Sunday, October 08, 2006

Pretend Eating

It's generally small things that drive me nuts.

One thing currently driving me to distraction is the McDonalds Big
Tasty advert showing at the moment, where the bloke isn't listening to his girlfriend 'cos he's enjoying his Big Tasty too much. Except he isn't, 'cos he isn't eating it. In fact he fails to bite it about 3 or 4 times. This little slice of fictional life, this vignette onto a fragile human relationship, about to possibly be dashed by the poor male's inability to concentrate on more than one thing at once and he isn't even eating the burger. I've eaten one or two Big Tastys and they are not bad, if a little Whopperish. But here he is, ignoring his girlfriend as she pours her hopes and dreams out to him, fixated by this char grilled reformatted meat disk slathered in mayo and sauce, cheese and crisp, sliced lettuce between a sesame bun. And he's faking it.

Why? Why not at it? He's a small time actor, not Ross Kemp, so cash and therefore food must be scarce. At the very least he may not know where his next pretend meal might be coming from. It's not like they wouldn't do another take if he accidentally had a strip of lettuce hanging out of his mouth or a blob of special sauce on the end of his nose. Has it gone cold? It never stopped me eating a burger. Perhaps they've sprayed it with Cillit Bang or Pledge to make it look more appetising. (I've heard photographers do some pretty odd things to food when they photograph it, to make it look good.) Is he vegetarian? Anti-capitalist? Does eating burger break some religious law for this man? Perhaps there are guidelines against biting meat on television, like there are about selling alcohol. Is he so middle
class he can't bring himself to bite a foodstuff clearly aimed at people wearing tracksuits and Argos jewellery?

He's not the only one either. I've seen the same thing on Burger King adverts and KFC, too. Why? If someone in advertising stumbles across this rant, I'd love to know the answer.

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