Another ad pulled - but was anyone offended?
A good article here by Lucy Managan from The Guardian newspaper, talking about the moaning millies who have made us into the PC state we are today. Not that I want to get political here but this is about a chocolate advert, so I’ll save my rant and just post the article:
Confectionery giant Mars has withdrawn an advertisement for Snickers bars, starring 80s star Mr T, after it brought complaints in the US - where it has yet to be shown on television - that it was homophobic.
The ad shows Mr T shouting at a man speedwalking (”I pity you, fool! You a disgrace to the man race. It’s time to run like a real man!”) before firing chocolate bars at him from a machine gun. The ad ends with the current Snickers slogan “Get some nuts.” The US lobby group Human Rights Campaign claims on its website that “the ad features a man whose appearance and actions - speedwalking in an exaggerated manner - conjure up stereotypes of gay men” and, in an open letter to an advertising magazine, said that the ad condoned violence towards them.
Even if you accept that his gait is exaggerated - and it looks like perfectly standard speedwalking to me - the accusations still feel like a stretch. The ad is far more simply and accurately read as a play on the irrational irritation most of us feel on seeing anyone enjoying the harmless, consensual activity of speedwalking. Either walk or run properly, for God’s sake! To watch someone fight against every human urge to propel themselves across ground as quickly and efficiently as possible is agonising! Make it stop!
The accusations recall the recent Deli Mayo controversy. Heinz pulled an advert after it drew over 200 complaints about the same-sex goodbye kiss in the final scene and was roundly criticised for bowing to the wishes of a minority of cretins. “I think both these were probably cases of clients being oversensitive to criticism,” says Claire Beale, editor of industry magazine Campaign. “Anecdotal evidence suggests that [the Snickers ad] was really well liked by its target market and that most sane people wouldn’t have been offended. But we are living in a climate where the slightest hint of anyone being offended and the kneejerk response is just to pull it. This will probably cause more controversy in the end and it seems a pity that they couldn’t have the courage of their convictions and just ride out the storm.”
In all the fuss, of course, we have not heard from the people most genuinely hurt by the ad - speedwalkers. Time, perhaps, for these beleaguered athletes to radicalise? Double offendy-points, of course, to any of them with a nut allergy, who must have found the advert cruel beyond belief.
And here’s the Heinz advert in case you never saw it or wanna see it again, I know I want to, it was a great advert!
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August 2nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
The fact that the Heinz advert was pulled offended me. I can’t believe people had a problem with it, and there’s no escaping the fact that the people who had an issue with it, besides having no sense of humour, were coming from a bigoted perspective whether they realise it or not. Why was Heinz being more sympathetic to the opinion of an oversensitive minority than the rest of the viewers who had no problem with the ad? Made me so mad. Apparently it would ‘corrupt’ or ‘influence’ their children. Don’t even start me on that theory. I haven’t seen the Mr T ad properly so I suppose I can’t really comment on that.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Ellie - I guess it’s a case of the vocal minority over the silent majority. And kids are doing a pretty good job of corrupting themselves, not that I would call two grown men kissing each other much of a corruption considering we’re not in the dark ages anymore.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
That’s exactly what bothered me - that they saw two men kissing as a corruption in the first place. But also that they are naive enough to think that kids aren’t doing far more shocking things than they realise. Oh well, that’s people for you.