Eat to the Meat Beat

Burger King's Manwich

Have you seen Burger King's commercial for its new Texas Double Whopper sandwich? It's called "Manthem" and it's hi-larious, a testoterone-injected anthem that skewers Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" for the Spike TV and Man Show set. Don't get me wrong - I'm one of those guys who eats quiche and "chick food" myself because I'm vain and like to maintain my girlish figure. But I like cleverness in any form, and this is a very clever ad. It's promotes excess and stereotypes and stupidity - the very essence of Supersize Me Americana today. But while it basks in it, like a pig slopping around in a trough, it also laughs at itself. I couldn't help but join in.

Manthem Anthem: Eat Like a Man

Thanks to Steve Brandon for transcribing the lyrics on his great blog, I Wanna eat a Nut of Laerma!:

I am man, hear me roar,
In numbers too big to ignore,
And I'm way too hungry to settle for chick food!
'Cause my stomach's starting to growl,
And I'm going on the prowl,
For a Texas Double Whopper!
"Man that's good!"
Oh, yes, I'm a guy!
I'll admit I've been fed quiche!
Wave tofu bye-bye!
Now it's for Whopper beef I reach.
will eat this meat
(Eat this meat)
'Till my innie turns into an outie!
I am starved!
I am incorrigible!
And I'm eating scarf (?) a burger beef bacon jalapeno good thing down!
Yeah!
I am hungry!
(I am hungry)
I am incorrigible!
I AM MAN!

Watch What You Eat

As Steve Brandon points out, the ad's imagery is "designed solely to titillate men in a very Man Show kind of way, with cheerleaders, karate, flexing, (male) underwear burning, dumptruck pulling, nouvelle cuisine tiny portion size-dissing, and minivan tossing, among other things."

See for yourself. Watch the Texas Double Whopper commercial here on YouTube: Manthem

Blog Bonding

Though I found the Burger King ad funny, I have to agree with group blog Shakespeare's Sister's take on it's underlying message. Like me, they saw this commercial back-to-back with a similarly themed "manly man" T.G.I.F. commercial. Following is the post from the Shakespeare's Sister Blog site (winner, incidentally, of the 2006 Koufax Award for "Best Group Blog"):

Be a Man: Eat Shit!

Last night, I saw these two commercials almost back-to-back…

TGI Friday’s: Four guys sit at a booth together. When their food is delivered, guy #1 stabs his steak and holds it up and growls, “Meat!” Guys #2 and #3 follow in kind. Stab. “Meat!” Guy #4 stabs a piece of broccoli and holds it up, saying, “Vegetable medley!” The other three guys all look at each other, then look at him with an expression that would best be translated as, “What are you—some kind of fag?!” Guy #4 sheepishly drops his broccoli, stabs a sausage and holds it up, saying, “Sausage!” They all cheer triumphantly. Guy #4 is a fag no more. You know, because he’s about to eat some sausage.

Burger King: A guy and a girl sit at a table together. The guy throws down his fork and jumps up into a song-and-dance routine, braying about how he’s not going to eat “chick food” anymore. He sings and dances his way to Burger King to get a ginormous burger, joined by other men who are all doing the same. The refrain of this song is “I am man, hear me roar, I’m incorrigible, I eat meat.” Spray-painted signs declaring “I Am Man” are unfurled off of overpasses. An Asian man in a business suit collapses onto the sidewalk, hungrily tearing into a Double Whopper. “I’ve eaten quiche, but I won’t anymore,” the men’s chorus sings. The men riot and toss a mini-van off a bridge, which lands in the back of a dump truck being towed by an old man clad in leather, who’s being led forward by a woman bearing a burger on a silver tray, just out of his reach. “I am man! I eat meat!”

I love the message here. It’s manly to eat meat—but not just any old meat; specifically the heart-stopping, artery-clogging beef served up by fast food and chain restaurants. It’s girly to eat vegetables and be healthy. Trying to save men from heart disease is just another part of the radical feminist agenda to “feminize” society. Damn women—if it weren’t for the mothers, girlfriends, and wives who try to get them to eat healthy, men would never have to subjected to the horror of broccoli! Damn henpecked hubbies and faggots—real men stuff their faces full of shit to prove how manly they are! Stunning.

Coincidentally, just yesterday I read this about one of the manliest men of them all, Dick “Quick Draw” Cheney:

The extent of his atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries, which, if it extends beyond the heart to the brain, can cause hard-to-recognize changes in cognition) is unknown. Bypass surgery itself has long been associated with subtle changes in neurological function. At age 65, Cheney is easily 30 or more pounds overweight, seems to have slacked off on what was once a more rigorous diet, and appears to suffer from recurrent bouts of gout. At a roundtable lunch with reporters a couple of years ago, two who were present say, he cut his buffalo steak in bite-size pieces the moment it arrived, then proceeded to salt each side of each piece.

Cool. Nothing quite says “manly” like recurring gout.

Related Links:

Burger King's Manthem Video
YouTube Burger King Ad Parody (Disturbing!)
Be a Man: Eat Shit (Shakespeare's Sister - 2006 Koufax Winner for "Best Group Blog")
I Wanna Eat a Nut of Laerma! (Steve Brandon's Blog)