Letters to Wendy’s
A lot of old school fast “food” joints are doing makeovers these days. New logos, new fonts, new store designs, and even new menu items. Taco Bell is using Doritos and waffles as taco shells, McDonald’s has gotten into the wrap-game, and Burger King (Japan) is offering black burgers with black buns, cheese, and sauce, and Wendy’s…Wendy’s is trying to spread the gospel of BBQ with their new pulled pork cheeseburger, which is a cheeseburger topped with pulled pork.
Not surprising, it looks and sounds pretty gross, and that’s just based on the advertising. I’m sure that if I was to order it at the nearest Wendy’s, it would look, smell, and taste much worse than even the ad dresses it up to appear. But fast food not measuring up to the ads that sell it is nothing new.
You can see the ad, featuring wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, here.
What really struck me as noteworthy about this ad is the way in which the it makes light of and commercializes the concepts of privilege, authenticity, appropriation, and a globalized monoculture even as it boasts of spreading that taste-free, high-fat, high-sodium, large-carbon-footprint monoculture.
If you are in Southern California, for example, you might choose to be stoked about the prevalence of bad ass fish tacos rather than lament the absence of the BBQ you could get back home. Similarly, by providing the denizens of SoCal with what Wendy’s considers good BBQ, they are depriving those Californians a reason to visit Texas and taste our local (Memphis) cuisine, thereby depriving us of tourist dollars and the cultural exchange that occurs when visitors interact with locals.
Below is a partial transcript of the ad:
BBQ privilege can distort your worldview. I’m from Texas. I get that.
So the importance of Wendy’s semi-altruistic mission of bringing an abundance of quality BBQ pulled pork the the geographically-deprived residents of places like Venice Beach or Vail, Colorado isn’t lost on me.
Although I grapple with justifying cultural appropriation and globalized society, and although tender BBQed pulled pork atop a juicy cheeseburger on a soft brioche bun isn’t authentic Texas, it is authentically delicious. So go to Wendy’s and experience your new right to BBQ pulled pork with three different sauces [emphasis added]”
Of course, advertisers using anti-capitalist language and slogans to sell a rebel image and consumer products and is nothing new. At least a few FPH readers are old enough to remember the uproar Nike caused when they used the Beatles’ “Revolution” in a shoe ad, and all of us remember, in the wake of Occupy Wall Street, when billboards for “Occupy Brunch” and “Occupy Mink Coats” and all manner of “Occupy Consumer Goods” started popping up.
