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KFC has found itself in a bit of hot water after airing a commercial on TV that shows a couple of boys, and a unhappy mother, staring a woman’s breasts as she “adjusts” herself in ther reflection of their car’s driver’s side window.
The TV spot, which has been airing in Australia, was denounced as sexist by Collective Shout, an Australian “grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls,” according to the group’s website.
KFC has since apologized for the ad (but still has it availabe on their YouTube account – see below), issuing a statement that read, “We apologise if anyone was offended by our latest commercial. Our intention was not to stereotype women and young boys in a negative light.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRriM-LPy24
Collective Shout spokeswoman Melinda Liszewski said in a statement that the KFC promo is a “regression to tired and archaic stereotypes where young women are sexually objectified for male pleasure; and males are helplessly transfixed when confronted with the opportunity to ogle a woman’s body.”
“Ads like this reinforce the false idea that we can’t expect better from boys,” Liszewski continued. “It is another manifestation of the ‘boys will be boys’ trope, hampering our ability to challenge sexist ideas which contribute to harmful behaviour towards women and girls.”
This is the second time in the past few years that KFC has apologized for a marketing faux pas.
In 2016, KFC social media sent out a tweet that read, “WARNING: #NSFW. Something hot and spicy is coming soon.”
Accompanying the text was this photo…
KFC deletes crotch-grabbing tweet, apologizes https://t.co/bGqEasWWxk pic.twitter.com/6DlRHBr6NP
— CNET (@CNET) April 17, 2016
A KFC spokesman called the tweet an “error in judgement.”
Collective Shout has called for a boycott of KFC.
Not everyone agreed.
https://twitter.com/GOODNEWSGAMING/status/1219824916649955328
https://twitter.com/TTV_oSyz/status/1219655684033261569
KFC outrage is because there's no place for humour in TV ads if it involves good looking women wearing anything other than a pants suit. No wonder TAB Cola went broke in the 80s. Whatever happened to this poor young lady? #exploitation https://t.co/XVM74lvfUP
— ralph horowitz (@rtralphy) January 21, 2020
https://twitter.com/BlackMeijin/status/1219750793705742336
The only thing wrong with this commercial is the poor acting.
— Ian Chant 🇦🇺🇨🇦 (@chant_ian) January 21, 2020
On that I think we can all agree. Stay woke.