Even in an era when children’s obesity is a significant problem (though a commenter points out that this is contested), the ever-upping of serving sizes at McDonald’s doesn’t appear to be skipping kids.  Stephen W. took this picture at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania this week. 

Now McDonald’s doesn’t just offer Happy Meals, but Mighty Meals.  Mighty Meals include a double cheeseburger instead of a hamburger or cheeseburger or a 6-piece McNugget instead of a 4-piece. 

By the way, a Mighty Meal with a double cheeseburger has 780 calories.

And, really, what kid doesn’t want to be mighty?  McDonald’s will sink pretty low for a few extra pennies.

Thanks for the tip and the picture, Stephen!

Text:  “These guys these street gangs, settle their scores by singing and dancing together?  Doesn’t sound like anybody on the Westside I know.”

Text: “You want nice.  Go pick your mommy a flower.”

Text:  “Gentlemen, Check your skirts at the door.”

Text: “Today you’re using your girlfriend’s hair gel.  Tomorrow, your wife’s hairspray.  Where does it end my friend?  Where does it end?”

NEW (Mar. ’10)! Emma H. sent in this commercial, which ran during the 2010 Olympics, in which a man — shock and horror! — likes ice dancing:

More ads policing men’s behavior: sissies suck, how to do masculinity (hugging and sitting), “woman” as an insult, and boys can’t wear make-up at school.

Muriel M.M. brought my attention to the catalog for Galls, a company that makes equipment and uniforms for public safety officers (military, police, firefighting, etc.). Muriel, an EMT, says,

The thing about their products is they don’t change much. Over the ten years I’ve received the catalog I can pretty much tell you what’s going to be in it: guns, batons, handcuffs, clothing such as boots, coats, uniforms, etc. Medical equipment and fire equipment are sold such as sirens, lights, latex gloves, breathing equipment. The list goes on and on.

But the newest version of the catalog Muriel received has something new: handcuffs now come in colors, not just silver. The options are blue, brown, gray, orange, yellow, and pink (light and bright!):

There are a couple of interesting things here. For one, it’s an attempt to provide a little (very limited) individualization to people who have to wear standard uniforms. Of course, it’s a superficial type of customization, similar to getting a cell phone of a particular color, but it provides at least some sense that the product reflects the personality or tastes of the user…something companies figured out long ago could boost sales (how many colors do cell phones come in these days?). Given that, I wonder how many police departments would allow officers to use brightly-colored handcuffs. Officers are allowed to buy customized items, but they can’t just go buy a different color of uniform; it may be that little personalized “touches” like this are allowed, though.

It’s also interesting to think about what the reaction might be to an officer who showed up at work with pink handcuffs. I wonder how many female officers would want to bring attention to their gender by using a product marked by the stereotypical feminine color. It also made me think of this post about cops in Thailand being punished by being forced to wear pink Hello Kitty armbands. I’m assuming a person would buy pink handcuffs to express their taste, but after looking at the old post, it made me wonder if anyone would ever put pink cuffs on male suspects just to try to annoy them. I bet one of my relatives who is a police officer would totally do that, except that it would require him to carry pink cuffs around all the time, which he would never, under any circumstances, do. He flipped out because his son liked a pink ball once.

NEW! Ben O. sent us a link to a similar product, Petals Workwear for Women.  The company makes pink products for female construction workers.

Hard hat:

Tool belt:

Protective ear wear:

Protective eye wear:

NEW (Aug. ’10)! Garland Walton sent along these pink boxing accessories: gloves, tape, and a mouth guard.  All in pink!

See also our post with a cartoon riffing on how people seem to think that pinkification is the answer to gender inequality.

I think this is a great example of discursive, and other, manipulation.  I’ll focus on the discursive.  This advertisement is for Dupont and it’s suggesting that Dupont is awesome because it engages in “open science.”  See if you can discern, from the ad, what exactly “open science” is:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KynnzHJS-K4[/youtube]

I certainly couldn’t.  It has something to do with scientists working together and Dupont tells us it’s responsible for some pretty great things.  But what is it?  And why do I feel so goddamn good about it?

Well part of the reason is certainly the pretty colors, lovely voice-over, and cartoon-y images… but it’s also the word “open.”  The word “open” is pretty much universally positive.  It’s like the word “choice” or “life.”  These are good words.  So if you label something with a word like that, it must be good, right?

Well, no.  Of course not.  It’s just labelling.  Most of you are probably vehemently pro-life or pro-choice and against the other, despite the fact that both labels have comforting words. 

Anyway, if anyone knows what “open science” is, I’d be glad to know!

via MultiCultClassics.

Over at Kate Harding’s site, user Daminique writes about an ad she saw in a Dutch train station:

The idea behind this ad: the fat lady gets distracted by a bag of candy, ‘loses her head’, and people could see her PIN number because she wasn’t paying attention.

I could get really analytical here, but I run the risk of vitriolic sarcasm. I’ll just say that this ad is a great illustration of the societal connection between “health” and moral goodness, not to mention a cheap-shot joke at the expense of fat people.

Ii think this ad for Kotex is using the X-TREME meme to sell pads (found here):

The copy reads:

It’s got a million micro cells that say your heavy days are goin’ down.

Three words… bring it on.  Always Infinity can take it.  It’s the world’s first pad of its kind.  Packed with an uber-absorbent material called Infinicel that has the power to hold 10x its weight.  Which means you just kicked the heavy out of heavy days.

Um, “goin’ down,” “bring it on,” “uber-absorbent,” “kicked the heavy”?  They even have an “x” in there.  Not to mention the whole floating in a circle of light thing.

The ever-fantastic Sarah Haskins on car ads aimed at women:

For other examples of marketing cars to women, see here, here, here, here, here, and here.