JAMIE HOTTAKE | Outrage | CONTACT
Somehow, in a world full of violent mass conflict, identity politics run amuck and a renewed addiction for reality TV, we have forgotten the most toxic problem to ever be served with milk and honey.
I speak, of course, about the humble bowl of Weet-Bix.
When they were first invented, Weet-Bix were the most flavoursome European food on so-called Australia, providing nutrients to our community of Christian missionaries and child labourers.
However, it is not the complicated colonial past of Weet-Bix that we must examine, but the continued toxicity of their marketing campaign that challenges the perceived masculinity of their customers by asking a simple loaded question; how many do you do?
In the past, Brett Lee, a man renowned for his sporting prowess on a cricketed patch of grass, was known to remark that he started every morning with seven Weet-Bix.
Aside from obvious global food supply issues of eating seven Weet-Bix a day, the advert made one toxic message very clear; ‘if you can’t eat seven Weet-Bix every day, you are a weak wristed little chump with ball bearings for knackers Jamie.’
And so it was, that young Jamie Hottake forced an unfathomable seven Weet-Bix down his gullet every morning in an attempt to be like his favourite bowlsmen Binga Lee. But my morning gorging did little to improve my sporting skills. To this day I still cannot catch a ball, although thankfully my PE teacher is no longer there to repeat the toxic catch-cry ‘not enough Weet-Bix this morning!’ If only he knew.
This was only made worse when a former Wallaroo George Gregan appeared in an advert to big dog Bing Lee and told him (and all of Australia’s impressionable young men) he had nine Weet-Bix every day.
For a while, I even smashed an Up & Go on top of the seven Weet-Bix I struggled with each morning, hoping the Bix equivalent of two Bix with milk would bolster my number to nine. What a fool I was. But it wasn’t my fault and thankfully nothing is.
What is at fault is the gluten tolerant patriarchy who wants to see our children filled with Weet-Bix and toxic notions that calorie consumption is correlated to masculinity.
Perhaps instead of asking ‘how many do you do’ we should be asking ‘how many do you do better?’
