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Fast Food Doth Protest Too Much
You can still hear rumblings of the controversy Kevin Federline stirred with his commercial for National Insurance. Or was that National Insurance’s commercial with Federline? Hard to tell. The manufactured “issue” was this:
The fast food lobbyists felt the commercial portrayed their workers in a bad light. Come on you pinheads, there’s a culturally-embedded recognition of the fall from grace being symbolized by being at the top of the heap one day and flipping burgers the next.
“Rollin’ VIP” indeed. What?
It’s shorthand for a shared visual language we all have within our vocabulary.
The commercial makes good use of that visual shorthand for something that we’ve all seen or experienced. And as for the jobs themselves — who hasn’t heard and/or used the term “McJobs” to describe exactly this type of low wage, menial work?
It’s no big deal. Fast food lobby guys, quit taking yourself so seriously! Looks like you could use Federline’s self-effacing humor. I certainly don’t know that I could have made fun of myself in such a good-humored way, but props to you “K-Fed” — who the hell would’ve guess you were the responsible one?
It seems that the larger problem is that the current culture is too thin-skinned and preying on that vulnerability is what I call the “slight merchants.”
Slight merchants find minorities (of all types — race, religion, creed and now, fast food workers) with a stewing cauldron of victimization simmering beneath the surface and fan that to a full shrieking boil. Pay Obama the compliment of being “articulate” and the NAACP and the race merchants are screaming “racism!” for days for every camera they can get in front of.
Four words. Two names as the leaders of the race branch of slight merchants: Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
See what I mean? 
In all fairness to McDonald’s, First jobs can lead to great things. It gave many of us teens our first stab at a real job and I bet you didn’t know that even though the company is often the butt of “McJob” jokes, McDonald’s trains more young people than the American armed forces . . . combined. Run that up your flagpole and salute it.
Former Mc-CEO Jim Cantalupo suggested, given those facts, “McJob” should be re-defined as “teaching responsibility” instead of the more derogatory characterizations.
No arguments there.
McDonalds is my kind of place. Hoo-Rah!
By Walter |
Topics: From The Trenches, Pet Peeves, Pro Analysis |