Ah, disgusting! So, the way to target women with your advertising is to tell them you suspect they are only pretending to be smart and and into jazz or world affairs to fit in, but that we secretly don't even know our basic geography! (Eg. What's Paraguay? Are you fucking kidding me? Is it suddenly supposed to be cute not to know your South American countries?) I don't exactly go to McDonald's often as it is, but this is inspiring a brand new boycott on my part.

it's weird, but i can't muster any real reaction to ads doing what they always have to women. i just sort o sigh wearily and move on. however i AM annoyed at mcdonald's trying to make coffee shops out to be bad/snooty places. i love coffee shops. and i'm sick of this anti-intellectualism infecting everything.

seriously what the FUCK? McDonalds has now given me one more reason NOT to eat there.

My favorite part was the last line- "I just want to show my knees!" As if the move towards equality secretly leaves us dying to go back to the good old days of being a brainless sex object. Sigh, reading makes my head hurt.

I've gone into Second Cup in skirt and heels many times...these adds drive me nuts, because goodness know that you can't be well dressed, femminine ( if you chose) and inteligent at the same time !

I've gone into Second Cup in skirt and heels many times...these adds drive me nuts, because goodness know that you can't be well dressed, femminine ( if you chose) and inteligent at the same time !

I've gone into Second Cup in skirt and heels many times...these adds drive me nuts, because goodness know that you can't be well dressed, femminine ( if you chose) and inteligent at the same time !

I could be wrong on this, but the folks at Mickey D's also made a commercial similar to this with two men in a coffee shop.

This is all hearsay, but I think they said something along the lines of "Sweet! Now we don't have to call movies films anymore!" and "Rad! I can shave off my goatee!"

For the men, it was a great thing that fast food lattes enabled them to shed their intellectual silliness to get manly.

For the women, it was a great thing that fast food lattes enabled them to shed their intellectual side and become dumb chicks again!

...I don't get it either way.

Fuck McDonalds.

Just as I was running our of reasons to hate fast food... thanks McDonalds!

In all seriousness, this commercial is terrible.

This is a slam on "latte drinking liberals" who apparently tend to frequent coffee houses rather than patriotic American fast food restaurants. But it's very telling that they cast women in the role. Very stupid ad. Anti-intellectualism is so very in vogue right now.

I thought it was interesting that McDonald's clearly labeled the stereotypical coffee shop intellectuals as androgynous, and then so blatantly attacked the presence of said androgyny. McDonald's is basically saying, "Why participate in non-gender specific intellectual activities, when you can conform to offensively simplistic gender norms, and abandon all sense of a non-gendered self?"

Gross.

Wow... way to get back to American tradition... you know, like the Know Nothing party... i'm going to be sick, now.

So McDonald's is actually calling all of its own customers stupid? Nice.

McDonald's. i'm lovin' ignorance.

I still don't understand what they're even trying to do. McDonald's has spent years (and presumably a lot of money) on marketing its restaurant as a place for grownups as well as fry-hungry kids, and then it makes commercials that insult...people who act like grownups? Is their ad agency working for Burger King?

I don't want to be the outcast here, but I found it pretty funny. I love coffee houses, but you can't deny some of the people who go there are pretty much pseudo intellectuals. Not all, but some.
The thing that did make me angry was the "i don't know where Paraguay is" line. I thought that kind of pushed it over the edge into making women seem stupid, but if you compare the male equivalent of this ad to the female equivalent, they're pretty much saying the same thing. Males who are really into sports are stereotypically the same thing as women who read fashion magazines.
I thought it was pretty funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg87E1tjTOE
that's the male one.

Maybe it's because I'm not American, maybe it's because I don't watch a lot of TV, but I don't get this ad. I mean, I really don't get this ad. I've never in my life associated coffee shops with feminism, intellectualism, prudery, or geography, I've associated them with...well, with coffee. Sweet, delicious coffee. So, IMHO, this ad is setting up an unnecessary and off-base generalization about what is expected behaviour and etiquette in a coffee shop, taking it for granted as fact in the minds of the general populace, and using that shoddily-constructed base to further the point that any and all intellect is a ruse and forced upon the womenfolk, who do it just for the coffee. Good Lord, if women pretend to be smart for coffee, think of the other things women pretended to be smart for! University degrees, publishing deals, governmental office...you name it, women don't know what the hell they're doing. Apparently.

Also, wtf is with the "I just wanna show my knees!"? McDonald's is way sexier than...coffee shops...because normal people (i.e. the uncultured/uninformed, as suggested by this ad) go there? You're right, McDonald's, I can think of nothing more sexually fulfilling than Big Mac giving me the seedy eye as I flounce into the restaurant, the dream of lattes dancing in my empty brainpan. Aw yeah.

I think I see what they're trying to do here, but when I attempt to logically follow the path this campaign has taken, I trip over my legs and fall into a rotting bog of eternal stench. What the eff.

MB, there's a lot of uniquely American code in there: latte-sipping liberals, grievance culture as a form of displaced class war, anti-intellectualism, and the misogynist "shut up and be a sex object" variant thereof.

Vile, feel like vomiting. My spouse and I will review this situation and perhaps take our fry-eating kids to some other purveyor of string-cut fries and chicken nuggets for a while. It ain't like they have a patent on the friolator.

Yeah... I can see what they THOUGHT they were doing. We don't really have the whole coffee-shop-is-place-for-intellectual thing here in Blimey, but US sitcoms have certainly made us aware of the concept. I could have- not appreciated or found funny, but understood their "pseudo-intellectualism is bad" joke, except that they failed at it utterly.

Instead we have McD equatting intelligence with a loss of mainstream sexuality, and the generally accepted standards for sexiness equated with stupidity, with the stupid-but-slutty side being portrayed as positive, and the smart-but-frumpy side portrayed as something completely false.

As if their shitty, rubbery, thin pseudo-meat burgers, greasy lard-filled "healthy options" and foul smelling "food" wasn't enough reason for me to avoid the damn places like the plague.

Hey! Flats are just as stylish as heels. Sometimes even more stylish. There are some hideous heels out there.

But yeah. Instead of combating the stereotype that the people who work at McDonald's are at the bottom rung of the social ladder, they're just calling their customers dummies too.

I'll have to admit that I do often feel pressured to express an appreciation for jazz music.

That is a horrible ad. I checked out the "man version", and to me it's SO much less offensive. It's a vaguely amusing scorning cliched pretentiousness (like goatees) ad. Dumb, being McDonald's, but not really offensive. It's not saying that the men should be stupid, just that it's okay for them to admit to enjoying football.

With the women's version you somehow get a laundry list of "stupid" things the women are now going to be embracing. Now they can follow gendered beauty standards, hurt their feet, not know geography, not care about less popular music, etc. It's so much worse.

This ad is INCREDIBLY sexist and unpleasant.

so, commenters: take action!

Head over here to McDonald's official advertising complaint formand tell them just what you think of this piece of retrograde crap.

I end up pitying the actresses who had to enthuse about the pleasures of stupidity in order to pay the rent.

On top of everything everyone else said, did anyone else do a double-take when Woman 1 tossed the book away -- because it nearly looks like she chucked it into the fireplace? Meep!

Um, I never knew there was a connection between coffee houses and women not being able to wear high heels.

Here's a link to the male counterpart to this ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg87E1tjTOE

Both of them play into gender stereotypes: women prefer heels to flats, men prefer football to books. When it comes down to it, they're just flat-out anti-intellectualism.

I hate this because it assumes that coffee places are "uncool" to hang out. Like you can really hang out at McDonald's? Sexist, anti-intellectualism, snooty, whatever you want to call it, I was never for McCafe anyway because I know they don't use fair trade coffee, as opposed to most cafes that do (it saves them monies). I'd rather have coffee knowing I didn't exploit a bunch of innocent people so that I can have my mid-morning buzz.

I wrote them a letter... and this is what I said...

To Whom This May Concern:

I am disgusted with your "McCafe Intellectuals commercial." It perpetuates gender stereotypes. I would equally be disgusted if your threw gender stereotypes at two men. Societal conditioning perpetuates how women and men act and behave. But a wise woman or man will listen to their own guidance and be who they truly are outside of societies conditioning. Don't perpetuate stereotypes among any person regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, martial status, etc.

I do not support McDonalds or any other fast food corporation but I do support progressive thinking in our world. I believe if the corporation is to exist in can choose to progressive especially in our rapidly changing world.

Sincerely,
my name

I worked in a coffee shop/espresso bar for 2 years.

I worked the morning shift, the closing shift, the lunch shift, the dinner-time slow shift. And let me tell you something: We didn't play jazz (though I wouldn't have minded if we did). We had stacks of sprots, fishing, fashion and beauty magazines in amongst "Maclean's" (for those who don't know, it's a right-wing politics mag, basically a Canadian "Time"), children's colouring books, one daily newspaper and absolutely no liberal intellectual publications. We had a club that would come in twice a week to play board games and a tutoring service that taught young kids.

So not only is this horribly sexist, it makes no sense to me. Starbucks is the haven of the intellectual? Please, I worked at an independedent, and it wasn't even like that. McDonald's is clearly as idiotic as it thinks its customers are.

Oh, and I was allowed to show my knees.

Dear McDonalds,
Your advertisements for McCafe lattes was brought to my attention today. I think it's incredibly insulting that your commercials suggests that people only pretend to be smart to be able to drink specialty coffees. Your embrace of anti-intellectualism and your celebration of a nation of women supposedly returning to vapid, ignorant sex-objects-in-heels is tawdry and sexist. What the female version of the ad basically says is that any woman who has a brain or chooses to wear something other than a short skirt with heels is secretly a fake who really wants to be able to be stupid out in the open. I recently received a coupon in the mail for your new coffee drinks and I thought I might try one sometime, but now i certainly will not since your ad tells me you think being ignorant is really cool. Disgusting.

This commercial is soooo dumb. Is McDonald's really that clueless? I'm boycotting them, which will not be hard, since I never eat their shitty food anyway.

Wait...

Whaaaaaaaaaaaa?

I sent them my 2 cents! My husband and I hate those commercials.

This better be from the Onion. Please let this be from the Onion.

If you go to 71st and Broadway (in New York City) you will see a McDonalds. It's right next door to the Starbucks.

I must say there is a difference in the clientele. Mostly kids in the McDs and adults in the Starbucks but that could be an artifact of the time of day/day of week.

Wow. This is so freaky. I just wrote a post a few weeks ago about gender and the Starbucks backlash. This ad touches on almost everything I wrote about:

http://popfeminist.blogspot.com/2008/09/masculinity-and-fall-of-starbucks.html

So I sent a little note to McDonalds about the disgust I feel. They now have my address and email. (Not my phone # though! I was sneeky about that!) Guess I showed them! Still though. I think we should all comment to McDonalds instead of just on Feministing! That would send a message!

PS I may be silly but I'm still shocked they think they can get away with that.

What do you want to bet that McDonald's can't make a decent latte anyway? It'll probably be spat out of a machine.

I have never known a woman who was relieved to be able to ditch flats for the excruciating pain of high heels. Not that I think there's anything wrong with wearing high heels, but I'm always more than happy to take them off and tend to the blisters they've given me.

Ugh. I am so sick of pop culture glorifying ignorance. I hate making a joke out of how many American's willfully ignore developing nations. I am fed up with smart women being seen as unnatural posers. Fuck you, McDonalds.

Ugh. I am so sick of shit like this. Treating a smart woman as an object of pity is not funny. Glorifying ignorance is not cool. Acting like it's ok that many Americans are willfully ignorant of even the most basic facts about most developing nations is not acceptable. Fuck you, McDonald's.

Nothing can fuel a culture war like a major presidential election.

My intellectual housemate and I were inside Halcyon, a local COFFEESHOP discussing these new, ridiculous McDonald's commercials.

While McDonald's and John McCain may be completely separate topics in one's mind, for me they are one in the McSame because they are both part of a huge corporate, American mindfuck machine that aims at duping Americans out of their own right to be different. Does John McCain want your vote so he can continue to keep the status quo and keep big business at the top of the food chain? Yes. So, of couse, McDonald's doesn't want you to vote for Barack Obama, who probably has never fed his two daughters a sniff of a Happy Meal. Somehow, American culture has individual Americans starting out at a very basic point -- where we eat at McDonald's and don't question the status quo and vote for Republicans. It is in McDonald's best interest both for business simply in relation to customers and relation to taxation and wage/benefit increases to keep Americans stupid, so they have to be part of the culture war that says intellectualism is bad because it muddies up the "real you", the "you" they love, the "you" that stops at McDonald's after school/soccer practice/work because you are too busy and poor to afford good, fresh, nutritous food.

It's funny that the slang for something that is generic is a prefix of "Mc" because that is, exactly, what McDonald's does to everything that is good about being alive. Because of their generic largeness, they have promoted generic and bad job and benefit expectations, bad food, bad nutrition, bad ethics, and now a generally generic and bad culture.

And they have done it with the help of Republicans.

FUCK YOU MCDONALD'S AND FUCK EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR!

I suspect that some of you are aware of this, but for the record: this is very much a trope of modern porn. Not the coffeehouse part, but the woman who is oppressed by feminism and, through some outside force, released to be able to do things like wear high heels, show off her body, and not know stuff. I'm not saying that the ad firm knew this (although they certainly might), but convergent evolution and all that.

And yes, the male version is much less gender-driven*, and has an actual (weak) punchline. Hardly surprising.

* Other than the football thing, it's almost entirely about culture/style, whereas jazz is probably the only culture/style marker in the female version - maybe fashion mags, but I'm pretty dubious on that.

Dear McDonald's:

Shame on you.

-Judith Shimer-
A book-reading, geography-aware IT worker from Massachusetts

(Well, there were two other paragraphs explaining why the ads are sexist, but reposting them here would take up a lot of space and I know everyone agrees with what they said anyway. So you can imagine them.)

To me this is more anti-intellectualism than anti-woman/sexist, but it's dumb enough to be either/both of those. We used to have these 'class war' McDonalds ads in Australia too - smug, blue-collar 'blokes' shoving greasy beef down their gullets, laughing and sneering at the 'heads up their arse' guys in suits sitting in a restuarant eating...posh food, apparently. "They haven't got a clue...". I found those totally offensive too, because to suggest that tradesmen are dumb and boorish would be unacceptable. Oh well, I'm kind of off-topic aren't I? Those women make me want to slap someone. Have some dignity, please!

Wow! I'm amazed at how pissed off everyone is! I sent McDonalds an angry email but are you kidding?!

Have you seen any Carl's Jr. commercials? I have boycotted that joint since 5 years ago,... McDonald's is an angel compared to those guys!!! search for some of their videos (watch the one with hugh hefner!)

I am not getting it. This is an ad about intellectual pretension. I can imagine 1000 perfectly analogous ads featuring men, none of which would have a column of (whatever the masculine equivalent of a nest of shrill harpies is) crowing beneath it.

Um, am I the only one who wasn't offended by this and in fact thought it was a really funny commercial? Granted I saw the "men's" commercial first, and they both deal with exactly the same type of issues- things the characters pretend to like and know, along with pretentious ways of acting and dressing. I don't see anything remotely sexist (or classist) about either ad.

IMHO, it seems like they are gently poking fun at upper middle class cultural stereotypes while encouraging people to come enjoy their beverages.

Usually I'm totally on board with the bloggers, community posters and comment sections, but on this one I think people need to chill out. There are WAY worse ads out there with actual sexism, racism and classism, so I'm not sure why this is even on the radar. Either way, doesn't it seem that the energy being spent on anger and letter writting could be better focused on a real issue, one that genuinely affects society?

*bri*, thankfully, it appears you were indeed one of the only ones who found this ad to be jolly good fun.

I have never, will never, not in a million years ever understand the "shouldn't you be focusing on the starving kids/world peace/child soldiers/REAL ISSUES (TM)?"

Two things with this:

(1) If you don't see how very real and how very trenchant the issue of media representation is, there's not much I can do to help you. Ads, magazine covers, billboards, TV series: this is the everyday fabric of most people's lives. People in the U.S. and other economically powerful countries *do* have their own civil and equal rights issues that demand attention--and many of them are expressed subtly, iinsidiously, in a way that does not scream out "MISOGYNY!" or "RACISM!" the way clitoral cutting or apartheid in other countries might.

What's pumped into people's brains day in and day out is what helps form, crystallize, and perpetuate social constructions like Binary Gender, Race, and Heternormativity.

You are welcome to turn your back on these issues and focus exclusively on "the big stuff." But please don't appeal to the rest of us to join you.

(2) Even if I accept your contention that media and entertainment are not issues deserving of so much attention, please recognize that people *can* focus on more than one problem at one time. Trust me. I'm actually originally from one of those countries you see on the news with the starving people and the slums and FGM. I also worked for several years in public health and social science research with precisely these suffering populations.

And I can say with lavish confidence that I *can* express concern about human rights in the Congo and domestic abuse in Guatemala while writing to McDonald's to let them know how harmful I find their TV ad.

I can care about more than one type of issue at once.

I'm sorry if my response seems resentful; my anger is not towards you, but towards a mindset that I despair permeates our society. I detest above all things the idea that a person can be "too educated," "too concerned," or that she or he can "read too much into things." Yet, that is what I am told when I take a few moments to deconstruct what I see and hear, instead of sitting back and letting media and entertainment pump noxious social ideals into me like intraveneous poison.

The only thing I find funny about these commercials is the idea that McDonald's, a conglomerate which puts out a product as artificial, standardized, and technologically contrived as any on earth, would dare present itself as a temple of authenticity. What could be more "pretentious" than The Golden Arches?

It's mocking the pseudointellectualism of coffee shops using a demographic McDonald's is trying to branch out to (beyond poor people and college-age men), I think this is an overreaction.

There's a difference between intelligence and having your head up your ass. Please don't project anti-feminism onto our media, we have enough of the genuine article as it is, thank you.

I emailed McDonald's yesterday (I focused more on the anti-intellectualism but did point out they were reinforcing sexist gender stereotypes) and they already emailed me back saying they were sorry I didn't like the ad and that they'd forwarded my complaint to their advertising department.

They should be more sorry about the fact that they just labeled their restaurant the place for stupid, ignorant people to get coffee, but whatever.

Email to McDonalds:
I was just wanting to file a complaint about the McCafe ads that show two women sitting at what seems to be starbucks talking about how they want to wear heels and don't know where Paraguay is. I kind of like the underlying message that other cafe places are snooty, but I think the specific examples they use end up being sexist and classist. I think you can take jabs at fancy coffee places without equating intelligence to stuck up. For example: I've always found it irritating that Starbucks refers to their drinks as venti and tall and other words that don't actually mean what they sound like.
I think now more than ever, Americans should be knowledgeable about world affairs, so it offends me when the women in the commercial imply that knowing about Paraguay or speaking french is frivolous.
I think average people may enjoy getting Mocha without having to deal with young hip scene kids with faux hawks who talk fast, but don't insult our intelligence.

Okra- you rule. Thats all :-)

I actually agree with *bri* here and anyone else who thinks that you guys need to chill out a little bit. First of all -- it's obviously working as an ad because people remember it, which is the main goal. Secondly, it's reaching out to those who think that they have to conform to some coffee shop norm that may or may not exist in order to get the type of coffee they like. Also, you can be anti-intellectual, anti-hipster without actually being dumb. It's also very similar to the Dunkin Donuts ad that makes fun of all the coffee having French/Italian sounding names (for no reason).

No, sunshine007, it only works as an ad if it makes people BUY STUFF. I'm pretty sure NONE of us here are going to do that now.

If it's possible to be anti-intellectual without being dumb (which I doubt), McDonald's has totally missed that by presenting the opposite to intellectualism as.......stupidity.

Feminine stupidity.

Oh great.

You know, the worst part is that this could have been an enjoyable commercial about phoniness and pseudo-intellectuals and the perceived pretentiousness that goes with coffee houses these days. I actually liked that "pretending to like jazz" thing. There is so much they could have gone for that didn't play into nasty gender stereotypes or imply that women would rather be stupid. Off the top of my head, a comment by the bespectacled woman about not actually needing those glasses would have worked well. Maybe an admission that one of them actually doesn't understand Nietzsche or something (I personally found Nietzche mind-numbingly hard to grasp). But no, it's "I'm so glad I can cripple my feet and parade my legs around again instead of pretending to be smart."

The Dunkin Donuts commercial with They Might Be Giants singing the song about the "Fritalian" words used is pretty much what this should have been.

Please look at this

This proves that the commercial attacks the pretentious coffee shop crowd, not women.

balalaika:

The two ads are similar in their anti-intellectual bent; but -and this is a big "but" for me- the ad with the men does not suggest that they are not as smart as they have previously presented themselves to be. One guy wants to shave off his goatee and takes off his fake glasses. They discuss wanting to call "films" movies again, and how they like football and want to discuss it. It lampoons intellectualism -wrongly, I might add- by suggesting that those serious(ly dull) intellectuals never do something like watch and discuss football or go and see a movie instead of an art film. But it doesn't make the men seem 'less' to the same extent.

Meanwhile, the commercial featuring the women removes almost all of their intellectual worth in the matter of a few seconds. "I don't know where Paraguay is!"- "Paraguay?" Oh look! How cute and how true! Women don't know South American countries! That is what we should aspire to! The punchline is demeaning and derogatory in a way, "These are very real" is not. The commercial for the women just plays upon the old notion that women don't really want to be well learned. It is too difficult for them, and they'd rather spend their energy looking pretty than actually studying another language or looking at a damn map every once in a while.

So while it attacks what it sees as the "pretentious coffee shop crowd", it is also attacking women. Attacking the two groups is not mutually exclusive; and there are enough differences in the ads to demonstrate that amply instead of suggesting that feminists are whining over nothing.

I agree with petpluto's statement. While both commercials were bad, the one with the women was worse. I'll be writing something like this to the McD's link above:

"Yeah! YEAH! How DARE I be a multi-faceted individual?!

I wanna throw myself neatly into a typical "dumb male" stereotype and never come out! My Neanderthal brain can't handle "films" and sports simultaneously, and I'm so glad McDonald's is telling me to choose.

Now let's watch some FOOBAW!"

(that was my comment on the YouTube video. I'll adjust as necessary)

I got a reply from McDonald's which seemed fairly sincere. But the apology was one of those fake-apologies that drive me up the wall; the one that's like, "We're sorry you were so offended by our commercial."

Instead of being sorry that I was OFFENDED, why not be sorry that the commercial was OFFENSIVE?

I hate when people transfer the problem from their actions/words/commercials onto my emotions. It's almost as bad as if they said explicitly, "We're sorry you're so uptight."

Of course, it's also McDonald's, and probably also a form letter they've been having to send to a bajillion angry people lately.

But yeah. I hate that.

I'll have to add my voice to the few commenting against the tide here. I've seen the male version of the ad for a couple of months now, and even as an intellectual type of guy who drinks coffee in coffee shops, the type that the ad pokes fun at (hopefully minus pretentiousness), I thought it was hilarious.

These ads poke fun at intellectualism and pretentiousness that McDonald's thinks their customers perceive in coffee shops. I think the male ad has been around longer; this is the first time I've seen the female ad, and they've tried to come up with equivalents of the fake glasses / goatee and the football watching for the female one. When you look at the context of the ad - anti-intellectualism - I don't think the Paraguay thing is really any worse than the football thing. It's a bit of a stretch to suggest that McDonald's are actually suggesting that women are dumber than men because of the differences in the ads. They're just about people who felt they had to pretend to be intellectual (both in culture and dress) because they felt they had to do that to fit into snobbish coffee shops.

Now, we can complain about a culture that equates intellectualism with pretentiousness, and that's fair enough. But these ads are pretty small fry.

Pop Feminist;

I just want to say that I have walked into a coffe shop downtown and asked for a cup of coffe, and I was told they had none. No black coffe. Sacks and sacks of beans artfully resting against wrought iron fixtures, but no coffe. Fratalian writing eveywhere, no coffee.

And if you don't know, when footballer takes of his scarf and sweater he is wearing a green undershirt, USMC issue.

Wow. Did you all miss the humor? Were you too busy trying to force your city to change "manhole" to "person trench"? Or maybe "Mailman" is offensive too? A "Persons person"? I think it should be mandatory...oops, sorry, PERSONatory for everyone offended to go out and shop for...dammit, can't say SHOP when women are around, I might be pigeonholing all of you (and I have not listed the sex of the pigeon in question). Go out and acquire a sense of humor. Then, take a quick look at how men are portrayed as slow, clumsy and dimwitted in today’s media and the women are more powerful and brilliant. Why? Because of morons like all of you. This commercial was NOT say all women are dumb, it did not allude to, obfuscate or state in anyway shape or form anything to that effect. It showed 2 women....2....can you all count? Again, the "can you all count" was not a sexist remark. I never mentioned anything about all women being stupid and failing to add simple numbers, I have merely asked if all people (excluding myself) have the ability to do simple math. You could always answer "yes I can count"...but you won't will you. You will probably write a letter to Mcd's and start your protests and burn your bras, stop shaving and enjoy the comforts of sandals and clothes made of hemp...
For the record, I am all for women’s rights. Not being hired for a job because you are women is sexism. 2 women waxing idiotic in a coffeshop, comedic GOLD. Dammit, I did it again, not Women, Woperson.

j316, I do not believe that "obfuscate" means what you think it does.

Clearly, McDonald's coffee is right up your alley. G'day, troll.

"Obfuscate - To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand"

yes, that exactly what i meant. troll? Is that the best you go? awww c'mon....you can do better...you are a women after all.

(yes, the above statement was sexist, and meant to be, only to make a point).

You meant to say, "This commercial does not in any way make confused, opaque or difficult to understand the idea that women are dumb"?

No, you didn't. And please don't try again to say you did, for that is the sort of stupid which pollutes the soul.

I just wanted to mention 2 thinds to j316.

1- If commercials portray men as dirty nasty slobs, that's not OK. And it definitely doesn't help feminism. All of these extreme gender stereotypes are crap, and they are sexist, both toward men and women.

2- You always have to look at the context to see if something is sexist or not. In vacuum, many things don't have a positive or negative meaning. But in the context of culture and history, they change, and they mean different things when used on different people. For example, if I say your post was "Bitter" or "Dumb" and you are a man, this is probably not sexist. If you were a woman, it would have been because those adjectives are often used to specifically put women down. On the other hand, if I say "real women love dirt" it would just be a mildly strange comment but if I say "real men love dirt" then I'm using a stereotype and basically saying that if you don't like dirt, you are not a man (something our society also tries to reinforce). And I personally consider that just as crappy. (and it's also homophobic, again, because of the cultural context)

Maybe that clears up some of your confusion,... but maybe you were just angry and wanted to vent.

Roja,

I see what you are getting at, and that is part of my...bitterness?
I get so annoyed when someone will take something as harmless as this commercial, then try to bend it into "McDonalds is sexist and trying to opress women". That is pure garbage. A few misguided posters above are willing to boycott because of this commercial? It must be embarrassing to those whome have real sexism battles to fight. To use your examples: bitter and dumb. No, when used towards a woman they do NOT have a deeper meaning. They are the same as if you were to use it on me, a man. For every person reading this that then rolls thier eyes and groans "no wonder HE doesn't understand"....that, is sexist.
So sure, mayhaps I was a little frustrated, and did need to vent. But just maybe, YOU (not specifically you roja...) give silly commercials and comments, and billboards more "sexist power" than they really truely have. Mountains out of molehills...

...again, not saying if the mole is male or female.

I found this ad more anti-intellectual then anti-woman, though I have to admit I think the "Paraguay?" line was over the edge. If it had been of a man and a woman but with more or less the same anti-intellectual theme I think it would've come off as a lot less sexist. Thats just me though. In any case, I doubt McDonalds is actually trying to appeal to the Starbucks/independant cafe/other-stuff-randomly-associated-with-progressive-thinking demographic... I think that this is more of an "educational" campaign for it's own customer base, because, lets face it, nobody walks around craving a milky frothy espresso drink seeking a McDonalds.

I think the male and female ads are pretty equal in their derision; pretensionist coffee goers who haunt the coffee houses. I showed both male and female versions of this ad to my g/f to see what she thought and in our conversation she told me that she plans her entire wardrobe around going to starbucks if she plans on going that day. I haven't had a problem dragging my Proletariat attired self to a coffee house, going to the natural pantry was a different story...

I like how j316 misused obfuscate, then denfined it as if that made his misuse correct. THEN in a subsequent post wrote "whom" where "who" was gramatically correct AND SPELLED IT WRONG! Oh my. Stop, Buddy. Just, seriously, I mean, come on now. You're making a fool of yourself.

Sexism and anti-intellectualism aside, what bothers me about this commercial is how unfounded it is. SORORITY girls go to Starbucks and coffee shops. There is nothing intellectual about them. They sell newspapers (without comics, j316, sorry) but you're not required to read them. I wore a tubetop in a coffee shop one time and no one kicked me out. Seriously. Hand to God.

These commercials are as stupid and uninspired as the "I'm Lovin' It" slogan. I think the bottom line is that Mickey D's needs a new ad agency.

WAT? I Mad a spelng mistake? I must bee kiled now. Roja made a spelling error, take her ovaries!
I love how some of you attack my spelling and "misuse" of a word, but not a single one of you can dispute anything any of my arguments with any (lets look up how to spell this) validity. I was waiting for it...but nothing. No, I was put down, i would assume because I am male, therefor have no valid view on sexism. I am man, must only like newspaper with pretty comics!
Ducki37, sweety, that commercial was brilliant. Both of them are. Coffe shops are filled with pseudo intellectuals, "writes" on thier laptops, and artsy-folk listening to ani difranco. You have all been witness to "those" people, and all know exactly what McD's was getting at, but yet decided to twist it into sexism....
sexism, i find it very interesting that the dictionary definition is, well...sexist. Look it up first.
(ducki, the comics is where YOU should start reading. Get some humor)

SORORITY girls go to Starbucks and coffee shops. There is nothing intellectual about them.

Erm, this SORORITY "girl" (we called ourselves women, thanks) who has a JD and passed the Bar exam on the first try and graduated from college with a 3.75 GPA and has read 98 books this year and knows exactly where Paraguay is would like to call you out on that comment.

Wow you chicks need to get off your period's its just a stupid commercial? Would you get your panties in a wad if it was guys?