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Adam Wong
Prof. Beadle
English 115
7 December, 2016
Whats Wrong with a Few Burgers and Babes?
We buy products based off their advertisements. Advertisements are made based off of
what is popular and trending. What is popular and trending is sex and sexual intentions. Does
that mean we buy products because we are interested in the sex-based commercials or do we buy
them because of the actual product? Do we, as a whole, understand that with these smoking hot
commercials comes an underlying threat of gender non-acceptance/equality, over-sexualzation
and unmanageable amounts of societal expectations toward women? No, we only understand that
men go where the attractive women go and that sex sells. Carls Jr. takes full advantage of this
tactic and uses it in almost every single one of their advertisements. Over the years, Carls Jr.
advertisements have been exceedingly controversial due to the lack of clothing, over use of
stereotypical sexual innuendos, and gender based attraction factors.
In one particular image from the Carls Jr. company, a young blonde woman is depicted
from her belly button and skinny hips up holding 2 humongous cheeseburgers over her, what
seems to be bare, large breasts. As the sauce from the burgers, drip down her hands and down to
who knows where, she stares provocatively into the camera with her eyes fixed on the audience
with a certain look. This look is hard to explain without it sounding weird but in modern day
they are called the Sex Eyes. The Sex Eyes is a look a man or woman gives to someone else

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when they have the intent on trying to have sexual intercourse or an intimate time with the other
person. The Carls Jr. advertisement portrays women poorly by making the public believe
women are all supposed to look a certain way, act in a more sexual way, and it frustrates and
tries to manipulate women who do not or cannot achieve this level of societal commonality or
standard of beauty to try harder to conform to the societys expectation. This advertisement
also portrays men in a bad shade as well in more of an underlying way by assuming men will
buy the product just because a beautiful voluptuous woman with Sex Eyes is in the picture.
The Carls Jr. ad along with society standards teaches the women viewers of the world
that they are supposed to look a particular way. For years women have had to struggle to follow
a certain path of distinct attractiveness in order to look desirable. According to Lecia Buchak of
MedicalDaily.coms article, The History of Body Image in America: How the Ideal Female and
Male Body Has Changed Over Time, in the 1920s, women who were slender with lean
builds, women like Carey Mulligan or Collene Moore, were all the jazz but in a few decades,
women in the 1940s and 50s were a little more plumped and curvy with more of a Marilyn
Monroe or Scarlett Johansson build (Bushak, 2015). With standards changing quicker than ever,
its difficult for women to not have a negative self image or strong insecurity about how they
look. Carls Jr. somewhat enforces these qualities and feelings unconsciously upon the audience
by only having a certain type of model or commercial shown. Every advertisement has at least
one skinny-waisted blonde or brunette woman with large breasts and sometimes larger buttocks,
either half naked or in skimpy clothing holding a few messy burgers that drip down onto their
body parts. By having this become a Carls Jr. stereotype for their commercials, it taints the
mind of women and men everywhere into thinking about how someone is supposed to look to fit
in to society and into sensual attraction.

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Today, women are sought to be more seductive and act, more or less, scandalous in order
to attract their partners and/or get attention from anyone, male or female. In the advertisement,
the Sex Eyes portrayed and innuendos shown are quite remarkably straight forward. Aaron
Devors article in Composing Gender illustrates modern society and womens femininity when it
comes to appearing as if on the prowl directly to sexual magnetism and societal acceptance
because it suites to satisfy a masculine vision of heterosexual attractiveness (Devor, 41).Since
societys standards and its sexist constructs are mainly made by heterosexual males; it makes
sense that the stereotype of men being pigs is still alive. This masculine stereotype plays off
the stereotypes men make for women, including extravagant beauty and submissive personality.
This makes for dramatic wants and needs for the common woman to impress a male or at least be
accepted by one.
The reason why companies like Carls Jr. use sex as a resource for their advertisements is
because sex sells, and so does shock factor and celebrity endorsements. Every commercial or ad
put out by the burger fast food chain all had at least one celebrity either half naked or in a small
amount of clothing. Since sex is the most popular thing in the world, besides drugs and violence
in the eyes of the media, it is only natural companies like Carls Jr. sought after the publics
appeal just so they could gain popularity. In Judith Lorbers article, Night to His Day: the Social
Construction of Gender, she discusses how gender roles change and how the transformation can
maintain a certain lifestyle. This can apply to the many of the tactics mentioned because gender
and sex is a form of organization, both in real life and in business advertising (Lorber 21). Halfnudity is used in ads like this to shock the audience into becoming more interested and more
vulnerable to buy the product. Though how it works is still hard to understand, regardless how
you look at it, it will always work toward the companys advantage because any publicity is

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good publicity (Belicove 2011). This quote represents this argument because, for example, if
someone famous has their name in the news, it is more than likely their name will end up more
and more. Take Kanye West for an example with his recent outbursts and lecturing during his
performances and Tweets. West over and over again has made his name stay in the ears of the
public by making a fool of himself or going over the top, making the media hate him for being
the way he is but loving him for the news they can put out. Hated or loved, Kanye West still has
had good publicity because he is still relevant to the modern day. Like Kanye, Carls Jr.
advertisements are in the center of the media when it comes to outrageous commercials and
come up just as controversial. Either way someone can look at it, Carls Jr.s marketing
campaign is genius because they are constantly relevant.

Sex should not be the first place advertisers go when brainstorming. There are many
routes the advertisers could follow with their commercials. Some companies use sentiment to sell
products, like a happy family eating at a picnic catered by a certain company (McDonalds),
others use humorous tactics like having a man bite into a candy and his head exploding because
it tastes so good (AirHeads), others use completely different strategies that can sell to a larger
audience. Instead of sexualizing women with messy false sized burgers dripping on their
unbound breasts, they could use other things such as puppies playing near the bag of burgers and
fries or their ACTUAL food to sell their products. A cute puppy could not only sell the product
to a lot of people, it, among other objects or things that could help advertise, could broaden the
audience range. Since the Carls Jr. ads are mainly directed toward younger to middle aged
heterosexual males, allowing other groups of people, such as women and children, to be

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interested in the commercial could benefit both society in general by teaching the youth and
adults that sex should not be as out there as it is while the companys business rates will rise
significantly. If the audience grows, the sales of their products will grow and thrive along with
their popularity; therefore, helping the company expand.
Companies will try almost anything to promote themselves, including using sex or sexual
tension to intrigue the audience into buying their products. From movies to cars to food, sex is
the number one selling point in advertisement. The heavy influence of sex in Carls Jr.
advertisements offends people of different genders due to its provocative videos and images. The
ads promote a singular mind set of how women are supposed to act and look and how men
portray women within their own mind, along with who are supposedly watching the ads the most
(men). Whether it be true or not, forcing a negative complex about self image or gender upon
anyone, especially women, whom already are considered unequal in comparison to men
anyways; is very unfair and sexist. Women, already being seen as unequal, weak and dependent
on males will feel insignificant until they live up the standards of today if society still stays the
same. If Carls Jr. would think outside the box, or depending on which box you look at, think
inside the box; they would not have the controversial title and reputation they deserve and would
be finished being insensitive toward women and how they think and are thought about.

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Work Cited
Belicove, Mikal E. Is Any Publicity Good Publicity? Entrepreneur, 2 Nov. 2011.
www.entrepreneur.com/article/220642
Bushak, Lecia. A Brief History of Body Image in America.Medical Daily, 6 Nov. 2015,
http://www.medicaldaily.com/history-body-image-america-how-ideal-female-and-malebody-has-changed-over-time-360492
Devor, Aaron. BecomingMembers of Soceiety: The Social Meanings of Gender. Composing
Gender. Bedford/ St Martins, Boston. 2014, pp. 35-45
Lorber, Judith. Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender. Composing Gender.
Bedford/St. Martins. Boston, 2014, pp. 19-34
Charlotte McKinney Makes Carls Jr. History With Sexy New Commercial. Hngn. 23 Oct
2015. www.hngn.com/articles/143301/20151023/charlotte-mckinney-makes-carls-jr-historywith-sexy-new-commercial-photos-video.htm. (image)