The way that the media advertises towards children is bound to be offensive in one way or another these days, but when I saw this commercial I was in shock. The concept of the commercial is based off of the cartoon character spongebob squarepants and the fact that you get a spongebob squarepants toy with your kids meal. This is supposed to attract children's attention. This aspect of the commercial makes sense. Its an obvious choice to use cartoon characters as an advertisement tool towards children. The song choice however was completely wrong. Six year old children do not need to be walking around singing "I like square butts and I cannot lie." That song is completely inappropriate for children to be associating with, or associating their favorite cartoon character with. The major aspect of this commercial that was particularly offensive to me was the fact that the main attraction was women shaking their butts. I understand the concept of the square butts with spongebob squarepants, but why did the commercial have to make this connection using women shaking their butts? First of all women are already degraded enough, and noticed particularly for their bodies and now this is carried over to children's commercials as well. Rather than having the women wear square pants, they have them in booty shorts dancing around. This is bound to create certain unfourtanate ideas about women in children's heads. Women are the one that are being used in this commercial to attract people to this 99 cents kids meal, but they are not the ones that benefit from it. Ultimately the beneficiary of this commercial would be Burger King's business. This commercial will attract children because of the spongebob squarepants concept and adults because of the women dancing. I think its unfourtanate that this concept was even considered let alone used as a children's kids meal commercial.
Yeah....I saw that crap this weekend actually it was on nick jr channel..
ReplyDeleteyeah..that is totally inappropriate for little ones. I honestly think that commercial was a desperate attempt to get attention to BK and spongebob. Considering all of the other cartoon that are far more popular right now. I think BK reached out for any idea that would draw some attention to them.
If this commercial was to play I would think it was to play on adult commercials and not kid shows. But I also think that kids do not make any connection between women wearing booty shorts and degrading women. At a young age they think it is humorous. Just like the movie I saw in my women issues class, the lady studied advertisements and sometimes people look into things way too much.
ReplyDeleteI was so very happy when I saw that this commercial was taken off the air! I know my twin sisters, who are 8, thought that this commercial was hiliarious and danced around the house for hours talking about having a square butt...and let me tell you my Mom was NOT a happy camper! :)
ReplyDeleteChildren quickly pick up everything they see, and this commercial did get the attention of way too many kids! Sexuality should not be allowed in commercials airing on children's shows!
I really liked this commercial actually. It caught more then just the kids attention because of the song and the fact of them liking Sponge Bob. Its not like the girls were in revealing clothes or anything so why is it that big of a deal?
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing when I saw this commercial! I was shocked to see that during these commercials kids and their PARENTS were dancing in a fast-food restaurant to lyrics containing: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.”I realize they were trying to refer to SpongeBob, but the actual song is very offensive towards women. Letting children to listen to this kind of music will effect what they will want to listen tot in the future. They may possibly engage in listening to hip-hop artists and rappers who are the most negative in the music world. This is another way how both commercials and song artists influence children.
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