Do You Love Paris When She Sizzles? It's a Guy Thing

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

May 27, 2005

DE GUSTIBUS

Do You Love Paris When She Sizzles? It's a Guy Thing

By TUNKU VARADARAJAN
May 27, 2005; Page W15

Had it not been for Bill O'Reilly -- once a breath of bracing air on television, now just a gust of halitosis -- I would not have seen the ad in which a thong-suited Paris Hilton, overdressed by her own recent standards, touts a burger so brazen that it looks like the patties have had silicone implants.

Paris writhes frontally for the camera; hoses herself down as she washes a car (burger in hand, naturally); and then assumes a horizontal position as she takes a climactic bite, rump arched skyward. Mr. O'Reilly's plaint was that the ad, put out by a fast-food chain called Carl's Jr., was inappropriate for a family restaurant: "Mr. and Mrs. America, and four little kids screaming for a little burger and fries. Now, they're going to see this, and they're going to go, 'What?'" Yet how does he manifest his disapproval? By airing the eye-catching spot on his show not once, but twice -- all the while tut-tutting and huffing like some suburban Savonarola.

How to have your burger -- and eat it, too.

There's no point in asking why Carl's Jr. deployed Ms. Hilton. It is perfectly obvious that she appeals to a healthy muster of young men (and to more than a few libidinous geezers). She will shift a few million burger combos for the company. Why? "Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact." (Marlene Dietrich said that, in case you thought it was Ms. Hilton.)


The more interesting question -- at least to this male writer -- is whether Carl's Jr. could use a barebodied man to enliven the sales of its $6 jaw-stretchers. Picture this: A Denzel Washington (or Jude Law), kitted out in a black silk tanga, shimmies around a Harley-Davidson going mano a mano with a burger. Cut to the next frame: Denzel (or Jude) drenches his torso with the contents of a Slurpee cup. Then he cantilevers himself downward, legs hoisted up on the bike, elbows on the ground, and bites deeply into the burger. In the background, music throbs: "Bad to the Bone." B-b-b-b-bad. How many burgers would you say this might sell?


I asked a female colleague whose judgment in these matters I trust. Her answer: "There is no man alive who could do that ad and strike those poses without traumatizing most women at a very basic level...though some might laugh to cover their repulsion." There is a plain truth here. Women are just much less interested in -- and buoyed by -- the sight of the opposite sex unclothed than are men.

(snip)

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111715299104744658,00.html

[femmecahors]

1. I suppose O'Lielly . . .

will call for a boycott on France again . . . because of Paris Hilton and Carl's Jr. trying to sell more French fries.

[SteppingRazor]

2. OK, you got me!

I do, admittedly, love Paris when she sizzles. It's that 5,000 calorie burger that nauseates me :)

[Catfight]

3. O'Reilly upset she's not wrapped in falafel. nt

[question everything]

4. LOL, that was my thought, too n/t