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Melissa Escamilla
Professor Ditch
English 113A
8 December 2014
Sex In Advertisements
Sex appeal is used in advertisement to get peoples attention. The visual text that I have
chosen is for the advertisement of a Carls Jr product. The item being advertised in the
commercial is their salad, starring the reality TV star Kim Kardashian. Carls Jr has been using
women as objects in their commercials since 2005, to try and gather an audience thatll purchase
their food. The celebrity Kim Kardashian is seen eating the salad very sexually, to try and seduce
those that come across the commercial. Carls Jr uses women as sexual symbols in order to
advertise, when they can have women in their commercials with other purposes. Why is it that if
a female does something sexual in a commercial it is approved, rather than if a male does it, its
seen as hilarious. Women being used as objects should not be approved in society let alone in the
media. What I am going to be arguing is that Carls Jr commercials use women to appeal to their
audience by objectifying women, and making them sexual objects to the public eye. This is
harmful because these commercials may create body issues that could cause women to be
insecure about themselves. It can also cause men to have certain expectations of women. Carls
Jr has been doing these commercials for many years now and it isnt right. Women are not to be
used as objects.
These commercials being shown to us by the media can be the cause to women having
body issues. Since the media shows all these different body types on the television, females feel
that is what is expected of them. For example I the advertisement I have chosen to argue, Kim

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Kardashian is a very curvy woman. The females in the audience watching this commercial, feel
like that is the perfect body and that they have to fall into that social norm. These are the
norms that society is placing upon people and it does indeed affect the gendering process. Just
how it was said in Composing Gender, The process of gendering and its outcome are
legitimated by religion, law, science, and the societys entire set of values(Lorber, pg21). If
what the society is focusing on is all about image, then it is no wonder that the females gendering
becomes affected. The Newport Academy article also states 53 percent of American girls report
that they are unhappy with their bodies at age seventeen(Karimkhani, pg1). Young females out
in the society are being affected by what is being shown on television in the media. We should
take this into consideration to prevent women from being unhappy in their own skin.
Since women are feeling unhappy in their bodies they look for ways to make changes to
themselves. This can lead to having eating disorders. There are many kinds of eating disorders
like Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge eating. This isnt right that out of these advertisements, people
get insecurities out of them. It was stated in the Newport Academy article by Valeh KarimKhani
that, 90 percent of all Americans afflicted with an eating disorder are female. An estimated of
five percent of adolescent girls are suffering from anorexia(Karimkhani, pg1). Having an eating
disorder is a serious issue and should be taken seriously. It can lead to having mental illness, and
is involved with death rates. With all of this information being thrown at us that is another reason
why we should take these issues more seriously. Carls Jr and their commercials take part in why
women establish body issues. The commercials they create using women are not right and cause
the women in their audience to have insecurities, that may even lead to having eating an disorder.
This advertisement does not just target the women it also reaches out to the men in
society. Carls Jr uses Kim Kardashian in their commercial to be eating the salad. She is not just

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simply eating the salad, but she eats it in a way thatll try to seduce her audience. The company
purposely placed the TV celebrity in a bedroom setting, to imply that sex and food are what
everyone wants and needs. The setting in which shes eating the salad is already unrealistic. The
clothes that Kim is wearing show her cleavage as she is placed on the bed seducing the camera
by rolling around. As the celebrity eats the Carls Jr product, her facial expressions show that she
is enjoying what she eats. Carls Jr has done this on purpose to put out a sexual vibe when you
watch what they are advertising. They are using Kim Kardahsian for the wrong purpose and only
making her look like a sex symbol to the public. Now men are getting expectations when they
have their women in the bedroom. The men may even start to discriminate against the rest of
females and only want to look for a woman like the one shown on TV. So it is not just the
women that get affected by these commercials, men get wrong expectations from them.
Carls Jr has now been doing these types of commercials objectifying women for many
years. It all started back in 2005 when they used the celebrity TV star Paris Hilton in one of their
commercials. At the time they were promoting their Texas BBQ Thick burger with Paris Hilton
starring in their commercial. She was seen wearing a very thin bikini exposing her body to the
audience. Carls Jr purposely added another female into the advertisement, to try an attract the
males in the audience. By adding the other woman in the commercial it gave out a vibe that they
were going to mess around while eating the burger at the same time on the car. This isnt right
that Carls Jr always uses women in specific to gather an audience to sell their product.
Whenever the commercial involves having a woman in it, automatically the theme is sex to try
and seduce the camera in order to sell whatever food product they may be advertising. If it were
a male in the commercial, the theme would probably be a bit funnier or straightforward to what

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they are even trying to advertise. This is constantly putting down women in society because they
are only seen as objects. Carls Jr should not be doing this and need to be put to an end.
These commercials need to be taken more seriously and realize that it does in fact affect
the viewers. Carls Jr isnt bothered by it as long as they keep selling their food products. The
negative effects created by this commercial go unseen and almost as if they are blind to what is
going on, and how their audience is being affected. Body issues are being created by these
advertisements, females in our society feel uncomfortable in their bodies. Why would a company
want that to happen to their audience? Eating disorders are becoming more and more common in
society, and they begin at young ages as well. Not only are the women being targeted but the
men as well. Men start to develop expectations of their women. They set standards of what they
want their female to have, and may even discriminate against all of the other females in the
world. Although these commercials demonstrate negative outcomes, some may argue that this
can be seen as motivation instead. People may argue that itll motivate their viewers to look a
certain way, and to have more of a positive outlook on their lives. That may be the case for some
viewers but the majority of the feedback from these types of advertisements is negative. Carls Jr
only focuses on having an income, and is not bothered by what else may be going on. The
women featured in their commercials, are accepting the fact that they are only being used to
seduce their audience, by giving out the idea that food can relate to sex. This isnt right the
women in society should know their worth and not submit themselves to this form of advertising.
We need to put an end to these advertisements and not let women be insecure of themselves, or
even create body issues. Men are only getting the wrong idea about females. This has been going
on for many years now for Carls Jr, and it needs to stop.

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Works Cited
Groner, Rachael, O Hara, John F. Composing Gender. Bedford St. Martins Boston.
New York, 2014. Print
KarimKhani, Valeh. Troubled teens are very likely to turn to unhealthy lifestyles when
they are unable to cope with their problems. Newportacademy.com/anorexiatreatment/statistics/. Newport Academy Facility, 2013. Web. 3 Oct. 2014.