Kraft has been using this “zesty” man to sell salad dressing.
A naked man (or an implied naked man) isn’t offensive. I think where my comfort level begins to waiver a little is when, to me, there is little doubt that this ad is sexually suggestive and objectifies the man in the photo. Although I’m tired of nakedness in ads always being equated to sexuality and I find that constantly being bombarded with that idea alone is not healthy, the main discomfort I have is the objectification of a human being.
It is not anything new in our culture to objectifying humans to sell products. Although, we see women getting used a lot more often than men:
They have been pretty outspoken against this ad (this article, this article, this article , this article, this article, this article, this article, this article, this article, and the blog post you are currently reading were all sparked by their reaction):
“Last week’s issue of People Magazine had the most disgusting ad on the inside front cover that we have ever seen Kraft produce.”
and
“Christians will not be able to buy Kraft dressings or any of their products until they clean up their advertising.” –OneMillionMoms
I consider myself a Christian by formal definition, and if they used they swapped our “zesty guy” with a Christian fish for their advertisement, I am still not going to buy their dressings or any of their products because they are full of petroleum based artificial dyes, GMOs, hexane, and a other ingredients I would consider very harmful to put in my own body or my children’s.
Would I, the self-identified Christian mother, boycott Kraft if they cleaned up their ingredients and kept this ad?
Probably not, because then I would also have to boycott almost every other company using a woman in this way to sell their product. Maybe it is wrong of me to not boycott all of these companies. I am currently struggling with how to teach the boys about objectification (generally of women) in advertising.
At this moment, I’m actually more concerned about this group (OMM) than the ad. The American Family Association (the organization that runs OMM) has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. AFA has been outspoken against homosexuality. What is troubling to me is that groups like this don’t come across as quite as radical as other hate groups claiming to be Christian organizations, but some of the views they have presented are not only (what I believe to be) harmful, but they perpetuate the already very strong view in western society of Christians being intolerant and hypocritical.
What do you think? Do you find the Kraft ad offensive? Why or why not?
