Beef council's female commercial

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is sort of a cross between a mild rant and an IMHO, so I thought it would work well here.

Last night I saw a commercial for the Beef Council on TV. It was two middle aged to older men in suits sitting at a table in a fancy restaurant. As they look around the restaurant, they grow increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, one says to the other something like “Maybe we should go.” and the other one agrees saying “yeah, this doesn’t look like our kind of place anymore.”
Then there’s a shot of rest of the restaurant. It’s filled with women. They’re all sitting down eating beef and supposedly enjoying themselves. The announcer comes on and and says “That’s right. More women than ever are getting their necessary zinc, calcium and iron nowadays.” etc. etc.
“Beef, it’s what’s for dinner.”

OK, now I’ll admit that I’ve only seen this commercial once and I know that some of the details in it are a bit hazy, but I got the general gist: they want women to eat meat. Well for gosh sakes, what a novel concept! Because women don’t eat meat now. No one in the history of the world has ever conceived of a woman being so equal to a man that they would dare enter the restaurant and consume meat that should be served to the man. I mean, women caring about the minerals and vitamins that enter their body…inconceivable! Take that you two stuffy old uncomfortable feeling men!

Has anyone else seen this commercial? What do you think? Subtlety, thy name ain’t beef council. It’s like they tried to smack the viewer upside the head with the 2 by 4 of liberation. And the 2 by 4 is weilded by those same stuff old uncomfortable feeling men who are creating this commercial soley to increase profits. Frankly, if I were female, I wouldn’t feel empowered by this commercial, I’d feel insulted.

2

Or there is option 3, which is to ignore it as being pretty pointless.

Women, in general, order less beef than men. The Beef Producers are trying to use the “bandwagon” concept to increase sales. Also, the “Hey gals, let’s show those men!” concept as well. I ignore the commercial. (And I already eat a lot of beef on my low-carb diet as it is…)

3

Well, I haven’t seen the commercial, but I have seen the type of restaurant they’re playing off. There’s a certain type of old-time “men’s” restaurant–the kind that specializes in steaks, martinis, and business deals. They’re usually decorated in lots of brass and red leather and tend to be on the dark side. They were vanishing for a while, but have since become trendy again in the recent anti-health backlash that has produced a renewed interest in classic coctails, smoking and red meat.

I think they are just trying to play around with that type of atmosphere. I can assure you that every city has several old boy’s restaurants where women just weren’t welcome.

4

I think the underlying joke about the commercial is that it’s set in one of those clubby-steakhouse places that would have “normally” full of the same stuffy, business-suited men negotiating important business deals… but it’s full of women! Women are supposed to order salads with dressing on the side, or maybe the fish of the day if they’re really hungry… but steak? How… unladylike! It’s not very dainty, is it? How… shocking! :rolleyes:

No, didn’t feel empowered by the notion, but didn’t care, either.