Subway: Leave No One Unoffended
The headline reads, French bashing alive and well in parts of America:
Two years after relations between the US and France soured over the Iraq war, French-bashing in America appears alive and well in light of a recent ad campaign by a fast-food chain linking France and cowardice.The ad by the Subway chain touted a cordon bleu chicken sandwich with the words "France and chicken, somehow it just goes together". A photo of a chicken dressed like Napoleon accompanied the advertisement.
Subway ran the ads in about 10 US states for nearly a month and pulled them in September following an outcry by members of the French expatriate community and other customers offended by the racist undertone.
Remember, this is chicken cordon bleu, i.e., a French chicken dish. The restaurant didn't mean offense. Says the spokesman, "The perfect match of French cuisine and the Subway chicken ... that was the intent of this advertising."
But some were offended because, of course, there is more than a little grain of truth in putting a French uniform on a chicken. But the AFP article makes a big deal about the acceptability of French-bashing in America.
Of course there's no mention that Subway has stores in 81 countries, including France.
Nor is there any mention of the much more offensive advertising found in about 100 German Subways last year.
Like the image at the left that was featured on a Subway tray in Germany:
The trayliner asks "Why are the Amis {Americans} ("Amis" - a derogatory term for Americans) so fat?" and includes a caricature of the Statue of Liberty as an obese woman holding fries and a hamburger.The tray liner was part of an advertising campaign for Morgon Spurlock's hack documentary (hackumentary?) "Supersize Me" in which Spurlock claims to gain 24 pounds in 30 days by eating exclusively at McDonalds three times a day. If asked if he would like the meal "supersized" he always accepted and consumed everything, even if it meant gorging to the point of vomiting later. And he made it a point to not exercise
There is, of course, no mention of Soso Whaley's follow-up documentary in which she at nothing but McDonalds for 30 days but chose things like salads, but still ate fries with chocolate shakes and even Big Macs. She lost 10 pounds in 30 days. And another 8 pounds the next 30 days. In fact, she stayed on the plan for 90 days and lost almost 30 pounds. [It amazes me that a hack like Spurlock gets so much attention, even after his work has been thoroughly debunked.]
But I digress: back to Subway's horrible display of anti-Americanism, because it didn't stop at the tray liner.
After a large American outcry, the (American) company removed the offensive advertisements from their German stores.
But within days 
the image of a giant cheeseburger crashing into two skyscrapers appeared in a nutritional guide. Figures running from the towers include a man in a cowboy hat (gee, I wonder who that's supposed to be?).
The company tried to defend this image:
Les Winograd, another spokesman for the sandwich company, said Subway headquarters in the United States contacted the German stores, which claim "they've never even seen it (the press kit/nourishment diary)."Yeah, right.Selbert confirmed that information in an interview with CNSNews.com.
"Those were for journalists and they were never made available at the Subway stores," she said. But she could not explain how a customer at a Munich Subway obtained one.
Selbert said her company was surprised to see images from the press kit popping up on Internet sites.
Still, I've decided not to boycott Subway. They are not clearly anti-American: they offend everyone in pursuit of sales. A fine capitalist tradition.
And dressing a chicken in Nepoleon's uniform is a stroke of genius. After all, isn't it about time we got back to hating the French? [link is to a 2 MB download of an SNL sketch]
Blog post #5423 in category
Boycott
posted 6 October 05
After all, isn't it about time we got back to hating the French?
When did we stop?
Posted by rightwingprof on Friday at 8:20 AM
Oh la la!!! The frogs are upset? Let them eat CAKE! Either that or SNAILS!
Posted by Mike's America on Saturday at 1:30 AM