and you will be happy". 

I like the prosocial aspect of the lyrics, even if they are somewhat self-serving, and I really love the chorus. The proclamation that someone will be there whenever you need them and they'll try hard enough for you that they'll be better than Superman is quite nice (helps that it's also pretty catchy). It's a great change of pace from the music that other people have on at work that generally consists of relational aggression or screaming electric guitars and men yelling things I can't understand and probably wouldn't want to. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxuY9FET9Y4

Kid's Shows

So as point of confession, not all of my entertainment options match my intellectual ability. I really like watching children’s shows because of their lighthearted nature. So lately I’ve been watching Dragons: Race to the Edge and I’ve really found it fascinating to look at it from the perspective of an adult. I feel like when I was growing up watching Arthur it was really just for kids and talked about things like honesty. When I watch the Dragons show that is aimed for older kids and really a broader audience in general (but I feel is still a kids show) there is a lot in it for adults. One I watched yesterday had a whole literary theme going on that would be way over kid’s heads. But there was a fair amount of darkness too, it wasn’t just about getting the desired object, the bad guy leader literally said to kill them, that the air would soon smell of death as well as fear, and pulled out swords to kill a captive. It seems like we’re socializing kids to become adults younger and younger. 

Winnie the Pooh

My husband and I watched a Winnie the Pooh episode this morning and it made me think about the influence that this particular show had on my childhood. We didn't really have tv growing up, so we watched a lot of Pooh Bear instead of things like Power Rangers. My mom has always said that's why we have such large vocabularies, and with phrases such as "a wedged bear in a great tightness", I'm not refuting her theory. Even now I love the way things are phrased; it's just put together in a very clever way and I approve of it being children's media. Not to mention the amount of pro-social acts demonstrated. Classic and classy show.

Musical Identity

According to the lecture in my media development class, music is the most powerful medium for managing mood and expressing identity. I didn’t think much of this, as I am no longer a teenager trying to establish an identity, but had an experience this week that made me realize just how true this statement is. A coworker created a new Pandora station with Lonestar as the category, and suddenly all of the songs I had memorized and loved when I was growing up, driving in my mom’s van, were taking me back. I realized that these songs were the ones that I had incorporated into my identity creation as I grew up, and even when I hear them now, 15 years later, it still makes me consider who I am, based on what they used to mean to me. 

Books - the overlooked transmitter

We discussed books as media in my media class this week. What struck me particularly was that books can get away with what movie media cannot without being giving warning ratings, including dropping a massive amount of swear words and having really steamy content. Those have ruined many a book for me that seemed innocent and intriguing at the onset.

We also discussed aggression found in books and how there is above and beyond far more relational aggression than any other form. Lately I've taken to re-reading several of my favorite books from childhood and after this discussion I was alerted to just how accurate that is. Who would have thought that two cats that are best friends and eat spaghetti and meatballs could be so mean? I just found this interesting because we encourage children to read like their lives depend on it, but unlike movies where we are clearly warned of potentially objectionable material, we don't realize just how much books have in them. This is not to say that books are evil and we shouldn't encourage reading, reading is wonderful and amazing and everyone should do it more often. It's just interesting what we can overlook.

Prosocial Aggression

As we discussed in my media class this week, children can learn from television, anything from  vocabulary words to prosocial behavior to aggression. A meta-analysis of prosocial behavior in media revealed that aggressive prosocial behavior, such as the hero beating up bad guys to save the world, was the worst influence on children, as it related more to aggression than prosocial behavior.

A show that me and my husband really like (his favorite in fact) is Avatar the Last Airbender. We've started re-watching the series again recently, and as I was watching last night after having this discussion in my class, I realized that children could learn some very prosocial behavior such as helping others, getting along, etc., but there were negative things I hadn't noticed before.

I saw how aggressive prosocial behavior is related to plain aggression as I watched the good characters in the show beat up the bad guys that were after them, steal something from people who stole it in the first place, and destroy innocent bystander's goods for their own purposes without retribution. Don't get me wrong, it's still a great show and we love it, but the discussion on aggressive prosocial behavior opened my eyes to what is really in the shows children are watching.

Thought-provoking media

The power that the media has over emotions is well documented and understood. In our discussion of music we examined how aggressive music tends to produce increased aggression, music can help shape identity, and it has an immense impact on us. I like how media can influence us, and particularly how it can make us think.

As an example, take genderbent Disney (when the genders of the characters are swapped). I find it fascinating when I run across these to think about how they are transgressive in regards to socially accepted gender roles. It bothers me to think about my own knee-jerk reactions, “that doesn’t work”, “males can’t be that vulnerable in movies”, etc. Which annoys me, because I like it when men show emotion and can be sensitive, and when girls can show initiative and not just be decoration. I appreciate how this makes me evaluate my own cognitive patterns and my opinion of societal trends.

It’s the same with other forms of art; I am very conservative in what I consider good art, but I was exposed to the artist Bansky lately and I find it fascinating as well, because their art is thought-provoking.

I appreciate the influence that media has to make me think. 

If you need a new read...

The writing style of authors is an interesting topic of thought. Some have the power to captivate with spun tales, while others have the ability to induce coma for even the most alert of readers. I started rereading a book series, The Lunar Chronicles, recently, and was surprised to notice as I read that there was a distinct lack of description. It seemed that the author, from my perspective, was repeatedly missing opportunities to give a rich visual and it perplexed me. I thought that perhaps she was not taking advantage of the full range of media influence potential.

 But as I kept reading I once again got completely sucked in and binge-read the first three books in two weeks. I am certainly an active audience in the gratification sense; I seek what I need, which is an escape from my overloaded school schedule and entertainment, and it is provided in intensely enjoyable spades in these books. And then in my English class I learned that a good writing strategy is to include just one or two pertinent details that don’t detract from the current point of the story; deep description is not necessary every time and is in fact distracting. The author was using the power of media after all, and she is pretty darn good at it. 

We were talking in class about the sway that media can create in our emotions, thoughts, and actions. I was thinking about the influence that advertising media can have on opinions and actions, and how obnoxious it is for me personally when they misuse that potential. My greatest annoyances are the billboards I drive past; my husband hears me critique them every time new ones are switched in. 

The prime example of media wasted is a billboard just off of the University Parkway exit that asks parents if their child is in the right carseat. After a ridiculous number of times passing the exact same billboard, I still couldn't tell you what more they want from me than to understand the question posed at the top (stated previously). There is a picture of a bear with a honey jar turned measuring apparatus that is only filled a tiny portion of the way. Couldn't tell you what the jar is supposed to measure, or where I could go to find more information because everything is too small to read, especially when traveling at freeway speeds. 

So every time I go past that stupid billboard I think three things: 1) is my (non-existent) child in the right carseat - I will never know, 2) what a waste of money and potential they had by capturing my interest, 3) the marketing/advertising people for whoever-the-heck made that billboard (which again, I will never know) should probably be fired for such a blatant misuse of they power that they might have had to influence so many people to consider their product or opinion. If you're going to foray into the media world, do it properly and be convincing; even if I completely disagree with you, I want to be able to appreciate your use of media power. Don't be irksome.