Why Does Burger King Hate America?
Move over, United Pastry Jihad! Fortunately, the wingnuts are all caught up with their little tea parties and pay no attention to the foreign press except for tory wingnuts in the UK bashing Obama, or it would be time for another Malkin brigade freakout:
“Have it your way!”The long-time Burger King slogan usually refers to pickles, onions and cheese.
But a new series of hilarious ads for the hamburger chain created for Middle East consumers puts a whole new spin on the well-worn phrase. And in the process, the commercials make some interesting social commentary.
The three spots — which are airing on YouTube to test public response before going to satellite television — feature two young Arab men having a Burger King meal with two young American women they just met.
The women are clearly clueless.
Here is a sample commercial:
PRI’s The World covers it here.
April 7, 2010 8:09 pm
Posted in: Foreign Affairs
54 Comments
54 Responses
freelancer - April 7, 2010 | 8:13 pm · Link
But teh Wingnuts love Burger Monarchies more den Amerikun Demokraceee.
Their heads, they shall asplode.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - April 7, 2010 | 8:17 pm · Link
I lived on Whopper’s in college when they didn’t cut into the beer and pot money. Burger Death.
Pigs & Spiders - April 7, 2010 | 8:20 pm · Link
More sad than how the Wingers will react to these ads is the fact that there are a lot of American women and men who those two could have been modeled after.
Paris - April 7, 2010 | 8:21 pm · Link
I’m dense. I don’t get it at all – that’s the stupidest ad I’ve ever seen.
scav - April 7, 2010 | 8:21 pm · Link
at least we’re monetizing an abundant natural resource.
AhabTRuler - April 7, 2010 | 8:23 pm · Link
I didn’t think it was particularly funny until the last line. Then I larfed.
freelancer - April 7, 2010 | 8:24 pm · Link
Well it is being marketed to Arabs.
/BOB
/Pammycakes
Violet - April 7, 2010 | 8:26 pm · Link
Heh. Wingnut Sophie’s choice: Bash the capitalist organization Burger King for having an ad that depicts Americans in such a poor light, or bash Americans for being so stupid.
I know, I know, they can always blame Hollywood, but in the end the market has spoken. This ad wouldn’t be shown if it didn’t work for the company that was trying to sell a product.
Whackjob Militia Leader soonergrunt - April 7, 2010 | 8:27 pm · Link
That’s just awesome. Whenever a wingtard gets called on some bullshit stereotype they’re pushing, they respond with something along the lines of “stereotypes exist because they’re true, at least on some levels.”
Good on BK for playing up what are pretty common stereotypes of the US. They’re true, at least on some levels.
Alex S. - April 7, 2010 | 8:30 pm · Link
Heh, funny. Things like these tell more than 100 Friedman columns.
jl - April 7, 2010 | 8:30 pm · Link
I would say the ad is stupid and offensive. Except I have met US dudes and bimbos who are so, like, like that. Omigod yunow?
Specifically, I have had almost identical conversations with dudes and bimbos in LA about the part of central California where I grew up.
So, the ad has resonance for me.
They could have gone a little further in fact, for real satire.
AB - April 7, 2010 | 8:31 pm · Link
Eh, felt like a missed opportunity.
PaulW - April 7, 2010 | 8:31 pm · Link
You know what’s worse? The King is caught on surveillance B&E the McD’s HQ for the McMuffin recipe! NOOOooooooo…
someguy - April 7, 2010 | 8:32 pm · Link
That’s pretty good. The only thing that’s inaccurate about it is most Americans are dumber than that when it comes to foreign culture.
David - April 7, 2010 | 8:33 pm · Link
Wingnut Comment of the Day from Wizbang regular:
“Hell, were all still trying to figure out how this community agitatin Ayers Wright throwback skippy jumped from the back alley pews to the oval office?”
a link if you think I’m making it up
Joseph Nobles - April 7, 2010 | 8:35 pm · Link
So now when a wingnut says something clueless, we can tell them to stop selling us Whoppers?
Violet - April 7, 2010 | 8:37 pm · Link
@jl:
When I lived on the east coast, after going to high school in a large city west of the Mississippi, I was asked by east coasters if I rode a horse to school as a kid. Americans aren’t just ignorant about other countries; they’re ignorant about their own, too.
Do Americans even have classes called “Geography” anymore? I know I didn’t as a kid. Other countries have their kids learn about countries and cultures other than their own. Us…notsomuch.
MikeJ - April 7, 2010 | 8:38 pm · Link
Something tells me that if the same girls had been displaying their ignorance of the great American heartland it would be a brilliant takedown of coastal elites.
Ash - April 7, 2010 | 8:45 pm · Link
Eh, those ads are pretty weak. They’re cliche and similar things have been done around the world for decades now.
dslak - April 7, 2010 | 8:46 pm · Link
@Violet: I would get this from my east-cost relatives, along with questions about whether we had cable. “Yes,” I would reply, “although it goes down whenever the Indians raid the station.”
At least they had the excuse of only hearing about my hometown from my grandmother, and it really was an unpaved, backwater place when she grew up there.
jl - April 7, 2010 | 8:52 pm · Link
Violet: hard to believe, but I believe it, unless they were pulling your leg.
In my comment, LA stands for Los Angeles, not Louisiana. I have spent considerable time in southern Louisiana, and I think most of them are more aware than many Los Angeles dudes and bimbos.
stickler - April 7, 2010 | 8:53 pm · Link
Violet:
No. Geography was left behind even before there was No Child Left Behind. There was a survey about ten years ago now which found that almost half of California high school students couldn’t find the Pacific Ocean on a map. A good number of those students could probably have seen the damned ocean from the classroom where they took the test!
Kids today. Arrrrgh.
Oh, and the ad is pretty funny although they sure could have gone farther with the idiot schtick.
Bubblegum Tate - April 7, 2010 | 9:04 pm · Link
@Violet:
I didn’t, but geography was covered in other classes, like history or poli sci.
djork - April 7, 2010 | 9:08 pm · Link
I love the ad. I’m a liberal, hippy who has lived his whole life in the South. However, I have traveled pretty extensively for a rube. I’ve been all over the US, parts of Europe, and even did some book learnin’ in Russia. I have been asked questions by my fellow Americans that rival the dumbass questions I’ve asked hosts in the countries I’ve visited. Conversely, as a liberal, hippy American, I’ve been asked some pretty dumb and insulting questions by those from other countries.
Whatever. People are different. It’s better to laugh about than kill over it.
Violet - April 7, 2010 | 9:09 pm · Link
@jl:
Sometimes people would ask things like that as a joke, but it’s pretty easy to tell when someone is serious. And I definitely had people ask me questions along those lines in a serious manner. My mother remembers New Yorkers asking if we had cars and electricity. So…yeah.
Svensker - April 7, 2010 | 9:18 pm · Link
Hilarious.
Linkmeister - April 7, 2010 | 9:21 pm · Link
Some of our newspaper and magazine columnists used to issue imaginary Statehood Recognition Awards to mainland media people who’d misidentify Hawai’i as a territory or possession long after we’d gotten into the Union.
We still occasionally hear “do you take US dollars out there?”
MikeJ - April 7, 2010 | 9:23 pm · Link
@djork:
When I was working in Sweden I was talking to a fellow American conslutant. She was shocked to learn that my next gig, in Spain, was also in Europe.
Cat Lady - April 7, 2010 | 9:23 pm · Link
The King is surreal. Running for the touchdown, and the pickpocket- WTF? The bimbos and the Saudis aren’t any weirder than that. Ronald McDonald wants to be the King in his sugar and fat fever dreams.
pcbedamned - April 7, 2010 | 9:26 pm · Link
Now you know what we Canadians have to go through…
(And no, I do not live in an igloo).
sukabi - April 7, 2010 | 9:28 pm · Link
@Paris: click through to the other ads… by the time you get to the third one you’ll get it…
Hilarious!
MikeJ - April 7, 2010 | 9:31 pm · Link
@pcbedamned: PM Poutine was a real asshole.
Svensker - April 7, 2010 | 9:33 pm · Link
A number of years ago, before we started dropping bombs all over the middle east, my husband was in Egypt and went to a party that an American friend was hosting. One of the young Egyptians who was at the party asked my husband when the motorcycles and the girls in bikinis were arriving. Huh? said my husband. “I know you Americans,” the Egyptian guy said, “I’ve seen the movies. You drive your motorcycles down the stairs and there are girls in bikinis who drink alcohol and dance.” He was crushed to find out that was not a normal part of American parties.
pcbedamned - April 7, 2010 | 9:36 pm · Link
@MikeJ:
But poutine is reallllly yummy! Especially from KFC with lots and lots of gravy :)
Cain - April 7, 2010 | 9:44 pm · Link
The ad has resonance with me too. I remember almost an exact scene except it was a college party where a bunch of Kenyans were talking to some american gals and when they asked where the guys were from they reacted like “oh my gawd, do you guys have cars?” Of course the guys decided to have fun and said “oh no, we swing from vine to vine.” They believed it. Kenyan guys just shook their heads. haha.
BTW I think I told y’all I really hated “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” right? You won’t believe the shit questions that generated. Half of it of course was because they wanted to tease me but some people thought it was disgusting that Indians eat eel stuffed snakes. (uh most of India is vegetarian you dumbass)
cain
James in WA - April 7, 2010 | 9:56 pm · Link
@Paris:
Yes. What Paris said. How exactly is that funny? Or useful in selling burgers?
Ecks - April 7, 2010 | 10:18 pm · Link
@James in WA: It’s funny because it subverts the stereotypes of Saudi Arabia, turning a cultural sore spot into a chance for Saudi consumers to have a wry chuckle.
This has been a staple of Canadian humor for years (see this f’rinstance, or the maximum awesome version), I assume other countries play on the same type of thing too.
JGabriel - April 7, 2010 | 10:19 pm · Link
@James in WA:
What Ecks said, plus: It allows the customer to feel superior to Americans, while also buying and eating their food.
.
J. Michael Neal - April 7, 2010 | 10:33 pm · Link
@MikeJ:
I see what you did there.
Ty Lookwell - April 7, 2010 | 10:47 pm · Link
Heard this on-air today, and went to YouTube for the ads. They. are. awesome.
So… while I was busy slagging NPR in the previous NPR-o-centric thread, I forgot to mention that I love PRI’s The World. (in addition to solid in-depth international news reporting, its Global Hits feature has introduced me to tons of interesting and intriguing music).
But to make this a fair and balanced comment, man, do I hate RadioLab.
The Checkered Demon - April 7, 2010 | 10:50 pm · Link
When they were selling tickets for the 96 Olympics in Atlanta people calling from New Mexico were being turned down by the ticket sellers because “You have to live in the USA to order from us”..
Capn America - April 7, 2010 | 10:51 pm · Link
lol yeah I’ve been to many a Burger King in Saudi Arabia, and they’re hilarious, single men on one side of the restaurant, men with families on the other side of a partition, everyone having too much of whatever crap they just ordered…so funny.
Ecks - April 7, 2010 | 10:57 pm · Link
Wow, watching the Talking to Americans link I posted above (this one), and holy crap, I’ve been laughing for 30 mins solid. Some of it mildly dated now, but I’ve nearly fallen off my chair twice.
hamletta - April 7, 2010 | 11:21 pm · Link
Well, I took geography, dammit! My 8th grade teacher made us draw maps! And woe to she whose compass rose wasn’t beautifully drafted!
But I grew up in that hive of librul scum and villainy, Montgomery County, Md., where the taxes are high, and the spend most of ‘em on education.
Also, I’m old.
I think the ad is funny. I also like the Molson’s ad, which cracked me up. My high school band did an exchange with a band in the suburbs of Toronto, and, being the only one who’d been to Canada, I had to explain, no, they didn’t live in igloos. Couldn’t have people embarrassing the whole band!
db - April 8, 2010 | 12:09 am · Link
Best ad ever…. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be a hit among sane American audiences….. think of the potential boycott, though – a place to eat where you don’t have to worry about some teaballer walking in with a loaded gun to exercise some sort of 1st, 2nd, and 10th amendment rights.
asiangrrlMN - April 8, 2010 | 12:58 am · Link
I dunno. Wasn’t very funny to me, but then again, I’m permanently scarred from the grinning Burger King mascot guy who shows up in people’s bedrooms. #Shudder#
YellowJournalism - April 8, 2010 | 1:07 am · Link
@Ecks: Get to the part where Huckabee answers?
Susan Kitchens - April 8, 2010 | 1:18 am · Link
@YellowJournalism:
I just came back into this thread to shout to people that you gotta make it to the 9:07 mark, at least in the Talking To Americans movie. I’m dyin’ here! And there you had to go and mention Huckabee. Well, when it comes to igloos, I <3 Huckabee.
Quiddity - April 8, 2010 | 2:18 am · Link
What is the guy saying before the gal says “I can’t believe it”.
Sounds like he’s saying “debrasouritan”
Then there is a flying-through-space visual which is supposed to be about going … where? (inside somebody’s head?)
Wherever it is, it’s dark and hard to make out anything. And I have no idea what the “Whopper” reference is about.
UPDATE: I see from the link that the reviewer wrote:
I’m sorry, he did not say that. No way. There is no “u” uttered (for the word “double”) and the final “t” is missing. (I’ve played it back a dozen times with the volume way up; the distinctiveness of the words spoken by the middle-eastern guy is absolutely horrible.)
I’d be interested to learn how many commenters here watched the video and “got it”.
Quiddity - April 8, 2010 | 2:53 am · Link
@Cat Lady
The King commercials were great.
Just Me - April 8, 2010 | 8:45 am · Link
@Violet:
“Americans aren’t just ignorant about other countries; they’re ignorant about their own, too.”
A friend and I were just discussing this problem: our freshman college students have a tendency to believe that all African-Americans were slaves until Martin Luther King came along and led the civil rights movement. So they’re quite impressed by the slave Langston Hughes, who got an education and wrote poetry.
Of course our students, the ones who refer to all pre-1960’s blacks as slaves, are overwhelmingly white.
mcjeff - April 8, 2010 | 9:58 am · Link
@MikeJ: OR vice versa. The Midwest ain’t full of Einsteins, you know
Ecks - April 8, 2010 | 1:30 pm · Link
@YellowJournalism: Love it :)
John T - April 8, 2010 | 2:01 pm · Link
My dad spent time studying and working in Germany when he was in college back in the mid-60s. His German co-workers were curious about the USA and especially fascinated by how large a country it is. Dad showed them his passport and pointed to where his birthdate was printed: 8/15/44. (In Germany, the convention goes day/month/year instead of month/day/year, so August 15, 1944 should have looked like 15/8/44). He told his co-workers that the USA is so big that we have 15 months on the calendar! They believed him.