How can the recent Ball Park Franks ad campaign get away with being so homoerotic?
On screen, an adolescent boy sleeps in his room. The single bed, the cluttered desk, the snowboarding posters and the random ephemera taped to the walls testify his youth. The lights are on; he must have just fallen asleep.
He is alone.
Suddenly a strange arm enters the frame and gently tries to coax a hot dog into the boy's mouth. The boy limply bats the wiener away. Driven by hunger, desire, the arm grabs a tennis racket from besides the bed and batters the boy across the face.
The boy screams but no one runs to his aid. He is truly alone except for the stranger who will not be denied. The arm shoves the frank into his mouth. Terror and pain erode; the boy smiles. The young victim is revealed to be a willing participant. Violation has become intimacy. The scene would seem to be the successful and bizarre result for a rape fantasy posted on Craiglist, where would-be victims promise, "Can leave front door unlocked, you come in, find me asleep in bedroom, have your way with me" and "Sneak into a dark house and 'rape' the guy you find sleeping naked in his bed[.]"
Or since the scene is filmed, it could be the start to some extremely hard-core piece of pornography. However, it is part of Ball Park Franks' "Hunger Gets what Hunger Wants" advertising campaign. The stranger's arm has, in fact, emerged from the boy's gut in part to represent the boy's physical hunger and desire to eat.
Desire, especially sexual desire, is pretty standard fare in advertising. Cigarette, alcohol and fashion ads capitalize on desire very heavily. (How many cold showers came in the aftermath of watching Brooke Shields purr "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins?") Recently even the worlds of mainstream advertising and pornography have met on the cover and in the pages of a Loehman's catalog, featuring gay porn star Erik Rhodes.
The "Hunger Gets what Hunger Wants" campaign plays with erotic elements, hiding them in full-sight. Although they strive for a cheekiness and absurdity through the incongruity of arms emerging from guts and unmotivated violence, their use of certain erotic and gay pornographic tropes places the this campaign in a more precarious position. The position is one of targeting adolescent boys with the language of homoerotic images, a language boys, in general, have a great discomfort with.
In another commercial, two adolescents sit on a couch playing video games—a plate with a single hot dog between them. Ostensibly, the visual language of this commercial is meant to be read as a scene from the everyday life of teen boys; however, the specific language used is the same language used by websites like Amateur Straight Guys (amateurstraightguys.com) or Straight Boys Fucking (straightboysfucking.com). These sites hire straight men to satisfy the erotic interests of their gay male clientele.
In a suburban downstairs living room, the boys are slouched on a couch; their eyes are focused on a television in front of them—which the viewer cannot see, but can hear. Although the scene may, at first, seem innocuous, it draws heavily on the gay porn motif often associated with the masturbatory engagements of straight men. Firstly, the quotidian natures of the location in both the commercial and "Three Guys on a Couch! (Circle Jerk)," a clip from Amateur Straight Guys, have a similar familiarity, a domestic space that has been haphazardly turned into a recreational space. The men in "Three Guys" are in a garage with storage boxes behind them, floodlights on the left and a stepladder on their right. Secondly, "Three Guys," and "Damian Meets 'The Arm'," a clip from Straight Guys Fucking, both contain the same positioning of players as this commercial. Two or three young men sit next to each other on a couch; their gaze is fixed mostly on one point, moving rarely from it—the young men in "Three Guys" focus on straight porn magazines; Damian and The Arm watch straight porn videos; the boys in the commercial on their video game. It is important to note that Damian, who is apparently not straight, can only glance at The Arm since The Arm has "…made it clear no one should touch him."
Mike Stabile explains the importance of this trope on GayPornBlog (gaypornblog.com): "For smaller studios and amateur sites -- especially those that focus on straight guys -- circle jerks are the closest you can get real Marines (or college jocks or fast-food restauranteurs) to [have sex] without having to pay more. And you don't have to deal with the crisis of sexual identity after your butch surfer "comes to" and realizes he's now an official cocksucker."
The commercial veers to the fantastic as a thick and hairy adult arm emerges from between the pant line and tail of the shirt of the boy on the left of the screen. This arm breaks the straightforward nature of the scene. The arm grabs the hot dog and feeds its boy's mouth. The boy smiles with satisfaction. Likewise in "Three Guys," a disembodied hand intrudes. Towards the end of the scene, the cameraman's pudgy hand comes into the frame and grabs one of the young men's penises after the man has climaxed. The index finger and thumb run through the semen. After the hand pulls off-screen, the cameraman audibly smacks his lips and happily proclaims in a deep, throaty lilt, "I got Trevor DNA inside me." The fantastic element of the commercial, merely places the intruding presence and resulting satisfaction inside of the frame, rather than outside
In the commercial, a similar arm emerges from the gut of the second boy and tries to seize the hot dog once it has been returned to the plate. The first arm reemerges with a hammer. The echo of the Straight Boys Fucking performer's demand that no one touch him (or his wiener) can almost be heard. In porn, the inappropriate attention would be met by brushing away the offender. (This action would, of course, assure the viewer they are getting the straight men they are paying for.) Here, the first arm hits the second with a hammer in a more aggressive sign of heterosexual normalization. This action adds to the stratification of readings: on one level reaffirming the players' heterosexuality, on another showing the strength of hunger.
The first arm retakes the hot dog and again feeds its boy creating an intimate and pleasurable moment. The boy smiles again.
The "Hunger Gets" campaigns use of minors and suburban living spaces is reminiscent of Calvin Klein's ad campaign from the mid-'90s. The Klein campaign used underage models, striking seductive poses in wood-paneled and carpeted rooms (so much like the "Hunger Gets" basement.) The media proclaimed the Klein ads, "kiddy porn." The negative attention even ignited an investigation by the FBI and Justice Department. Ball Park Franks has avoided such negative attention, having kept their performers fully clothed.
Of course, popular culture seems to have become more tolerant of contact with pornography, even gay pornography. In the nineties gay porn stars started to appear in the "rarefied" realm of art; Jeff Stryker modeled for Pierre et Gilles, and Joey Stefano appeared in Madonna's Sex. In 2007, the contact with porn has made it to cable TV where Kathy Griffin's "My Life on the D-List" features an episode where Griffin hosts the GayVN porn awards show.
However, American society's overall tolerance of the erotic realm is not exceptionally strong. Five minutes of "Law and Order: SVU" or Bill O'Reilly's rant against San Francisco issuing an official proclamation for gay porn studio Colt's 40th anniversary will clearly illustrate that point. However "Hunger Gets what Hunger Wants" uses the same strategy for protecting its homoerotic content as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray or Herman Melville's "I and My Chimney." The strategy is the use of tropes whose erotic content can be glossed over by the ignorant or disapproving reader.
So teen boys and their parents can buy their hot dogs in innocence, while the rest of us can smile pleased by complexity of meanings these commercials actually offer.
He is alone.
Suddenly a strange arm enters the frame and gently tries to coax a hot dog into the boy's mouth. The boy limply bats the wiener away. Driven by hunger, desire, the arm grabs a tennis racket from besides the bed and batters the boy across the face.
The boy screams but no one runs to his aid. He is truly alone except for the stranger who will not be denied. The arm shoves the frank into his mouth. Terror and pain erode; the boy smiles. The young victim is revealed to be a willing participant. Violation has become intimacy. The scene would seem to be the successful and bizarre result for a rape fantasy posted on Craiglist, where would-be victims promise, "Can leave front door unlocked, you come in, find me asleep in bedroom, have your way with me" and "Sneak into a dark house and 'rape' the guy you find sleeping naked in his bed[.]"
Or since the scene is filmed, it could be the start to some extremely hard-core piece of pornography. However, it is part of Ball Park Franks' "Hunger Gets what Hunger Wants" advertising campaign. The stranger's arm has, in fact, emerged from the boy's gut in part to represent the boy's physical hunger and desire to eat.
Desire, especially sexual desire, is pretty standard fare in advertising. Cigarette, alcohol and fashion ads capitalize on desire very heavily. (How many cold showers came in the aftermath of watching Brooke Shields purr "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins?") Recently even the worlds of mainstream advertising and pornography have met on the cover and in the pages of a Loehman's catalog, featuring gay porn star Erik Rhodes.
The "Hunger Gets what Hunger Wants" campaign plays with erotic elements, hiding them in full-sight. Although they strive for a cheekiness and absurdity through the incongruity of arms emerging from guts and unmotivated violence, their use of certain erotic and gay pornographic tropes places the this campaign in a more precarious position. The position is one of targeting adolescent boys with the language of homoerotic images, a language boys, in general, have a great discomfort with.
In another commercial, two adolescents sit on a couch playing video games—a plate with a single hot dog between them. Ostensibly, the visual language of this commercial is meant to be read as a scene from the everyday life of teen boys; however, the specific language used is the same language used by websites like Amateur Straight Guys (amateurstraightguys.com) or Straight Boys Fucking (straightboysfucking.com). These sites hire straight men to satisfy the erotic interests of their gay male clientele.
In a suburban downstairs living room, the boys are slouched on a couch; their eyes are focused on a television in front of them—which the viewer cannot see, but can hear. Although the scene may, at first, seem innocuous, it draws heavily on the gay porn motif often associated with the masturbatory engagements of straight men. Firstly, the quotidian natures of the location in both the commercial and "Three Guys on a Couch! (Circle Jerk)," a clip from Amateur Straight Guys, have a similar familiarity, a domestic space that has been haphazardly turned into a recreational space. The men in "Three Guys" are in a garage with storage boxes behind them, floodlights on the left and a stepladder on their right. Secondly, "Three Guys," and "Damian Meets 'The Arm'," a clip from Straight Guys Fucking, both contain the same positioning of players as this commercial. Two or three young men sit next to each other on a couch; their gaze is fixed mostly on one point, moving rarely from it—the young men in "Three Guys" focus on straight porn magazines; Damian and The Arm watch straight porn videos; the boys in the commercial on their video game. It is important to note that Damian, who is apparently not straight, can only glance at The Arm since The Arm has "…made it clear no one should touch him."
Mike Stabile explains the importance of this trope on GayPornBlog (gaypornblog.com): "For smaller studios and amateur sites -- especially those that focus on straight guys -- circle jerks are the closest you can get real Marines (or college jocks or fast-food restauranteurs) to [have sex] without having to pay more. And you don't have to deal with the crisis of sexual identity after your butch surfer "comes to" and realizes he's now an official cocksucker."
The commercial veers to the fantastic as a thick and hairy adult arm emerges from between the pant line and tail of the shirt of the boy on the left of the screen. This arm breaks the straightforward nature of the scene. The arm grabs the hot dog and feeds its boy's mouth. The boy smiles with satisfaction. Likewise in "Three Guys," a disembodied hand intrudes. Towards the end of the scene, the cameraman's pudgy hand comes into the frame and grabs one of the young men's penises after the man has climaxed. The index finger and thumb run through the semen. After the hand pulls off-screen, the cameraman audibly smacks his lips and happily proclaims in a deep, throaty lilt, "I got Trevor DNA inside me." The fantastic element of the commercial, merely places the intruding presence and resulting satisfaction inside of the frame, rather than outside
In the commercial, a similar arm emerges from the gut of the second boy and tries to seize the hot dog once it has been returned to the plate. The first arm reemerges with a hammer. The echo of the Straight Boys Fucking performer's demand that no one touch him (or his wiener) can almost be heard. In porn, the inappropriate attention would be met by brushing away the offender. (This action would, of course, assure the viewer they are getting the straight men they are paying for.) Here, the first arm hits the second with a hammer in a more aggressive sign of heterosexual normalization. This action adds to the stratification of readings: on one level reaffirming the players' heterosexuality, on another showing the strength of hunger.
The first arm retakes the hot dog and again feeds its boy creating an intimate and pleasurable moment. The boy smiles again.
The "Hunger Gets" campaigns use of minors and suburban living spaces is reminiscent of Calvin Klein's ad campaign from the mid-'90s. The Klein campaign used underage models, striking seductive poses in wood-paneled and carpeted rooms (so much like the "Hunger Gets" basement.) The media proclaimed the Klein ads, "kiddy porn." The negative attention even ignited an investigation by the FBI and Justice Department. Ball Park Franks has avoided such negative attention, having kept their performers fully clothed.
Of course, popular culture seems to have become more tolerant of contact with pornography, even gay pornography. In the nineties gay porn stars started to appear in the "rarefied" realm of art; Jeff Stryker modeled for Pierre et Gilles, and Joey Stefano appeared in Madonna's Sex. In 2007, the contact with porn has made it to cable TV where Kathy Griffin's "My Life on the D-List" features an episode where Griffin hosts the GayVN porn awards show.
However, American society's overall tolerance of the erotic realm is not exceptionally strong. Five minutes of "Law and Order: SVU" or Bill O'Reilly's rant against San Francisco issuing an official proclamation for gay porn studio Colt's 40th anniversary will clearly illustrate that point. However "Hunger Gets what Hunger Wants" uses the same strategy for protecting its homoerotic content as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray or Herman Melville's "I and My Chimney." The strategy is the use of tropes whose erotic content can be glossed over by the ignorant or disapproving reader.
So teen boys and their parents can buy their hot dogs in innocence, while the rest of us can smile pleased by complexity of meanings these commercials actually offer.
