Fuck you, Burger King
I know fast-food ads are not typically paragons of feminism or anti-racism, but this so incredibly offensive:
(Transcript is here.)
I'm just gonna quote Antigone at PunkAssBlog:
This is easy exploitation of other people; the "poor savages" practically comes screaming off the add. (Don't even have a word for "Burger"? WTF? I bet they have a word for "sandwich" and I also bet that they have plenty of words we don't have in English). Additionally, Whoppers and Big Mac would probably make them sick; most countries on the planet are not used to the high fat, high sugar, high beef, high salt diets of Americans. So, they're giving them food, but they're going to probably be immediately sick afterwards.Burger King, you fail at making commercials.
The commercials have an accompanying website that takes pains to note they're actually exploitative, not just pretending to be: "Whopper virgins are real people doing real taste tests. No actors were used in this film."
Corporate contact info for Burger King is here.
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I didn't see the problem earlier, and I don't see it now. Unless you think Burger King is forcing food into these people at gunpoint, they're just deciding they want to try the hamburgers. How is this exploiting anything?
I think it's the fact that these people are being used because they are "other" or savage because they have never been exposed to a Whopper. No, they aren't being forced to eat, it's not about them eating it, it's about the way other cultures are portrayed.
They are "other", that's the whole point. The add doesn't say "They are from cultures that don't have fast food, oh and by the way, that makes them savage." That's just what you're reading into it, and assuming that other people will read into it. Honestly my reaction to being offended by this is that I'm offended by that reaction. Why do you think that these are just poor ignorant people that were exploited by the evil American corporation?
Burger King doesn't have political agendas. I'm doubting that they portrayed cultures any other way than how they basically are. If you're offended by this, it's because you are reading into it the implicit assumption that portraying "otherness" also implies savagery.
I agree with this. I think it's offensive the things people are finding offensive about this ad.
Yeah, these people might have a word for "sandwich", but they DON'T FOR BURGER. Which is kinda the fucking point. They've never had hamburgers. And if YOU think that stating that FACT somehow indicates that these people are "savage", YOU are the one with the prejudice.
Right, I don't think the general idea is exploitive, but after watching the video on the site I think they made some poor choices that made the thing seem more exploitive. They upped the "other" factor a lot and did stuff like long, seemingly slow-motion takes of people looking befuddled and doing (what seems to us as) foolish things with the burgers.
"Burger King doesn't have political agendas."
You can't be serious.
Profit is not a political agenda.
No one is sitting in a room at Burger King's corporate headquarters saying "Ha ha, our plan to demean these primitive people via a 30 second commercial is finally coming to fruition!"
Someone said "lets do a blind taste test" and then someone else said "lets do an even more blind taste test" and eventually they got to this concept.
Profit is a political agenda. Capitalism and politics are not separate things, they are intertwined and inseparable. Capitalism is political and American politics are (sadly) capitalist.
Think of it this way. If they found some sort of remote Appalachian town, made sure to shoot as much overall-wearing, buck-toothed, belly-scratching red-neckicity to try and make it completely clear that these people were yokels, and said "These people can't even spell burger"...it'd be sort of a jerky, making-fun-of-the-stereotype move. This is just that with Thai people.
They're not saying, Quantum, that these people can't spell burger; they're saying that since these people have never had any burger at all, they're the ultimate control group. Even a born & raised American like me who has never eaten a Big Mac or a Whopper (I like chicken nuggets/fingers/etc far too much to eat a fast food burger) could tell the difference between the two - the Big Mac has that extra bun thing - and would bring prejudices to the taste test, much the same way that people in the 80s preferred Coke when they could see the labels but preferred Pepsi in a blind taste test.
Anyway, I guess that since I wouldn't be offended by a Vietnamese restaurant asking people in some small town in the US to try pho (which, by the way, we don't have a word for), I find it difficult to be offended by BK here. /shrug
Actually, people who have never tried a hamburger are probably the worst group of people to taste test hamburgers. Even if all of these "Whopper virgins" thought the Whopper was the best burger they've ever eaten, the Big Mac is automatically the second best burger they've ever eaten. In reality, both burgers are processed junk that people who really love burgers would never touch. Now, if someone who is a known burger expert who has tried all different types of hamburgers and who knows what a burger is supposed to taste like told me that the Whopper was the best hamburger ever, then that might indicate that the Whopper is really a good burger.
Well, sure - like I said, I won't touch either one, myself. Give me some good quality beef, ground fresh by someplace that isn't a nasty processing plant, and serve it medium rare with some good sharp cheddar: that's a burger. (And now I want a good burger for lunch...)
And yeah, people who've never eaten a burger aren't going to exactly be the best judges of overall quality. I don't think that's the point of the ad campaign, rather, I think they're going for the superficial "people who've never had a burger prefer ours" claim, but yours is a valid criticism of the ads.
Anyway, I'm not saying I think it's a great ad campaign; as you point out, there are obviously issues with it. I just don't think that one of those issues is that it exploits people.
I've seen those ads for a couple of weeks now, and I didn't really see the exploitation. I thought it was an interesting counter to the way McDonalds used to make huge publicity events out of when one of their franchises opened in a new, foreign location (I remember seeing news reports on the first McDonalds in Moscow, the first in China, etc.)
Then, thinking that it wasn't that bad and looking for some evidence, I went to the site to view the whole thing. Ugh... I hate being proven wrong.
At least they went for a racially diverse group (well, as diverse as they could get in their parameters of never having had a hamburger).
So yea, dick move, Burger King. (Though I still don't care for the way Antigone put it. Her argument about the food making them sick is a bit too much condescending in a "these noble people are too pure to handle the toxins of modern life" way.)
Sorry, but it's not condescending to say that a whopper might make someone sick. If your body is unaccoustmed to eating beef, especially beef processed with enormous amounts of hormones it could definately make you sick. I haven't eaten beef in 15 years and it would make me quite ill if I did. It has nothing to do with the "toxins of modern life," but much more to do with the ways that our digestive tracts react to radical change.
So basically, Burger King has the duty to protect these ignorant people from the dangers of their food. But this isn't condescending. Of course, we educated people know that eating something that the body isn't accustomed to has the potential to make you sick, but these poor people couldn't know that, they're just being exploited.
Being a vegetarian for a very long time/your entire life and eating and kind of meat would be bad. The fact that it's ground beef has nothing to do with it (neither does the amount of hormones given to the cow the beef came from). It doesn't say anything about any of these people being vegetarians, and I highly doubt that any of them are. If you have eaten meat your whole life, even if it wasn't beef, then it's very unlikely that beef is going to make you ill.
First, although I am a vegetarian I didn't say that in my previous post, nor did I imply that the individuals in the commercial were vegetarian; I simply stated that I hadn't eaten beef in 15 years. Secondly, were arguing about something for which neither one of us has any proof and so there is not much of a point of refuting your assertions. But I do think that as we develop our bodies grow accustomed to the particular kinds of foods that we ingest. Individuals who are not raised to drink milk are not able to digest well as adults. Lastly, when one's body is unaccustomed to processed food (and yes, this includes the hormones injected into cows), it seems pretty logical that one's body might be a little confused by it.
I challenge you to go a few months eating all natural, and then pick up a Big Mac. It will probably make you really sick, even if you still ate meat. It's not just about the meat, it's about all the things that they put in the meat.
I find it odd that they would look at different culture to find "burger virgins' when they are so many vegetarian since birth who never had a burger. (Like me) but to be honest, i KNOW CASE IN WHICH A HIGH AMOUNT A FAT (E.G THE WHOPPER)(caps on) can make a person sick.
I am so glad you posted this. I saw this last week and yelled at my TV "Please don't make those poor people eat our shitty American food. Its bad enough that we eat it!"
And then my roommate stared at me awkwardly and I shut the hell up. :-)
"Please don't make those poor people eat our shitty American food."
Case in point.
Ah, I was too late. See my below comment for my response to your argument that in fact we are the ones being patronizing for being offended by this ad.
Amen, brotha/sista.
And before anyone accuses me of being patronizing or treating them as noble savages, that is not what I mean. Fast food is barely food at all, and yes it can and does make people sick, even people who have had it many times before. I just don't like the idea of spreading our American capitalistic crap anywhere else. I do not see it as a stretch or an assumption to see this commercial as exploitative.
"whopper virgins"
they treat them as though they are some sort of illiterate animal, mocking if you will. "omgz lez go c wut teh asianz who cant evn spek english hav 2 say abut our burgerz", are we seriously this bored?
on a unrelated note, I don't see how this is sexist??
Kelly, I think that Ann wasn't saying how this commercial was sexist, but how Burger King commercials in the past have been. Remember those commercials they had where they made fun of girlie food like salads and claimed that real men ate lots of meat? I think that's the sexism to which Ann was referring.
Anyway, I think the problem with this ad isn't so much that they're bringing these people Whoppers, it's the way they're showing them in the commercial. It's like they're pointing and laughing at these people. Like "look at this culture that is so strange and different from us. Look at how weird they look and how funny they are. Let's do a social experiment where we give them Whoppers and laugh at their culture." They see this as a funny idea for a commercial. To feature "foreigners" who act and behave "weirdly." That's why people will tune into this website, to see this "other." That is the whole point of the commercial.
oh, well, my bad. I thought this website was strictly on sexist news. the name is very deceiving! :)
Nobody said it was sexist. The tag says "Racism."
I was coming on to comment that I'm glad I wasn't the only one offended at these commercials, but whoa. A lot of people seem offended that people could be offended at this. So let me try to explain what I find offensive about these ads.
There is no way for me to know if the individuals appearing in the ads were treated well. They apparently weren't forced to eat hamburgers at gunpoint, as has been said above. But my main concern is how the images and footage of those people is being shown to Americans.
First off, the rampant "othering." These commercials use everything they possibly can to show that the "Whooper Virgins" are NOT LIKE YOU! Look at the weeeeird, different clothes they wear! See how they speak their native tongue on camera! See how remote and faraway their home is from you! Ooh, let's also play native music completely out of context and without explanations! They don't speak English, they don't even have a word for "burger" *gasp*! My point is not that any of this is untrue. The people portrayed have their own language, history, culture, etc. But these commercials do not explore any of that, and more importantly do not point out any SIMILARITIES that the people have to Americans. This is not an accident, the intent of the ad is to emphasize difference, over and over again.
So who cares? Anyone who has studied American history and our sad, shameful past of racism and xenophobia. Treating Native Americans and Blacks in this way--emphasizing otherness without looking at sameness and humanity--led to slaughter, slavery, exploitation, and prejudice. No, I don't think these commercials will cause Americans to rise up and invade any of the countries in the commercials, slaughtering people as they go. But having stupid images like this in our media over and over again trains Americans to be suspicious and hostile of anything that isn't immediately familiar to them. This leads to things like attacks on people from India living in America post-9/11, despite the fact that India had nothing to do with it.
Less important but still worth noting is the creepy way the commercials link not having had American fast food to not having had sex. By calling them "Whopper Virgins" and saying it's the "Purest taste test" we're implying that these groups of people are less than fully adult. Although the more enlightened among us recognize that virginity isn't the same as youth and inexperience, that's definitely the picture in most Americans' minds. So what does it mean, to tell Americans that we're giving Whoppers to Whopper Virgins? We're deflowering them. We're conquering them. We, as a group, are more experienced than they are at something that matters, that gives us status. This reduces adult human beings to less than adult human beings, and does it in a way that supports colonialist and patriarchal norms of what adulthood means.
Patriarchal? Yeah, I said it and I meant it. How often do we think of women deflowering virgins? And colonialism and patriarchy have always been linked, in that they're two ways that we reduce adults to less-than-adults, whether they be women or foreign adults of any gender. So basically, that's my problem with these commercials.
Less important but still worth noting is the creepy way the commercials link not having had American fast food to not having had sex. By calling them "Whopper Virgins" and saying it's the "Purest taste test" we're implying that these groups of people are less than fully adult. Although the more enlightened among us recognize that virginity isn't the same as youth and inexperience, that's definitely the picture in most Americans' minds. So what does it mean, to tell Americans that we're giving Whoppers to Whopper Virgins? We're deflowering them. We're conquering them. We, as a group, are more experienced than they are at something that matters, that gives us status. This reduces adult human beings to less than adult human beings, and does it in a way that supports colonialist and patriarchal norms of what adulthood means.
I think this is going a little overboard. The word virgin is used a lot in many contexts to describe someone who has never tried a particular activity. "I'm an Ozfest virgin." "I'm a snowboarding virgin." Or whatever. It's not derogatory, and being a Whopper virgin is probably much less stigmatizing than being a virgin, that is, someone who has never had sex.
"But these commercials do not explore any of that, and more importantly do not point out any SIMILARITIES that the people have to Americans."
Well, like Americans, they prefer the Whopper. :D
More seriously: "By calling them "Whopper Virgins" and saying it's the "Purest taste test" we're implying that these groups of people are less than fully adult."
Are you saying that people who are virgins cannot be considered adults? I mean, yeah, yay sex!, but really, that sounds more like you belittling someone's decision to remain a virgin than the ad sounds like BK belittling other cultures.
"...Are you saying that people who are virgins cannot be considered adults? I mean, yeah, yay sex!, but really, that sounds more like you belittling someone's decision to remain a virgin than the ad sounds like BK belittling other cultures..."
Remember this bit?
"...Although the more enlightened among us recognize that virginity isn't the same as youth and inexperience, that's definitely the picture in most Americans' minds..."
I'm an older virgin (yay sex! but my luck in dating is horrible) and I don't feel belittled by this comment at all.
Please. American culture is totally about losing your virginity to become an adult. We even go so far as to call it "Becoming a man/woman". If you are a virgin and an adult, you have to justify it, and even then, the culture still views you as less-than completely adult.
I just took the "virgin" thing to be playful, like when people who go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show all the time call the people who've never seen the movie "virgins".
On the whole the commercial is kind of stupid, because people in remote parts of Thailand and Eatern Europe are probably more concerned with poverty and hunger in general than they are with never having known the joy of eating a Whopper (by the way, I'm American and I've never had a Whopper OR a Big Mac in my life!)
What would really impress me would be if Burger King took some of whatever revenue these commercials generate and put it towards programs to help provide nutritious food to the hungry in these regions. What's the liklihood of them doing that?
I too was more offended by Antigone's response than by the Burger Kind ads (although I don't like them much either). She's making assumptions about they're physiology, language, and ability to consent. But I don't like how Burger King is making people from remote areas out to be weird. I mean, did they really have to go that far to find some people who have never tried either a Big Mac or a Whopper? No, because I haven't tried either, and I've been living in the same New Jersey town with plenty of Burger Kings and McDonald's for 24 years. They could have asked me. Burger King assumed that you have to go to this far-off land outside of the Western world to find some people who haven't had these two burgers.
Let's not forget the Bistro Jack-rum-slave trade triangle in the 18th century.
I don't see exploitation in this ad, since thai people are not portrayed as inferior or savage. The ad is not implying that burgers are better than the food they traditionally eat.
It's just saying that people who never ate burgers can compare Burger King and McDonald's without bias. And when the narrator says "they don't even have a word for burgers", he's just reinforcing those people's neutrality.
They don't have burgers, so they can't name something they don't have. I'm pretty sure they have lots of words that the english language does not. Simply poiting that out does not mean ranking both languages. You're just pointing that out.
This ad could easily slip into "hey, see how better off you are living in America? Those people don't even have burgers!" (that's something we usually hear). But I think it didn't do that, thankfully. Burger King DOES have a tradition of sexist ads, but this one is not that bad, I think.
The only thing that bothers me a little bit is the slogan "Whopper virgins" (and they even have a website!). The word "virgin" implies that, if they never ate a burger, someday they inevitably will and they will like it. As most virgins will have sex someday and sex is a good (and healthy) thing. And, well, burgers might even be good for some people, but they are not that healthy. But, it's a burger king ad! Of course they'll say burgers are good, not bad. To say the contrary would be commercial suicide for them.
for those who don't understand how this could be seen as offensive, or who are *offended* at the offense - here are 2 links of other criticism (abc news on yahoo and the tickler) - showing how many are actually outraged at burger king's insensitivity.
It's about othering and it's about HUNGER, about not being sensitive to the hunger in the places in the world burger king chose to visit.
http://politickler.com/2008/12/04/whopper-virgin-challenge-under-fire/
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=11040017
What about the hunger in places where Burger King and McDonald's do business, like America? Hunger and poverty is everywhere, and I don't think the existence of fast food chains or their ads mocks starving poor people. And it's not even clear if the people in these commercials are really impoverished and starving. They seem like regular people doing their thing. Lack of material possessions and fast food restaurants isn't indicative of poverty, and I think the critics in that article are making that assumption because they live differently from the people in the commercials. The othering I agree with you on, but I don't think it's right to call them impoverished and starving just because they live in rural villages.
unfunny feminist - i agree with you completely, i wasn't actually assuming anything there, i was relaying what the yahoo abc news video said about this commercial. although i kind of see their point. as an anthropology student (and as a person), i agree with the othering and i know i disagree with that. as someone who isn't as well versed on the specific nuances of these particular villages, i can't say i agree, i can only say that the sources i provided DO suggest that hunger is a problem in the villages they visited...
I was extremely appalled at first. I couldn't even watch it. I had to stop and tell my roommate. As an anthropology student, I found so much ethnocentrism in the project of "othering" these people. Yes, we are sharing culture, but it's at the expense of advertising. It's not because we genuinely want to share our customs and learn about theirs. At the end, I was glad to see that the BK crew ate some local food from the regions they were visiting, but I still cannot get over the exploitative aspect of the commercial taste-test and the language used to describe the people. Whopper-Virgin is problematic to me. It's also very sad that the burgers they are giving to these people are not sustainable at all. It found it all too telling when they couldn't find the appropriate nozzles for their fuel. To me, that indicates that such a food item that requires more fuel usage and exploitation is not worth giving to a people who probably already have a viable and sustainable food source. Uggh so much I could go into.
EPIC FAIL BURGER KING!
My response to the whole "they don't even have a word for burger!" thing was not that they were savages, but that they live in paradise. What also could've gone in the ad: "And they have very low levels of obesity! and more people die of old age than heart disease!"
I am thrilled to see this is being discussed since I just saw this commercial two days ago and wondered why I hadn't heard about it from Feministing first.
From an Anthropologoy stance: An idea is being (subtley) promoted that having multiple fast food burger chains is one step forward on the road to becoming a fully modern (read American) society. It's social Darwanism mixed unhealthily with the will of corporate interests. The notion that all people start out as Hunters/Gathers then farmers and so on and so forth till we're all capitalists with running water and fast food options. Why is the American way coveted as the future goal that all countries should strive towards? So, duh, it is up to us to bring burgers to the people of the world! Because not having tasted burgers is a bad thing, I mean, this IS the 21st century. This is the part that bothers me. It's so middle school: "You mean, Kelly has never tasted a burger? Like OMG, we have to get her one right now."
Big deal. They've never had a burger. I also agree with the person who commented that this fact alone doesn't hold much sway in getting me to buy a Whopper and if the expert opinion of a burger enthusiast was featured, maybe I'd be convinced.
I get what you all are saying about this. I don't think that the concept itself is so racist, but the tone of the voice over is a little ethnocentric-superior sounding. But to be fair, that's how National Geographic & Discovery channel depicts any "native" people or people who live in tribes or in non-industrial countries. So to single this as out is a little unfair. This is a reflection of how American culture thinks of other cultures.
Secondly- the concept itself makes me torn. Cuz on the one hand: yuck. I think it's completely unhealthy to suddenly introduce crappy processed beef to people who've never had it. It might make them sick. And there's also the chance of introducing it into the culture may actually change something about the culture. I'm not saying they need to be protected and shielded from that sort of stuff. I am saying that it's by no accidental means that they've never had fast food. Maybe the prefer it that way. It's a little presumptuous is all.
But on the other hand, it will be the most fair taste test ever, since they have no bias one way or another. But what might be hilarious is what if they think both taste AWFUL and just end up picking which tastes slightly less like crap.
ON the plus side, Americans ignorant of local Chinese dialects may soon be educated as to what their phrase for "disgusting shit" is.
The rampant othering? The tone of the voice is "ethnocentric-superior sounding"? Really? There are racist advertisements aplenty but personally (just me, I'm not dismissing anyone's arguments) I think it's really difficult to say that this is one of them.
All that was said is that they live in a remote village and have no word for hamburger. Like another poster said, they are the ultimate control group. That's the point of the ad. They are whopper VIRGINS.
In feminist articles I read, it occasionally points out that in many dialects, Indian women have no word for "lesbian." Are they othering the Indian women or are they observing a fact about the language?
It doesn't show the locals being like, "Huh? What is this? Mechanical door? What a strange-device! How does door know I am approaching near?" It just emphasizes their complete non-exposure to Whoppers and then shows them eating Whoppers.
It's a REAL stretch to read racism into this.
I saw a newscast on this. Apparently Burger King spent *a lot* of money making these commercials. There is a whole set of them not just this one :-/
They went to some of the most remote places in the world, to countries that most people can't afford to eat enough regular food let alone the crap that gets served at either BK or Micky D's.
Burger King's response when asked about the poverty they replied with something about making sure that these villages weren't "impoverished".
I seriously think that they money they used to make these commercials would have been much better spent helping to end hunger:-(
And how.
I'm only a biological anthropologist, but I've taken quite a few cultural anthro classes, and I do not find these commercials offensive. I think they do a good job of portraying the people from the other cultures as actual people who have just never had a burger.
Respect means allowing indigenous people to make their own decisions, and if they wanted to be in these commercials, then more power to them. I'm not about to try to make these people into "noble savages" whose lives and cultures will be polluted by a hamburger. These people were hardly "uncontacted" before Burger King got to them.
I find that "Strange Foods with Andrew Zimmerman" to be a lot more "othering" and offensive... This seems more like a curious, "hey, let's see what happens" kind of thing, whereas that show is all "look at all this gross stuff that silly foreigners eat!"
Quiet, you! The tags have spoken! (see also: fembot post at the top)
Yeah. The reaction is incredibly condescending.
Wait...they actually spent tons of money to go to these countries? Wow. For some reason when I first saw the commercial, I thought it was fake. I didn't think they'd actually go to another country to make a commercial. The first time I watched it, it didn't seem too offensive. But watching a couple other times while listening to the tone of the narrator AND seeing a creator say, "they've never seen such a foreign piece of food before and they didn't even quite know how to pick it up," on abc news really rubbed me the wrong way.
I am surprised the critics got onto the news though. Aren't there worse commercials that aren't questioned in the news?
Also, yeah, a Whopper would make me sick now. After years of not eating fast food, I can't imagine eating most of it.
The first reaction I had was wondering if the people eating the burgers knew what they were eating (high-fat, highly-processed meat). I just wondered if Burger King had done any research on what effect the whoppers would have on people who had, according to their own affirmations, never eaten anything like that before. I am still wondering. I also wonder how they felt afterwards. I suppose we'll never find out.
What a national disgrace. This is exactly the kind of behavior that makes the case for America's overreaching pursuit of the almighty dollar.
It's probably too late to post this, but I keep forgetting I have it, since no one paid any attention when it first came out, but last year during the summer, when BK was doing a Simpson's promotion, they had a poster up with various characters extolling a burger. I took a picture of Apu's because it struck me as startlingly bigoted:
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=3097042&albumID=560441&imageID=51614633
Of course, this isn't the first time. BK also had a campaign a while ago that said "Just when you've decided to go vegetarian...the TRIPLE STACK!" Only it was in LA, so someone had climbed up and crossed out "the TRIPLE STACK!" and written in "Stay vegetarian!"
Um, I think it's really important to note that Chiang Mai has a population of about 150,000 - if you include the whole metropolitan area it's over a million. And Chiang Mai has Burger King locations. So it's not exactly a "remote village" or whatever. The people in the ads have likely already been exposed to Western food.
Let's not buy into the illusion we're trying to criticize...
yes! that's what i was thinking the whole time. sure there's people who have never had a burger, but it's not like this is some far off place removed from any kind of western influence. i was confused when they said on the website that the test was taking place within 15 minutes of a mcdonald's AND burger king. although i think that was talking about romania maybe? either way...
Well, I don't know about the other places but rural Thai often go to Bangkok for work and (especially the young) to try something new and "modern" (as I have heard rural Thai describe it in some books). Most young rural Thai go to a big city for a few years to work in factories to send money home and also to enjoy a few things like going to a cafe or the movies, buying a pair of jeans, and going on vacations and go on large trips where they all pitch in to make a donation to a temple in one of the participants home village (I forget what its called but it has a name). Anyway, it's highly unlikely that these Thai are that removed from Western influence like fast food. Even in the poorest villages, someone generally has a television and would see some ads or the characters in soap operas eat a burger occasionally.
To me, it sounds kind of like a fun experience to go with a camera crew to a large city you might not otherwise get to see too often and try some taste test. I could see it being exploitative of the general Thai culture though, if not the actual participants because it is banking on the whole "They're so different and exotic" feeling that BK is probably trying to tap into.
YES! I hate this crap, so insulting.
I also noticed that all the tasters are men.
You know, when I first saw this, I agreed that it was stupid and more offensive to my sense of taste than my taste for social justice. I agree that portraying them as the noble savage would be wrong, but it still irks me when I see pictures of BKs or McD's in foreign countries. If this is a representation of western culture, then I can't even begin to express my shame.
In terms of racism, I'm shocked that no one has mentioned the new McDonald's commercials, which are now skewed towards a more "urban" (e.g. racial minority) audience. Now, I can only assume that in the face of the health craze among those with the time and money to follow it, McD's decided to address an audience they wouldn't have dreamed about a decade ago. Then again, this is only speculation...