Last night, Elijah and I were enjoying the Suns' rare beatdown of the Lakers. After all, what seven-year-old doesn't want to see the bad guys lose? At some point in the fourth quarter, during a fruitless Lakers timeout, the inevitable commercial for Carl's Jr. appeared. In it, a hot young thing who appeared to have studied at the Megan Fox school of crazy-charm writhed around on a bed while eating a hideous-looking salad that appeared to contain some combination of fruit, chicken, and nuts. Sometimes, she said, she just gets so hungry. The commercial ended with our heroine dipping her smooth, tanned form into a soaking tub, gazing coyly over her shoulder, leaving the core customer base of Carl's Jr. with a vaguely dissatisfied feeling in its collective loin.
This seemed like a teachable moment, as President Obama would say. I'd use the opportunity to give my son a simple lesson in media criticism.
"Now, Elijah, what do you think that commercial is trying to tell us?"
"I don't know."
"Do you think it's trying to say that if you eat at Carl's Jr., a sexy lady is going to come over to your house and lay on your bed?"
"I don't know."
"Well, do you think that would happen?"
"No. The commercial is trying to tell you that if you eat at Carl's Jr., you're going to be clean."
This was an interesting angle.
"Why?" I said.
"Because the lady takes a bath at the end."
"Oh."
"That's lying, daddy, because if you eat at Carl's Jr., you're probably going to be dirty."
Sex doesn't sell to seven-year-olds, thank Jeebus. But they end up getting the point anyway.
