obviously, today is advertising day

I consider myself to be both a feminist and someone who hates humorless liberals. As such, I am exceptionally worried by any suggestion that I might be over-sensitive. I'm willing to forgive a fair amount in the name of irony.

All that being said, I'm completely offended by this new Burger King ad. The commercial changes Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" to "I Am Man" and talks about how the new Burger King sandwich is man food.

Now. I have no problem with making fun of Helen Reddy. "I Am Woman" is clearly unintentionally hilarious and super-earnest and a relic of the times. My problem is with the idea of "man food." Listen. You can't gender-norm within the context of food, even in a joking manner. This is the kind of thing that fuels girls' food issues. Implicit within female socialization is the idea that certain foods and ways of eating are unfeminine, that you can't get a man if you order a regular instead of diet Coke, that you need to be embarassed about your ability to eat a medium pizza in one sitting. You simply cannot make these messages explicit, even in jest.

I obviously understand that the ad is meant to be so over-the-top sexist that it's making fun of sexism. But, as Al Franken would say, it's kidding on the square - clothing itself in a protective sheath of irony to shield itself from revealing its core fear of emasculation. If there was an ad that was as racist as this one is sexist, even "ironically", people would be up in arms. And it would be a lot harder to accuse those people of being humorless.