This post has nothing to do with writing. I just want to get something off my chest:
Selling food in commercials by anthropomorphizing that food is horrific! Please stop!
There are three offenders I want to talk about today, though I’m sure there are more that I should include. Think I’ve forgotten an important one? Let me know in the comments.
1. M&Ms
The thing I hate about anthropomorphized food is that we’ve taken something we eat and given it the chance to either scream and fight back or smile pleasantly, as if ignorant of its obvious fate. M&Ms fall into the former category. Commercial after commercial has presented our two male protagonists – Red and Yellow – finding themselves in various situations where they are about to be eaten alive. And we are supposed to find this funny.
In this image I took from a recent commercial, the female, brown M&M is at a party. She learns there is a woman there – Kristin – whom she should “steer clear of” because “she can’t control herself around chocolate.” This goes from bad to worse when it cuts to Brown setting Red up with this woman. The commercial ends with the woman – Kristin – dragging Red outside. Red even comments “Oo strong grip. OW!”
So let’s break it down: One living chocolate is casually told to avoid a person at a party because that person will straight up murder her with her teeth. Then, knowing this, the brown chocolate arranges for the murder of the red chocolate. There’s no other way to see this. We are supposed to laugh as the red M&M is dragged to his slow and painful death.
I could go on to talk about how the two female M&Ms – Green and Brown – are portrayed as sex objects, but I honestly don’t even want to touch that one. Let’s just move on.
2. Frosted Mini Wheats
Frosted Mini Wheats’ mascot used to be a two-faced, M&Ms-esque cartoon. I tried to find a picture or an old commercial on Google and YouTube respectively, but could not. So we’ll just move on. The current Frosted Mini Wheats commercials have taken on a new advertising tactic – make the cereal pieces seem like little smart-making shoulder angels for children. I guess some scientist found somewhere that eating a food consisting entirely of stuff your body can’t process or take nutrients from – pure fiber and sugar – was a surefire way to help kids concentrate and learn. And how do they convey this? With adorable little cereal squares that have smiling faces, legs, arms…
…and a total acceptance of the fact that they are going to die very soon. Here you can see them lounging in a hot bowl of milk. The blue one and the pink one actually start off outside the bowl and they choose to get in with the others rather than run for their lives. What the advertisers want you to think is: Oh, that cereal would taste good with warm milk. What you should think is: Oh, all those cereal pieces are perfectly happy to be eaten alive. But nothing, absolutely nothing, can compare with this:
3. Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Just look at this picture here. But be prepared to lose your appetite.
Yep. Cinnamon Toast Crunch decided to take this to a whole new level. Not only do their cereal pieces have faces and limbs, but they actively cannibalize each other.
See? They eat each other. They friggin eat each other!!! How is that okay? How does anyone see this and think, “Hmm…I see. The cereal is so delicious that it can’t even resist eating itself. I fully intend to buy a box, and I hope I only find one piece inside of it, having just finished polishing off its brethren. And then after I eat that one piece, I’m going to murder some hydrangeas.”
I will end as I started: Please stop!
Word of the Day: Anthropomorphic (adj) – ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human, especially to a deity.
Oh my! What is this? That’s right it’s a comic!
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