Sayonara

We will have to simply disagree on that one. You don't understand how I can say that people should have the right to complain when they are offended, without being verbally molested? It's as if you don't read what I am really saying, ParanoiA. One might even think this is actually the more rational deduction. I have not analysed the joke, nor have I added anything in. Neither are necessary. The fulcrum of the joke is that only straight men are manly. Given that the punchline of the joke is an unnatural product of that "truth", rather than the "truth" itself, "it was a joke" is the second lamest defense possible next to "I was only following orders" I can point you in the direction of an ex-administrator of this site if you would like to learn more about that horrible apologetic. I think, also, that it is dishonest to claim that the only reason gay people complain now about these various effronteries is due to the effronteries themselves being magically added onto this "list" that nobody has ever written or received. Hmm, could it be more to do with a gradual change in society which has made it less acceptable - over time - to censure and murder people because of their sexuality? Well hold the ****ing press if some people haven't got their sense of humour back yet. Sure, granted, okay, could not agree more. But that doesn't prevent them from talking to Mars, does it? Yes, because going to work for a high-profile gay rights action group and getting yourself plastered all over the media is a really good way for the sexually insecure to avoid facing themselves, isn't it? For the last time: if anyone had any complaint about the joke itself, it was that it was just not funny. I am quite sure the fag and queen jokes that the GLAAD members tell each other are hysterical.

Whether or not the campaigners have provided an "interpretation" is beside the point - they are offended. Continue reading before leaping to conclusions about what I mean here. Yes, it could easily be that, but some people didn't see it that way. The door swings both ways. Even so, if that was the meaning of the message, it still delivers the unintentional message that gays are not manly. The complaint doesn't need to "have strength". It's not like the GLAAD were pursuing this in court, is it? They made their feelings known to Mars, who reacted in a constructive and sympathetic manner and stopped running the advert. You seem to be making the case here that nobody should have the right to complain that something offends them. Actually, it was the affirmation of incorrect information that I was talking about, not homophobia. As I have already said, the message that gays cannot be manly is not an "insinuation", it is the core of the joke. It cannot be escaped. This may not have been the overall message the advert was supposed to convey (or, indeed, the message that it does convey in many cases), but it is still there. They are GLAAD, so I think we can take it as read that they do this. They are not camped outside singing "death to Mars, how dare they!" They told Mars how they felt, that was it. I don't know what your understanding of "complaint" is but it seems to be much more combative than mine. It really isn't. It is approaching "if people don't like rock music they have as much right to make a complaint to the production company as GLAAD has to complain to Mars, and the outcome will depend on the specifics and merits of the complaint, and not on a quick glance around to see else who is ignoring whiney minorities this week". You appear to be of the view that if group x choose not to complain about irritation y, then group p should not be allowed to complain about irritation q. This is all very well, but you can't reasonably expect action groups to sit on their hands saying "wait for it lads, instead of cutting this off at the source we'll wait for street beatings to go up a notch, and then ooooh what a tongue lashing the liberal media will give those gay bashers." Mars are not selling information about sexuality. They are selling chocolate bars, and misrepresenting sexuality as a means of making that sale. Your analogy does not work. And even if it did, you would need to change it in some way so that you were misrepresenting a 3rd party to your customers. Actually my words were "cock and arse are standard fare", which doesn't say anything about the relative positions of said cock and arse. It could mean anything from mutual masturbation and rimming to frottage and fisting, none of which have much at all to do with bum love. My actual point was that kissing a man does not make you gay. The flippant (perfectly accurate adjective I think) reference to a strong iconic was intended to highlight the differentiation. I imagine endoscopes are a lot colder than willies, but y'know... whatever floats your boat Where this approach falls down is that if anyone says to me "I found that offensive", or "I found that misleading and misrepresentative", I would happily explain my position further (as above), or retract it if I thought such a step to be necessary. Like Mars did. That's not because of any weird political pressure, or not wishing to offend minorities, or wanting to be "politically correct" (vomit). It's because it is the proper, right, and reasonable thing to do. Assuming I was selling snickers, I am sure there are myriad other avenues open for me to explore which could lead to advertising without avoidable offense. See above. Your interpretation of my comment is incorrect (mainly because you did not check the wording I suspect, but top marks for remembering I said it!), but in the context of this discussion I think that actually "works" with the debate, if you see what I mean. Nobody "pulled" the advert except for Mars, and they only "pulled" it in the sense that they stopped showing it (or rather they instructed whoever showed it on their behalf to stop). The word "pulled" implies some force was applied, which is not really the case at all. The headlines seeded that word! It's all the media's fault! No, that would be the horrifying spectre of what you have turned my argument into through bizarre extensions and tenuous comparisons. I think the nub of your reasoning is found here. "Unnecessary"? To you maybe. I am tired. Please be nice. Post short things

We may have slightly different interpretations of what "political correctness" is, which I suggest might come from cultural differences. Or the difference may be inconsequential, you decide: I see political correctness as being an (often knee-jerk) pseudo-moralistic reaction to a perceived sleight on an entity which the reactor does not fully understand. Certainly I agree that political correctness is the very essence of the reaction being worse than the action. However, it is not necessarily correct to say that any complaint about a minority being misrepresented is "political correctness", and indeed in this case I do not think that it is anything of the sort. The mistake the ad company have made is one of factual error which will reflect negatively on the complainants. I think we get it on some cable channel, but I can't say I have ever heard anyone talking about watching the show. Because this is overtly a work of character-based fiction. The snickers skit on the other hand is a marketing mechanism that aims to manipulate sexual insecurity under the guise of a poor joke, and it does so on the back of woefully flawed information that we would all be better off without, gay or straight. The problem is that making the statement "if you are manly, you can't be gay" (and by inference vice versa) is offensive. Personally I love Mars, and yet I seem to be quite convinced that GLAAD are in the right on this one. I don't think it is correct to say this is something new that has popped suddenly onto the latest "offensive" list - it's just a matter of common sense, and getting your facts right before you invest in badly devised commercials. If I said to you "hey ParanoiA, why don't you run through this department store shouting 'only straight men can be manly'", I am quite sure you'd politely decline, even if there was a brewski at stake. Nobody wants to get beaten up by a massive gay man with leet kung fu skills.

I'm fairly sure that the people who don't spot satire so easily will appreciate clarification of what is and is not pertinent. Not just because it offended people, but because of the reasons for that offense being taken, which I seem to be having to repeat quite a lot No... or at least, not for the same reasons. Movie-going is by subscription. Superbowl viewers don't get to decide which adverts they will watch. Naturally you have every right to complain if you don't like what a movie says about a topic, but unless it blatantly misrepresents that topic (as the advert did) you probably won't get very far. Also notice that I said "Mars were right to pull the advert" (or something to that effect), and not that the advert "should have been" discontinued. The distinction is a subtle one, but it is there.

Nonsense mainly. Except for 2 - there is a link in the first post with more info.

Anybody invoking creationist idiocy in that style on this site again will receive a severe penalty. I don't care how long you have been here, or how well you think you are arguing the case: Enough is enough.

I have changed my mind. They think that they can get nutritious mammal milk from his man boobs. They are wrong.

I have already said that I do not think any offence was caused intentionally. Bear in mind, and this is important, just because something offends a good chunk of the gay community, it does not mean that it is homophobic, or that it is accused of being homophobic. Believe it or not, gay people can be offended without any special treatment Let me clarify what I am arguing here: The advert was offensive, the campaigners had every right to ask for it to be pulled, and Mars did the right thing by assenting to that request. The degree of humour and/or homophobic content are both red herrings. The complaint does not represent political correctness, it is a valid reaction to misrepresentation. Perhaps it would make more sense if you consider it the other way around. The campaigners do not want to shape the way people think, so much as prevent Mars from shaping/reinforcing people's thoughts with unrealistic generalisations about sexuality. I was saying "if the thought of a minority wielding any kind of social power disturbs you, maybe a democratic state is not the one for you". I presume you meant "bawl"...? It would be fine if it made an astute, witty, and accurate comment on sexuality. But it doesn't - it misrepresents, both gay and straight. What are you talking about? Precisely which facts does the advert offer? Other than the yumminess of snickers, that is. Nobody is saying that gayness has to be universally acceptable, or that we should pretend it is (at least, nobody who has realised what the actual issue is). They are saying that it is not acceptable to arbitrarily label gay men as "unmanly" in a Superbowl advert. Agreed, but possssssibly for different reasons. Dee dee deeeeee! Are you serious? The issue is nothing to do with chest hair. The issue is that being "manly" and being gay are not mutually exclusive. You are broken. Report to the tech bay for repairs. This is depressingly true. The anonymity of the voting system all too often encourages people to get their prejudices out for a bit of an air. When and how you talk on your cellphone is your business, but if you do it in public in such a way that threatens the rights or safety of other people, then it is hardly "private", now is it? The regulations that privately owned restaurants and businesses have to follow have nothing to do with "private lives" - I would have hoped you might know at least something about things like culpability, and endangerment law.

When a moderator closes a thread, it means that discussion is over.

They are not saying that. They are saying that the advert reinforces negative stereotypes, not that it creates them. This is entirely true and they are within their rights to request that the company not promote such messages. Democracy means "a form of government in which people hold the power". In the absence of any loss on the part of the majority, I don't see any objection other than the rather weak "oh no, a minority got their way".

I agree that knee-jerk reactions to salve offended people is often annoying and over the top (usually crushing other people's rights too, in my experience), but in this particular case I think the gay rights campaigners are totally justified in taking offense, and I don't think the world is losing anything by not seeing this advert

Forgive me, I did not really write what I meant to say there. The intention of Alf Garnett was to provide a dry but witty commentary on base social trends. At best, the Mars advert lacks any such benevolent intention. Yes, we can. Media companies are responsible for considering how their output will be perceived, and being prepared to back themselves up if they put it out knowing that it may offend, or do not bother to consider it in the first place. This is why we have industry regulators. Take the recent Celebrity Big Brother fiasco in the UK - it was all down to ad hoc 3rd party comments, but Channel 4 still found itself in the middle of an international political sh*tstorm.

The notable advantages that Alf Garnett had were (a) he was actually funny, and (b) he actually did deliver a positive message.

Yes, but as you can see from my reply to Dak (above), I fully acknowledge that some people will simply not be affected. In my reply to you, I said that the message will latch onto existing prejudices - if they are simply not there, then of course it will not have any effect. People who are not affected are, rather logically, not the problem.

I am not proposing to hold Mars accountable for other people's reactions. But I can and am holding them accountable for not properly considering what they were unleashing, which is their problem. Yes. Which is why validating that kind of thought pattern is a bad thing.

I readily admit that I simplify, but that is the basic process. People are happy to have national institutions affirm for them that it is acceptable, even funny, to behave in a certain fashion. The power of advertising in passing on unrecognised messages is universally accepted - that's why it is such big money.

I am sure it was not intentional, but they could have at least considered the possible consequences of mocking sexual diversity before they aired it. It's called "focus groups", Mars!

When you say you did not "see" a negative message, you are saying you did not consciously recognise such a message. And yet you have watched the same material as everybody else. That message entered your brain and whether you know it's happening or not, it will reinforce and validate any existing prejudices it meets. Gay rights campaigners are not waiting to jump on anything. They are more likely to recognise the message because - having dealt with discrimination and (frankly) abusive treatment all their lives - they are sensitive to the patterns. It would have to be a producer who had never ever met any gay people Nothing at all. But the only people who will make that kind of interpretation are unlikely to have prejudices that can be reinforced anyway, so it makes no odds. The problem is that the people who won't see the advert in the light you paint it are the ones who will be most influenced by the message "real men are straight, gays are not real men, MUTUAL EXCLUSION!" And they are the ones who - in the end - do the most damage.

No I get it, it's just you could be shouting "I agree but I think you are losing sight of your aims!" instead. Although I will admit that it does make one really quite tired after a while. Not so much. If you are a man and your girlfriend has been hit by a bus you will find it much easier to get in and see her than if your boyfriend has been hit by a bus. Sad to say but it looks like this particular one comes from old-fashioned prejudice rather than any legal or marital basis. There are many companies who inexplicably refuse service to gay couples, married or otherwise. In the UK, QuickFit is an infamous example - they openly state that this is "company policy", although the details of that policy are not usually discussed. I don't really see this particular example as that much of a problem myself (aside from the effrontery, of course), but I don't see how society benefits by making gay people shop around more for bargain deals on their motoring needs. Then there's the wills and inheritance issue. This one seems to be independent of marital status. And god forbid you should wish to adopt a child, or even have one yourself (lesbian couple + donor father = stoned in the streets).

Well yes, it is clearly based off the spaghetti gag from Lady and the Tramp. But the fact remains, even if it was not intentional, it does send a very negative message which the producers should have spotted before it aired, and they would have had numerous opportunities to do so.

ParanoiA, I see you already addressed much of the meat of my comments to you in your reply to Mokele while I was typing my post. All we need now is for a nutball conspiracy-theorist gay rights campaigner to pick up on Saryctos's post and tell us how it's an oblique reference to Walt Disney being a raging bigot.

My housemate was watching the soap opera "Hollyoaks" earlier. In the last episode, two guys kissed, and one of them "might be a bit gay". In today's episode, everyone (and I mean everyone) was moping about like the world was ending, spontaneously bursting into tears, reinforcing the stereotypical view of sexual divergence being THE WORST THING THAT CAN EVER HAPPEN EVER. I wish the gay lobby groups would try and get crap like that pulled, instead of wasting their time with crappy adverts that are predictable and trite. I don't know about the US, but in the UK it doesn't help that half the gay population seems to want to look and act ultra-faggy at the minute. The armies of nasal, whiny, stick-thin, superduper flailingly camp, hair product-covered he-shes this country is producing makes me want to go on a rampage. They are confirming pretty much every negative stereotype going. And I'll bet half of them have never heard of Stonewall. Anyone who has anything whatsoever to do with American football knows that Mr. Overpaid Linebacker #42 likes the cock once in a while, so it's probably all going to be okay The objection is not "oh the straighties made a joke about us, wahhhhh". The objection is that the joke (such as it was) is reinforcing the negative stigma attached to being gay*, and promoting "normal masculinity" as if this were a condition reserved for heterosexuals. Which is offensive. * if you accept that kissing a man is enough to make one gay, which personally I don't - cock and arse is standard fare, not snogging. Who is this "we"? There is massive opposition to "Gay rights", both in the US and the UK - which are supposed to be advanced civilisations. Firstly, people don't tend to march for rights they aready have, so no case to answer there. Secondly, if you were deprived rights that you take to be natural and god-given (like the right to have the person you love there with you in hospital, or the right to not be brutally murdered because you like poking vagina), you'd be marching too. Try empathy instead of "we don't care" - the wheel always comes around to everybody's group eventually. For this to set you aside from the GLAAD, surely they would have to complain every time a man and woman kissed on television? Either that, or you (despite your better judgment) constantly hold yourself back from making complaints that heterosexuals are being negatively portrayed by the gay media during super-camp sporting events. As you can see, I am not sure what your point is there. Help me. Beyond the basic mechanics of the scene, it's hardly a meaningful reference. What's your point? The opposite is in effect here - new act about to come in forbidding discrimination from any service. All the Catholic adoption agencies have said they will have to close (how melodramatic - they could just ask gay couples to respect their religious beliefs and not attempt to adopt from them). Ah, but ParanoiA is not saying it is a non-issue. He is saying he "doesn't care" (and by extension nobody else does either, apparently). Clearly he does care, or the sight of men not-even-properly-kissing with a snickers bar in the way would not appall him so, and he would have just ignored this thread instead of ranting in it. Your example of Chappelle's skit is not an example of discrimination. But I generally agree with the rest of this bit.

The only definition of spam that matters on this site is the one that administrators such as myself use. Discarding (or at the very least, questioning) biased sources is something proper scientists do every day, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise to see that happen on a science forum. The post was probably not even made by a human, but a botscript. As you can see "biotechngmo" has no interest in discussing the topic. Let's move on.

And yet creationists claim that they "don't need to explain the how, because they know the who", and who would question divine providence? etc etc. Talking about the absence of science in religious affairs is not scientific discussion. This is a religious discussion.

All this video demonstrates is that Tegus - like zombies - prefer human brains to tofu.