Pitbull Lovers Take McBite Out of McDonald's
Riduculously cute Tippi poses on a hillside in Hollywood, California. Rescued by the kind folks at Angel City Pitt Bulls, she eventually found a loving forever home. (Photo: Blaire Borkowski)
We must never forget the power we the consumers hold over corporations. When McDonald’s recently aired an ad in the Kansas City area claiming that “eating a Chicken McBite was less risky than petting a stray pitbull, shaving your head, naming your son Sue or giving friends your Facebook password,” pitbull owners and fans rallied on Facebook, and McDonald’s bowed to the pressure, The Huffington Post reports.
McDonald’s should worry less about the danger of pitbulls and more about what lies within each golden, batter-fried McBite: the sad and scary remains of drugged and abused battery hens from factory farms.
“The ad was insensitive in its mention of pitbulls,” said Ashlee Yingling, spokeswoman for McDonald’s Corp. “We apologize. As soon as we learned of it, we tracked the source and had the local markets pull the ad immediately. We’ll do a better job next time. It’s never our intent to offend anyone with how we communicate news about McDonald’s.”
“It was stupid marketing, playing into the media hysteria about pitbulls,” said Rachele Lizaragga of Sacramemto. She runs a pet-sitting business and is the social media coordinator for Chako Pitbull Rescue, a group that started the Facebook page “Pitbulls Against McDonald’s.”
Beyond the harmful “breedist” cliches perpetuated about pitbulls, Lizarraga highlights the absurdity and irony of the McDonald’s ads, which at once seem to acknowledge the toxicity of its so-called food products while attempting to cleverly shrug it off.
Truthfully, McDonald’s should worry less about the danger of pitbulls and more about what lies within each golden, batter-fried McBite: the sad and scary remains of drugged and abused battery hens from factory farms.
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