Super Bowl Commercial Pulled

[KROW]

(AP) HACKETTSTOWN, N.J. A commercial for Snickers candy bars launched in the Super Bowl broadcast was benched after its maker got complaints that it was homophobic.

The ad showed two auto mechanics accidentally kissing while eating the same candy bar and then ripping out some chest hair to do something “manly.” One of the alternate endings on the Snickers Web site showed the men attacking each other.

The Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation complained to the maker of Snickers, Hackettstown-based Masterfoods USA, a division of Mars Inc., which also makes M&M's and other candies.

The Web site also featured video of players from the Super Bowl teams reacting to the kiss.

“This type of jeering from professional sports figures at the sight of two men kissing fuels the kind of anti-gay bullying that haunts countless gay and lesbian school children on playgrounds all across the country,” Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese said in a statement.

GLAAD spokesman Marc McCarthy said Tuesday the group believed “this kind of prejudice was inexcusable.”

Masterfoods spokeswoman Alice Nathanson issued a statement in which she said the company would stop running the ad on television and the Web site.

“As with all of our Snickers advertising, our goal was to capture the attention of our core Snickers consumer,” Nathanson wrote.

“Feedback from our target consumers has been positive. In addition, many media and website commentators of this year's Super Bowl commercial line-up ranked the commercial among this year's top ten best. USA Today ranked it 9 of its top ten picks,” she continued.

“We know that humor is highly subjective and understand that some people may have found the ad offensive. Clearly that was not our intent,” she wrote.

http://wbztv.com/entertainment/enter...038004116.html

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Hats off to the gay and lesbian community here. For years many of us have joked and jibed on how these people can be such tight-asses. Now they show us that we were right. C'est la vie.

[jeff the cheff]

I thought the homophobes would be complaining about this one.

Originally Posted by KROW

Hats off to the gay and lesbian community here. For years many of us have joked and jibed on how these people can be such tight-asses.

Was that supposed to be some sort of pun?

[Masked Ninja]

How is that prejudice against the gay/lesbian community? If anything it's more prejudicial against mechanics.

The reaction of the players, I could kinda understand... but did they stop to think that the commercial might just be funny, and not "let's laugh at the ridiculousness of two men kissing!!1!"

Seriously, though... people need to grow some thicker skin, or at least stop overanalyzing things in search of small offenses. It's really not all about you.

[Katie]

that was one of my favorites.....just a silly commercial. People are too sensitive about things.

They're also making a big deal about Prince's "display" behind the sheet during Purple Rain. I watched the Super Bowl in a friend's house with a 8 and 4 year old. The 8 year old got the candy thing..she thought it was funny....neither one saw anything other than a man with a guitar for Prince (although all us "grow ups" were cracking up)

It was just a commercial

[Drtooth]

Heh,.... So two straight men kissing and fearing they're gay is more offensive than, say, Sean Hayes and the Fab Five mincing around in a Jar Jar Binks like cartoonish homosexual equivillant of Blackface. I get it.

Anyway, the ad is SUPPOSED to make fun of how the male's struggle to maintain manliness becomes an obsession to the point where anything seemingly unmanly will turn them gay. Pretty much the homophobic stereotype of the alphamale.

I took it as a play on how commercials use such fears to sell products. Men are afraid of being unmanly (or worse...gay), while women are afraid of being fat (check out the Special K "Santa" ad, or the Lipozene CGI model of the woman's torso getting bigger). That's how they sell trucks, BTW. There was one truck ad where a man just happened to think that a puppy was adorable, and the only cure for this "unmanliness" was to get a gas guzzling big-ass truck (driven by Howie Long). Heh!

But then again, this may just be the most memorable SB ad this year. What else did we have? Nothing I can recall. I do remember a 30 second spot of just watching football players on the screen of a cell phone.

But then again, I never have any luck with these things. Everytime I try to watch the SB for the ads, I see 80 promos for whatever the heck network the game is on (CBS did twice as many) and unimpressive local ads. Maybe one of the "Important" ones, but that's about it.

Really dull ads this year. I'm not surprised this cause "Controversy" as the others were ghastly unmemorable.

[discordiatookie]

haha in the papers yesterday there was an article about some pub in England selling a pie called a 'barrymore pie'. It was described as having "******s drowning in gravy." That's fair enough, you might think, but Michael Barrymore is a gay UK telly personality, who a few years ago was involved in a police investigation when another gay guy drowned in his swiming pool at a party. There was seemingly drugs involved aswell and it basically killed his career. (Until he went on Celebrity Big Bro a coupla years ago and 'revived' it.) So needless to say, one person started complaining about this pie, not about it poking fun at Barrymore, but about using the word '******s'... Only for a bunch of other gay folks to turn around and say that they don't really care, its just a laugh (this was in today's paper). I can see how it can be offensive though, and I guess it would be up to Barrymore himself to try and put a stop to it...

_____

edit: sorry, didn't think that the word woulda been censored, its was a word for a lump of meat before, as supposed to a derogatory term....

[LogicDonny]

I saw the commerical and thought it was funny, people are overreacting over some commerical.

[Jo Dawn]

Originally Posted by LogicDonny

people are overreacting over some commerical.

It's the American way.

[ThirdMarioBro]

I thought it was just a funny commercial meant for sh*ts and giggles, but I can understand why gay people would take offense.