This promo, featuring characters from the animated series ‘Sit Down, Shut Up’ aired during Fox NFL Sunday on 10/11/09. The segment was ‘presented by’ Burger King and I’ve embedded it below…
I’ll transcribe a few of the shots at Jessica Simpson:
“Man, I still can’t believe Tony dated Jessica Simpson even after she blew up bigger than Flozell Adams.”
“At least Jessica comes up big when it counts.”
“Hey, Tony, is Jessica around? Because we could use a defensive tackle.
It’s almost incomprehensible why Fox would air this attack on someone who previously dated a current NFL player. Millions and millions of people were watching this broadcast and you can bet your ass Jessica Simpson was probably among them. Then again, it seems to be a free-for-all when it comes to attacking the fallen pop star these days. Hell, even the President took a shot.
There have been countless articles and debates on the talk show circuit about how comments on-air affect their targets in the real world. Generally, I don’t buy them. After a hard-hitting interview with Nancy Grace, 21-year-old Melinda Duckett committed suicide. Grace says the mother shot herself because she felt guilty about her missing son, Duckett’s family says otherwise. A long time target of the right, abortion doctor George Tiller (labeled ‘Tiller the Baby Killer’ by opponents) was gunned down at a Kansas church by an anti-abortion activist. ConservaTalkers claimed no responsibility for the murder, liberals disagreed. I think reality is a whole lot messier than black-and-white arguments on either side but it’s funny that this same standard isn’t held to issues of less importance.
Don’t these folks think that Jessica Simpson could have an adverse reaction to being called fat in front of millions of football fans? Isn’t it possible that she’s in a weakened mental state?
For God’s sake, the woman has resorted to Internet dating… it’s that bad.
Jessica Simpson isn’t quite as stupid as you might imagine. She knows how she once looked (see: photo above, left) and how she currently looks (photo above, right) and I’m pretty sure she isn’t comfortable with the weight gain. And I’m not alone in my criticism, here’s adage.com’s take:
Fox wrote, produced and aired the bit nationally, in other words. Still, there’s Burger King’s name, big as day, right before the skit starts. Weight jokes associated with a fast-food chain just strike us as dumb no matter how you look at it. Consider the Whopper. The sandwich has 19 Weight Watchers points, or just under the average daily goal. Adding fries and a small shake would take you up to 45 points, or more than the average woman should consume in two days. Laughing yet?
What’s even more bizarre, as adage.com points out, is that Burger King sponsored the bit but didn’t preview the spot they would be attaching their brand name to. Well, why not?
Both Burger King and Fox are apologizing for the entire fiasco but it seems like some red flags should have gone up somewhere along the line. Still no comment from Jessica Simpson.
I’m all for making fun of people and I’m all for taking cheap shots. I’m never for stifling free speech but I think it’s important to call out people who do stupid things. For instance: if a major television network used a cartoon on prime time (sponsored by a multinational fast food chain that doesn’t exactly help when it comes to the obesity dilemma) to attack a pop star who is hardly relevant any more, that might be a bit much. And let’s all remember a painful truth here, at the end of the day, there aren’t many among us who would turn down sex with Jessica Simpson just because she packed on a few pounds in the last few years. In fact, I think we’d be fighting for the first spot in line…
Update: Fox is in full back-pedal mode now. They yanked the clip from Youtube.com via a copyright claim. The video below has some of the original footage. Let’s see how long this version lasts…
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Tags: Music, Television