TV commercials and other messages a la carte.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe
• Position: Words & Images - Society's values - Brief Article

AMERICANS are usually squeamish when it comes to figuring out where their food comes from. You won't see many tours of stockyards and slaughterhouses. Many were disgusted by a Fred Wiseman documentary following the food chain from cows to dinner table. We love our steaks, hamburgers, bacon, and hot dogs, but we really don't want to focus on the way the food gets to our table. Because of this, it's even more surprising that a series of TV commercials show various animals cavorting around the small screen before being turned into chicken and lobster entrees.

One such ad shows a series of animated chickens dancing and singing before a real-life chicken breast sizzles on the screen. Another shows a chef coming out of the ocean with a live lobster that quickly turns into a steamed lobster coming out of the boiling water ready for serving. Another commercial--two chickens who love junk food and therefore are not fit fowl for one chicken-producing company--has turned its chicken puppets into familiar folk heroes. One fast-food chain has a talking hot dog running for its life before its real-life counterpart is covered with mustard ready for a hungry mouth. Another fast-food restaurant specializing in chicken has a lively animated spokesbird who thinks he's a human being passionate about eating chicken. A spokeswoman for that company boasted that "our food is fun to eat" and "our new animated chicken" embraces the essence of the brand by enthusiastically conveying how the company makes life easier for people--whether it's offering them great value or a new menu item. She didn't seem to sense the irony of an animated chicken happily hawking cooked dead chicken parts to the public. Images of chickens, pigs, and cows going happily to slaughter so we can enjoy their cooked corpses boggle the mind.

Perhaps it's part of the new culture of younger generations who seem to enjoy all of the rude bodily noises that aging citizens thought were in bad taste. It's difficult to find a movie nowadays that doesn't feature flatulence or vomiting, and many films aimed at the coveted 18-49 market thrive on the most-disgusting habits one can imagine. So, dancing chickens eager to become dinner for a hungry population isn't much of a stretch.

Yet, TV networks refuse to air commercials showing people drinking hard liquor or smoking. It's okay to show humans with a beer bottle in their hands, but not a Bloody Mary. Antismoking commercials are so repulsive that most...