Dawn Herzog Jewell, an evangelical author/friend of mine on Facebook, called my attention to a new White Castle commercial for its new pulled pork sandwich. (See above, PG-13) In the first place, the White Castle marketing department is not too swift in launching an effort like this during the global swine flu 'panic-epidemic.'
But using imagery from a strip club and an exotic dancer-pig crosses the border for me into visual exploitation of women. Exotic dancers are at extremely high risk of drug abuse and prostitution, and a very high percentage of them were abused as children. My friend emails:
If I didn't know that between 65 to 90 percent of women working in strip clubs were sexually abused, the ad might be funnier. It pokes fun at men viewing women as pieces of meat, but I'm afraid it validates more than condones the exploitation of women's bodies. The sexualization of cultures takes place ad by ad, song by song. It will continue if we remain silent.
What a great idea, White Castle, to associate your food products with this social sickness. This past week, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof, a person of much integrity in the mainstream media, wrote about exploitation of woman and prostitution in the United States.
In his May 7 column, 'Girls on Our Streets,' he writes:
I've often reported on sex trafficking in other countries, and that has made me curious about the situation here in the United States. Prostitution in America isn't as brutal as it is in, say, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia and Malaysia (where young girls are routinely kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured by brothel owners, occasionally even killed). But the scene on American streets is still appalling
- and it continues largely because neither the authorities nor society as a whole show much interest in 14-year-old girls pimped on the streets.
At least White Castle has a comment feature on it's webpage.
Perhaps you will want to let White Castle know what you think about their 'Flashdancing' pig.
For the record, an addendum: Of course, the normal consumption of pork could not cause swine flu.
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