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Since the second wave of the feminist movement, women have found themselves amidst a large-scale campaign to promote women’s rights from a number of different angles. As a collective initiative, the feminist movement has attacked a wide variety of issues ranging from voting rights to equal treatment in the workplace. While the 1960s marked a period of reinvigorated interest in advancing feminist efforts, a historical analysis of the decade reveals the beginning of a divide between those participating. Collaboration and integration of the women’s liberation movement and the sexual revolution helped shape the way in which society views women today and facilitated the emergence of “raunch culture” so prevalent in the modern world.

Within today’s society, this raunch culture has come to be generally accepted as inevitable. Many times we fail to even recognize the sexual innuendos or demeaning messages that infiltrate our popular culture so frequently. Raunch culture may be presented in a variety of forms, including commercials, magazine advertisements, popular fashions, and so forth. While our population as a whole is constantly bombarded with such propaganda, over time we have continued to become numbed to such phenomena. Although it may occur subconsciously or without realizing, women are portrayed as subordinate to men in these situations and fall victim to the perpetuation of inequality through raunch culture.

While I often observe instances of raunch culture in day to day life, one advertisement particularly caught my attention over the summer. The ad was for a Burger King Seven Inch Sub and displays the side profile of a blonde woman with her mouth open about to eat the large sandwich. The words “It’ll Blow Your Mind Away” cover the lower half of the ad, as if the sexual imagery was not enough to convey the reference to oral sex being made. Online, one blogger commented that “apparently subtlety is dead,” yet the overbearing nature of the commercial ad did not stop the company from running the advertisement in Singapore earlier last year. While the ad was never printed in America, it did circulate across the internet and reached a wide number of viewers. Although such media offerings may be regarded as harmless or even entertaining, a deeper look exposes the way in which sexuality has become a business tool and the damaging cultural implications that are carried with it.

Advertisements, such as the one from Burger King, that play into raunch culture are not necessarily a reflection of what the public wants to see, but more of an indication as to what produces the greatest results. Although this ad may be more overt than ones commonly found in magazines or newspapers, the media has programmed us to consider scantily clad women selling jewelry or even blatant references to oral sex as socially acceptable. When the Vice President of Girls Gone Wild was asked about his company’s strategy, he responded “it’s a business; in a perfect world maybe we’d stop and change things. But we know the formula. We know how it works” (Levy, 8). While this statement was made in reference to Girls Gone Wild, it may be applied to many aspects within our culture. Obvious sexual innuendos, such as the Burger King Sandwich ad, may not be witty or subtle, however still produces results.

While the so called “formula” to selling sex for business may generate the highest revenue, it leaves a trail of damaging social implications in its wake. Levy identifies a lack of uniqueness within her book Female Chauvinist Pigs, stating because “it is not part of the formula, individuality is erased.” The Burger King advertisement is no exception to this statement. While the ad intends to sell a sandwich, a woman’s face is the main focal point of the image. Rather than a face shot, however, capturing the photo from a side profile allows the woman to widely open her mouth in a suggestive manner. Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing unique about the model used. The woman chosen for the advertisement has no defining or unusual characteristics; She is blonde, red-lipped and heavily made up. The selected hair and makeup styling implies that there is nothing substantial about this woman. The image evokes a sexual connotation while doing nothing to promote or appreciate women in general. Exploring the deeper implications of such a raunchy ad helps one understand how such a male-dominated culture was able to emerge within this progressive time.

Criticizing one Burger King ad is not to be confused with condemning sexuality. In fact, there is no problem with expressing sexuality, however once this sexuality is exploited a line is crossed. In this specific advertisement, sexual appeal is aimed exclusively towards men. This becomes an issue because felatio situations “revolve around girls giving erotic performances and boys literally lying back and enjoying the benefits” (Levy, 144). The Super Seven Inch sandwich is an item that will generally be ordered by men because of its size. As a result, men become the target audience and advertisements aim to spark their interest. Sexual references are not always so blatant. They frequently underlie many of the messages we see from the media. In order to end this cycle of inequality being perpetuated it is imperative to recognize the subtle (or not-so-subtle) innuendos or messages that are constantly sent by the media.