Sexist TGIF Ads and Other National Traditions

According to Advertising Age, one of the more offensive ad campaigns of recent days has cracked the top ten of most memorable/most liked spots for the week.  The ads for TGI Friday's feature the hacktastic Guy Fieri speaking directly to the viewer, in one of them saying "hey buddy, your date's going great."  Considering that the person the viewer is presumed to be on a "date" with is a skinny, stereotypically attractive white woman, it's pretty damned obvious who the ad is speaking to and who it isn't.  It's not only an ad that is meant to exclude women (although technically it could be aimed at lesbians, that's not the feel it gives at all), not to mention men of color and gay men, but does it in an incredibly overt way.  It makes a certain amount of twisted patriarchal sense when beer ads are directed at men, although even they don't usually talk directly only to men.  But restaurant chains?  Do they really want to cut their audience size 50%?  It's doubly stupid when you're selling a 'right portion, right price' message, because portion size is also generally something aimed at women.  As much as these ads seem to be 'working,' though, they will have the consequence of my not attending a TGIF again.  I'm not exactly mourning the loss of the boring Americanized fare. 

Speaking of which, Foodbuzz friend Endless Simmer has a post in honor of the Fourth on "foods only Americans could have invented."  It focuses on fat laden wonders like fast food Chinese takeout.  A bit tongue-in-cheek, I'm hoping.  In that presumed spirit I offer the following points in rebuttal:

A. Scotland.
B. The corn dog has corn meal as its major ingredient and is sometimes not even greasy.  Surely we can find a more extravagant villain (see: A). 
C. Wedding food tells us a lot.  In other words, the diet of the majority of people in any country, say China, should not necessarily be confused with the diet they would be consuming were their means enough to allow them to eat what they wanted.   
D. A Philly steak with kobe beef and another kind of cheese would taste different from a real Philly steak, but not necessarily better in some inarguable sense.  There are many kinds of superior cheese, but Gruyere specifically has no clear advantage over Cheese Whiz in my book.  Now, a little chevre, maybe....
E.  It's a particularly American form of pleasure-denying to think that the human propensity toward fatty, salty foods is endemic to us and is also somehow evil.    
F. But I agree about the Cobb salad.    
G. The entry on the Reuben put me in mind of one of my favorite film lines, "I notice there are no actual Reubens in here," from Quiz Show.  No more needs to be said.   
H. Chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream: you take one thing that tastes amazing and combine it with another thing that tastes nice but bland, and create a product ten times the sum of its parts, and this is the shame of the American culinary tradition?  Bring on the shame, baby. 

With love,
-FL