Superbowl Snickers Ad Deemed Homophobic, Pulled From Air
Oh, homophobia. I love how you're the last form of bigotry that's still considered safe to hide behind. The above advertisement, aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday, managed to offend... well, nearly everyone, I guess; as a result, the candy bars' makers have pulled the ad after receiving complaints from both the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD. Hey, they can't all be as brilliant as that amazing GTA-themed Coke advertisement.
I'll admit it: I thought the ad was kinda funny, mainly because of the whole pulling-out-chesthair thing, but I also thought overall concept was vaguely offensive. Way less entertaining, though: one of the alternate endings on the Snickers website (which, surprise, surprise, has had the ads removed from) showed the guys attacking each other.
The best part about the manufacturer's response? The way in which they try to simply shift all of the blame to us humorless homos:
Masterfoods spokeswoman Alice Nathanson said the company would stop running the ad on television and the Web site."Feedback from our target consumers has been positive," she said. "We know that humor is highly subjective and understand that some people may have found the ad offensive. Clearly that was not our intent."
And there we have it. It's not that the ad was offensive: it's just that our sense of humor isn't nearly as sophisticated as that of a bunch of beered-up football fans.
Snickers' "kiss" ad pulled after charges it's anti-gay [The Seattle Times]
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to Videos on 7 February 2007
· Comments (31)
Other stuff like this: advertisement, glaad, homophobia, human rights campaign, slimy pr weasels, snickers, superbowl
I don't understand why anybody would make a big deal out of this. While it could be seen as mildly offensive, since when was modern humor not offensive any more? I feel way more uncomfortable having to endure a stand-up comedian's sex jokes than watching that ad. Maybe it's the culture. While I think mainstream culture may be in need of change, I think making a hullabaloo about the advertisement is probably empowering the real homophobes and anti-gay conservatives out there by giving them material to call us all humorless, easily offended, and a "threat to comedy as we know it (Fox News)."
Personally I'm more offended by the news today that the US Military is enlisting convicted drug criminals and other felons without performing background checks while openly gay men are still denied acceptability to protect the integrity of "esprit de corps" (all this despite the fact that 73% of our troops say they wouldn't mind serving alongside gay men).
At first i thought it was kinda funny but it still made me unfortable. Now the more I think of it the more offensive it seems. What if the punchline was more racial or anti-semetic than homosexual. Would it have been allowed to air? I dont think so.
I think it's a great ad... But homofobic? Hardly. It's a JOKE, they are allowed to be politically incorrect. And the Snickers people are cowards for not sticking by their work
Honestly, I thought this ad was hysterical. I, and everyone I watched the superbowl with, interpreted the ad as making fun of homophobia, not homosexuality.
I mean, look at the damn thing. You have two hick mechanics who kiss and, because they're so incredibly freaked out about it, resort to the ridiculous act of ripping out their chest hair to justify their manhood instead of just accepting it or shrugging it off. The alternate endings of it on YouTube have them even drinking antifreeze and bashing each other with the car hood.
I think you're taking the spokespersons comment way out of context. She's not trying to shift the blame to homos, she's just saying, "most people found it funny, some didn't, we didn't mean to offend anyone". That sounds like a perfectly legitimate statement to me.
If the ad wasn't shown during the Super Bowl, I don't think it would've been that big a deal. I mean...it takes a lot to offend me personally. Strangers With Candy is probably one of the more offensive shows I've ever seen and it's my favorite show of all time.
I understand your points and at first i thought I was taking it a bit too personal but, again i ask you, what if the joke was aimed more at a racial minority. Or at the Jewsish people. Would it still have been ok? What makes jokes about homosexuality ok but jokes about a person's race or religeon not?
So the fact two guys would rather kill each other or themselves after ACCIDENTALLY kissing is somehow NOT homophobic?
Apparently, my math must be wrong.
I'm not really seeing how its offensive, can some please explain?
There's already a broke back mountain version of it lol, people have faaar too much time on their hands
I think the responses from various NFL players was way more offensive, with shots of them watching the ad and going "Ewww, guys kissing!"
Though to be fair, I wouldn't kiss any of the guys in the ad. But I digress.
It seems that making fun of gay people is the last socially acceptable form of bigotry, after all.
I agree with MuddBstrd. I saw the ad as mocking homophobes, not homosexuals.
Two (presumably straight) guys kiss, but it's okay if they rip out their chest-hair afterwards? That's a patently ridiculous position, along the lines of "It's not gay sex if I don't kiss him afterwards."
I figured that it was pointing out how silly homophobia is, in a humorous way.
After watching it, I fully expected conservative Christians to be more outraged, because it's showing, essentially, that kissing another dude is acceptable.
K
> making fun of homophobia, not homosexuality
Agreed.
i found that commercial hillarious, and im gay it's a shame it wont be on the air anymore. where can i see the alternate endings?
Eh, I really don't see it as offensive material, though as Ms. Snickers put it, it's subjective territory. For some reason I'm always suprised by the juevenille attitude that sports teams seem to engender. Honestly, it's like middle-school all over again.
Eh, I really don't see it as offensive material, though as Ms. Snickers put it, it's subjective territory. For some reason I'm always suprised by the juevenille attitude that sports teams seem to engender. Honestly, it's like middle-school all over again.
I must agree with Ian B. I saw nothing homophobic. It was a bad joke, but not homophobic to me. if anything it was cute.
I definitely see how this could offend people.
First they accidentally kiss and then they have to resort to self mutilation to restore their manliness. What does this tell me? Manly men don't kiss. Gays are effeminate. Being effeminate (or gay) is something horrible.
I agree that this ad could be making fun homophobia, but I'm not sure. Especially not after seeing the online versions with the NFL players acting disgusted after seeing the clip.
Either way I don't find funny.
I didn't like how it assumed kissing another man was bad, even if it was to poke fun at straight men's uptightness regarding 2 men kissing. Saying that it was all in good fun smacks of internalized homophobia.
On the other-hand, when I saw it it seemed par for the course for the super-bowl (the same venue that gave us 5 years of "wazzup" and janet Jackson's nipple) and I don't really think a huge uproar serves any purpose other than to make us look like uptight jackasses given the pervasive homophobia that encompasses american life. But make no mistake, the ad was offensive, but I just consider myself a bit of a pragmatist regarding whether or not to tolerate things that are offensive and insensitive.
From my LiveJournal: I just wanted to say that sometimes GLAAD and the bunches of people who agree with whatever comes out of them and I don't agree. For instance, this Superbowl ad is supposedly incredibly homophobic and everyone is supposed to apologize and this and that and let's just never eat Snickers again because they hate gay people. Well, they probably do like every corporation, but honestly, is this commercial so bad? I don't think it's very funny, but mostly because I don't think it's very funny. If anyone is supposed to look stupid here though, it's the two losers and their need to feel manly by doing something stupid like ripping their chest hair off. A lot of people say that bad publicity is better than no publicity and that even offensively stereotypical stuff is still something. I don't think the age of the black minstrels really supports that very well, but in this case I don't even view it as being that bad. Not positive I'd say, but I don't feel offended. And if we have groups like GLAAD preventing anything remotely gay being shown unless it's not just NOT negative, but having to contain some inherent public service announcement extolling the virtues of gay people, then who's to say we won't just end up back at there being nothing on TV.
I can certainly see where someone could see something offensive in there if you're looking for something 100% politically correct. I have to tell you, though, I'm not offended even in the slightest.
Quite honestly, I really think they're more making fun of machismo than homosexuality.
All in all, I actually kind of liked the ad.
Absolutely agree with the prevailing winds: the ad is just plain funny.
And the punchline absolutely makes fun of homophobes a lot more than it insults gay people.
I refuse to put my (gay) name to any objection to this add. GLAAD need to grow a sense of humour and learn to pick battles that matter.
I liked the ad too and thought it was a parody of homophobia. I think in the next decade making of fun of people for whatever reason will go out of style.
Sorry, but I really wasn't that offended either. It was funny IMO.
I didn't think it was all that funny, but it certainly isn't offensive. 1, there's an implication when the guy starts eating the snickers bar out of the other guys mouth where it's leading. And 2, American civilisation has issues with what is masculine, what is heterosexual and how to define and distinguish between the two. Two men kissing is definitely not heterosexual, two men pulling out chest hair, while sexy in masochistic way, is only marginally masculine. The only offensive commentary I can find here is that two heterosexual men who've kissed find that they feel awkward about the situation and want to affirm to themselves that they're heterosexual.
I think of it this way, let's say the situation is a gay guy and one of his girlfriends, I would certainly feel awkward after accidentally kissing one of my girlfriends. I don't know how I would react, but it would probably be along the lines of shoe shopping. Or maybe underwear shopping. (I wonder what's new at ginch-gonch.)
I thought the image of two men lovingly suckling on a candy bar from both ends was a hundred times gayer than the actual kiss.
OK: After doing some reviewing I've arrived at this conclusion: the ad itself was mocking homophobes more than homosexuality by far. The reviews of the ad done by NFL players however was offensive and I am in agreement with Kaijo that they act like they're still in middle school. And good golly miss molly were they offensive (like middle school)!
Perhaps what we should be worried about more is that we live in a world where athletic ability is prized above tolerance and intellectuality to the point that our "role models" and/or "heroes" are barley reading on a 5th grade level. I see nothing decent in prizing someone for the number of goals he/she has scored while someone who wins a Nobel prize may barley even get a thousandth of the recognition by the general population. I won't even go into the money.
Alas, I digress, without these dumb games where would we be as a society without something to occupy people's time/attention with? Would we really end up doing something more productive? History and human nature would most likely prove otherwise. Now if they were to replace football with something akin to a real-life version of "The Running Man" I'd totally watch every episode of that...
See my rant about this subject at http://gaygamer.net/forum/index.php/topic,904.0.html
i thought it was hilarius.
and i think that was kinda hot.
i think straight people just got offended, thats all
(sue me for not writing a long paragraph)
Homophobic?
... I loved this ad. I went on the website right after I saw it and made sure I saved all the different endings to my harddrive.
The thing that I found especially great about it was that you could easily (or at least my slash-addled brain can) was that the two characters very well could have been gay and because they exist in a homophobic environment are kind of nervous and forced to try and save face with each other.
I'm gay. I loved it. I laughed my ass off.
I think people need to stop being so sensitive. I can understand why we've all ended up so wary of anything that even remotely smacks of homophobia, but it's getting pretty ridiculous. And it's gotten to the point where my own people are pissing me off.
Bah.
Personally, I'm annoyed at the whole situation. As I said in the article: I found it to be both vaguely funny and vaguely offensive. GLAAD's bitching about how the ad's totally homophobic strikes as being too politically correct, but the manufacturer's response is irritating to me as well because... well, it feels totally dismissive.
I dunno, I still have mixed feelings about the entire scenario, but an overall feeling of irritability and frustration at both sides keeps on filling up my mind when I think about it.
A bit off topic, but it hasn't been mentioned: homophobia is NOT the last acceptable form of bigotry. Bigotry is "acceptable" in lots of forms. Others that come to mind immediately are sexism and ageism. I think we need to recognize how big the problem is before we can approach it intelligently.