The first time I saw the Masterfoods Super Bowl "Snickers" ad entitled "Chest Hair" I believed it was making fun of heterosexual male's insecurities about their masculinity and the ridiculous concern not to ever be perceived gay. Boy, was I wrong...
It turns out Masterfoods, the company that owns the "Snickers" brand, shot several commercials with a different ending, and they're all filled with much more severe violence than pulling out a few chest hairs.
In the ads that did not make the final cut for the Super Bowl, but were shown on a special Snickers website designed for users to choose the best ad that would then air during the Daytona 500, the butch mechanics do all kinds of crass and violent things to shake off the idea that they may have done something gay.
In one of the ads they start drinking motor oil and anti-freeze, screaming at the top of their lungs, getting sick to their stomach. Then in the other, one hits the other with a wrench in the stomach, and then the other 'returns the favor' by throwing him under the hood of the car, smashing it against his head. Anything but gay.
To make matters worse, there are completely unnecessary and homophobic reactions to the ads on the website from the Bears and Colts players, who are supposed to be role-models to the young people. They crinkle their face in absolute disgust when they see the kiss. All that under the respective NFL and Snickers logos.
On "Extra" Bears Tight End Desmond Clark said: "Did they actually have to kiss like that? I hope they got paid a lot of money to do that."
The Human Rights Campaign, the America's largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, immediately called on Masterfoods to pull the campaign due to its offensive content and the fact it was promoting violence against gays and lesbians, and sending out a message homosexuality was wrong.
This afternoon, a spokesperson for Masterfoods gave this statement to New York Times:
"As with all of our Snickers advertising, our goal was to capture the attention of our core Snickers consumer, primarily 18-to-24-year-old adult males. Feedback from our target consumers has been positive, and many media and Web site commentators on this year’s Super Bowl lineup ranked the commercial among this year’s best. We know that humor is highly subjective and we understand that some consumers have found the commercial offensive. Clearly that was not our intent. We do not plan to continue the ad on television or on our Web site."
Obviously the company, owned by the Mars family which is one of the Republicans' top billionaire activist families, does not comprehend why the ads were deemed offensive. Fortunately, they at least gave into pressure and pulled the entire campaign.
i haven't seen these ads but if its as bad as you say then how did they get away with producing them in the first place?
ReplyDeleteone would think in this day of 'brothers and sisters', 'the l word' etc, with 'queer as folk' gone after 5 years, and 'will & grace' after 8, that it would be realised that the major demographic of 18-49 which includes their audience of 18-24 hetero males should be offended. (btw, is snickers not eaten by women and gay men also?)
i'm at a loss as to how it was praised and named one of the year's best commercials. who were they polling?
i suppose they forget that most of the tv audience is women and gay men. hetero men tend to only watch sports, which would therefore have limited the amount of play the ads would get. maybe that's why they had it on their website.
the worst kind of homophobia is the kind that is shrouded in so called creativity IMO
ReplyDeletelife was simpler when homophobia, prejudice and racism were blatant, at least the threat was in your face...