One of the biggest things that marketers in America realize is that sex sells. As a result, many television shows and television advertisements often sexualize females in order to push the story line or sell their product. One of the biggest companies that use sex to sell their products is Carl’s Jr. Now, for most guys, this kind of thing may work; it makes me extremely uncomfortable and does not make me want to go to Carl’s Jr. any more than I already do. Their most recent commercial for the new bacon three-way burger is what I have a real issue with.

Now in this commercial, Carl’s Jr. has three greased up, bikini-clad women who are in a kitchen. One of them is cooking some bacon, another one is chopping up some bacon, and the last one is provocatively stirring a bacon sauce. Then, as the commercial goes on, the one cooking the bacon begins to eat a strip of bacon in a very suggestive way. To end the commercial, one of the models says, “Yeah, yeah, I know what [you are] thinking, but [it is] called a bacon three-way burger, what did you expect?” Now this ending line is what bothers me the most. The ending line sends the message that we as America have become so numb to the idea of how women are treated as sexual objects by the media, that we should accept it whenever a company like Carl’s Jr. creates an advertisement like this. We, as America, need to address this issue -- it means that other men need to say that this kind of advertising is unacceptable.

One of the main people in Hollywood fighting against this is Chris Pratt. In a June 2015 interview, Pratt was asked about how he felt that since he had cut weight and bulked up, people started viewing his body more as an object. In addition, when asked about how women in film are more overtly and more often sexualized as opposed to men, Pratt talked about if we truly wanted women to less sexualized, the best way to do so would be to sexualize men more. As much as I love Pratt as an actor, I would completely disagree with what he is saying. When we view the human body as an object rather than an actual person’s body, you get people who think things like cat calling are an acceptable way of treating another human being and that is not the way we should be treating one another.

The best example since Chris Pratt’s interview of this new way of objectifying men the same way as women was the Olympic flag bearer for Tonga. He was all greased up, showcasing upper body strength. The flag bearer’s entrance was the talk of the Opening Ceremonies, simply for the way his body looked. I am not going to say that it was not deserved, as I am sure he worked very hard to get in that kind of physical shape; however, for that to be the most talked about thing from the Opening Ceremonies is a little concerning, because of the troubling history of Brazil that was shown before any country made their entrance. Brazil had some very serious issues going on, yet all we were talking about was how gorgeous the Tongan flag bearer was. Seriously, are we not better than that?

Here in America, we seem to believe that it is okay to hyper sexualize other human beings and treat them as though they are pieces of meat. This is an unacceptable standard that we are starting to grow numb to -- this needs to be fixed. Now I am not here to say that we should not have men shirtless or women who are showing off their bodies in a way that makes them feel confident, but when it gets to the point where we treat these people more as objects than people, it is time for a change. We need to get away from the mantra that "sex sells" and focus on ways to showcase a product or push a storyline in way that does not dehumanize the model or actor/actress.