a blog by Clark H Smith

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Long John Silver's

In the latest ad from grease-merchant, Long John Silver's, a woman who owns no hairbrush calls her lunch guest by the wrong name.  He politely corrects her... and this is where it gets weird.  Watch:

In the 30 second commercial (provided above) the woman responds to her mistake with a brief moment of thoughtfulness.  In this scenario, she's simply forgetful that she actually hired her dinner guest into the company.  She almost seems delighted that her memory is refreshed.

But this is not the ad that most often runs on TV.  In the more often seen 15* second commercial, the woman makes the same mistake.  When corrected, she responds with abject dismissal, "Whatever" and she waves off her guest with a fried shrimp. The subliminal message is "men are social furniture - convenient, but anonymous".

It's odd, isn't it, that LJS edited down the rather innocent commercial to make it more dismissive of men?  I guess the message is, if you don't care about the identity of the man you travel and dine with, Long John Silver's is just your kind of place.

* Not sure why LJS does not post the 15sec version. Maybe they realize how offensive it it.

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