“I don’t know. I didn’t go into Burger King.”
Just who runs Burger King advertising these days? The king is ultra-creepy and “I like square butts?” Really? I’ve often wondered if the BK VP of advertising is a frat boy or someone who wants to make easy money catering to the frat-boy demographic, because they have to get someone to buy their burgers and it ain’t going to be the hipsters now inhaling the McLifestyle or the new gourmet linguini from Pizza Hut.
Now that Burger Royalty has offended everyone from Tarantino and Mexicans to kids and women, making even Fox “We Don’t Do PC” News gasp on that last one, they had to come for us, i.e the Hindus. Behold, the latest Burger King ad: Goddess Lakshmi on ham sandwich en español in España!
“La merienda es sagrada.” The snack is sacred. Merienda – what a long and mellifluous word for “snack.” Anyway. Let’s get a couple of things straight: a) Not all Hindus are vegetarian (sorry, Gawker, you got that one wrong) and b) Lakshmi is actually the goddess of prosperity, which includes wealth, home, children and food. Given that reaching the West, the promised land, and eating American food is a goal of many in the land of my ancestors, one could argue that this ad shows Lakshmi having provided for her itinerant sons and daughters.
But, this ad isn’t in Jackson Heights, NY. It’s in Spain aimed at folks of mainly Castilian descent. BK putting Lakshmi on a ham sandwich, knowing full well that she is a sacred icon to someone somewhere else, screams cultural deafness and testicular weakness. This ad’s in Spain, right? Wouldn’t Jesus or la sagrada familia – the sacred family – on that ad make more sense than Lakshmi? Wouldn’t it make it that much more sacred? Sacred enough for the locals to rush over with torches and pitchforks and pummel your establishment to the ground? I thought so.
Flag burning, religious icons on shoes, beer bottles and toilet covers, a Hindu goddess hovering over a meat sandwich. These things don’t bother me, as long as those who do it are willing to do the same things with the icons and items they hold dear and not be spinless and sneaky about it.
On the bright side, they didn’t seat Lakshmi on a whopper.
That is so messed up. But it IS Spain, where they still hold mock auto-da-fes….what they oughta not do but they do anyways. 8-)
Helluva post, Maitri. Well done.