Snickers Ad of Men Accidentally Kissing Pulled After Complaints From Gay Groups

[Dak]

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.

 

what's wrong with the 'lol, look at the stoopid, sexually insucure, overly-masculine homophobic jocks' interpretation?

 

seriously... it could be viewed as offensive to gays, or as offensive to overly masuclin people (or even to men at a push), or to homophobic bigots. why must we assume it's insulting to gays?

 

I dont think that it 'sends' a 'very negative message', tho people seem capable of recieving this message nonetheless...

[ParanoiA]

Light hearted humor may be in it's dying days in America.

 

I'm not so sure humor isn't in it's dying days in America...

[Sayonara]

I really didn't see a negative message at all, when I watched that commercial the first time.

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.

 

I imagine the only people who did, are the people who watch for something negative to jump on.

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.

 

I'd imagine a possible thought going through the producer's mind was that the gay audience would look at it and say "wow, straight men(or homophobes if you prefer to demonize someone who doesn't fancy the gays) are crazy"*chuckle*.

It would have to be a producer who had never ever met any gay people

 

what's wrong with the 'lol, look at the stoopid, sexually insucure, overly-masculine homophobic jocks' interpretation?

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.

[Saryctos]

There is also the fact that sometimes I myself may be neive* to the underlying message of things that in no way offend ME personally.

 

I have no qualms about admitting to commercial producers trying to slip in jokes that the 'prime' audience isn't supposed to see. A kind of, ha! we got this joke up on you guys and noone noticed buuuuuuurn. If that was the case, they screwed it up, because someone caught it =P

 

It may very well be possible, I just think it was an innocent, dumb humor plug with nothing special attatched to it.

[Sayonara]

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!

[john5746]

I heard some complaints about this commercial from straight men. They didn't think it was very funny, more like disgusting. My guess is that the commercial just didn't play well for most people. Are people really going to buy the product after watching it? Of course I have a limited sample, so maybe more people like it than I think.

 

I am offended by the viagra commercial with the guy walking around with his member excited all the time and a big smile on his wife's face. This is my normal stud condition and I think they are trying to make fun of it.

[Saryctos]

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.

 

That's something a lot of people would like to think happens, but it really isn't that simple.

[Sayonara]

That's something a lot of people would like to think happens, but it really isn't that simple.

 

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.

[Dak]

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.

 

these people will look at the men in the advert acting in a retarded manner in the name of 'masculinity', and this will re-enforse their belief that masculinity is good, and mutually exclusive with homosexuality?

 

to do so would require that they accept the mutual exclusion insinuation, but simultaniously gloss over the masculinity and/or homophobia = stupid insinuation.

 

i'm not saying that people wont do this, but those people are dumb. you can't really hold mars accountable, nor find the advert offensive, just because thick people will selectively interpret the advert so as to re-enforse their bigoted beliefs, whilst glossing over the bits that insult them personally.

 

similarly, i'm sure femnazis will look at the advert and think 'duh, look at how stupid men are, with their stupid masculinity issues'. that can't be helped. bigoted people interpret things in a bigoted manner.

[Sayonara]

i'm not saying that people wont do this, but those people are dumb. you can't really hold mars accountable, nor find the advert offensive, just because thick people will selectively interpret the advert so as to re-enforse their bigoted beliefs, whilst glossing over the bits that insult them personally.

 

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.

 

similarly, i'm sure femnazis will look at the advert and think 'duh, look at how stupid men are, with their stupid masculinity issues'. that can't be helped. bigoted people interpret things in a bigoted manner.

Yes. Which is why validating that kind of thought pattern is a bad thing.

[Saryctos]

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 probably shouldn't have editted that post, I meant to imply that the whole, "way we reinforce ideas", logic is bull. Watching something that you don't grab onto doesn't necesarilly affect you just because the 'message' was there. If you didn't get the message at all, then the message has no effect. However the process is a lot more complicated, than simply I got the message, or I didn't.

[Sayonara]

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.

[Dak]

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.

 

maybe they concidered it, and didn't care.

 

if you think mars are at fault because they released something which may re-enforse thick peoples' bigotry, then you are trying to hold mars accountable for other peoples reactions. it's not as if the advert was actually homophobic...

 

are you familiar with alf garnet? he was intended to be an anti-roll model. he was a bigoted, too right-wing, over-nationalistic, racist, homophobic mysoginist. he was portrayed as stupid, and his pov's and 'logic' were intentionally made obviously flawed and self-contradictory. the intire point of his charector was to ridicule, and throw the spot-light on, bigotry in all its forms, espescially those derived from petty closed-mindedness and stupidity. he was supposed to be a shit-head that showed bigotry for what it is.

 

people were supposed to look at him and think 'wow, he's a dick, and his views have no founding in reality. what a weak, pathetic little man this bigot is'.

 

but, lots of people viewed him as a 'lovable, cantankerous old man, not afraid to speak his mind just because it's un-pc'.

 

so... should we hold alf garnets creator accountable for 'not properly concidering what he was unleashing', and giving really, really stupid people the chance to re-enforse bigoted views that, in all honesty, they'd be quite happy even were they not enforsed, or should we just accept that people will, unavoidably, be stupid, and hold stupid and/or bigoted views, and these views will be re-enforsed in stupid ways?

[Sayonara]

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

[Dak]

The notable advantages that Alf Garnett had were (a) he was actually funny,

 

the advert was incredibly lame, wasn't it... one might think that mars' intent wasnt for a advert that was memorable due to it's humour.

 

 

and (b) he actually did deliver a positive message.

 

wrong.

 

he attempted to deliver a positive message. however, some people did not recieve this message, and infact recieved completely the opposite. 'cos they were stupid. i don't think this is alf's wrighters fault.

 

the ad attempts, it would seem, to poke fun at overly-masculine people, or just be silly enough to just about justify it's existance in order to get some media coverage for mars, who make chocolate bars by the way. i really dont think theirs any valid homophobic interpretation. it questionably insinuates that masculinity and homosexuality are mutually exclusive (tho, the charectors who are doing the insinuation hardly seem like oracles of trustworthy wizdom), but definately doesn't insinuate that masculinity is good.

 

as with alf garnet, some people will recieve a homophobic message that wasn't even there. 'cos they're stupid. i dont think we should blame mars for this, is my point.

 

more succinctly: if the message wasn't there in the first place, then we can't hold the people who didn't send aforementioned non-existant message accountable for the fact that some people will, in fact, recieve the non-existant message.

[ParanoiA]

So, what if the commercial was a gay guy and a girl accidentally kissing and the gay guy says "quick, do something girly!" and put on some lipstick or something?

 

That would piss people off too huh?

 

I don't think you can do a gay joke and not be offensive to someone.

 

But you can do white jokes as your only comedic material and make a living at it...funny, I haven't seen or heard any white people bitching and crying about how black comedians make fun of how we walk, talk and think - the stereotypes of white people being exploited - reinforced.

 

You know why? Because we don't see it as negative. We see it as us. It's funny. Not demoralizing. Not bigotry. Funny.

 

(Well and a little white guilt goes a long way in this country...)

[Saryctos]

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.

 

This reminds me of the way an incedent was handled for a friend in an MMORPG. They being female, had called someone 'hun' quite innocently while playing the game, "thanks hun" or something simple like that. They then got a 4 month ban for sexual harasment violations(apparently the other guy was a homophobe thinking it was another guy, and was offended). After calling the company hotline they said that they would not recount the ban because, as a player you should be aware that some people may not react so well to what you say, or some jazz like that.

 

Not that all of that is pertinant* to the matter at hand, but it does bring up the same question. With how pro-activley aggressive solutions for people being offended are getting handed out, where do we draw the line and say, hey, you can't be held responsible for someone taking offense to X comment. Or, hey, you can't do anything about some one saying X comment. Especially when X wasn't even trying to mean what the person thought it did.

seeing messages that we ourselves make in others' words can causes a lot of headache.

 

 

 

Also, sometimes I miss posts due to fast reposts(lots of activity, I like it =)) or sometimes I might even be alt+tabbed working with my post open for editting and miss a few while I'm writing one out.

[Sayonara]

wrong.

 

he attempted to deliver a positive message. however, some people did not recieve this message, and infact recieved completely the opposite. 'cos they were stupid. i don't think this is alf's wrighters fault.

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.

 

more succinctly: if the message wasn't there in the first place, then we can't hold the people who didn't send aforementioned non-existant message accountable for the fact that some people will, in fact, recieve the non-existant message.

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.

[Sayonara]

Not that all of that is pertinant* to the matter at hand, but it does bring up the same question. With how pro-activley aggressive solutions for people being offended are getting handed out, where do we draw the line and say, hey, you can't be held responsible for someone taking offense to X comment. Or, hey, you can't do anything about some one saying X comment. Especially when X wasn't even trying to mean what the person thought it did.

seeing messages that we ourselves make in others' words can causes a lot of headache.

 

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

[Saryctos]

The world may not have lost something, but the activist group thatgot the ad cancelled gained something. Power. The power to say "this commercial makes you think this way, we don't want you to think this way".

I don't care much about never seeing the commercial again, but when an entity wields the power to restrict the freedoms of another, and the gaul to tell people how to think, I don't feel like defending them is in the right.

 

You don't like the commercial? Change the channel. "But I can't make everyone else not watch it!...or can I?"

[Sayonara]

The world may not have lost something, but the activist group thatgot the ad cancelled gained something. Power. The power to say "this commercial makes you think this way, we don't want you to think this way".

 

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".

[the tree]

So, what if the commercial was a gay guy and a girl accidentally kissing and the gay guy says "quick, do something girly!" and put on some lipstick or something?

Not sure why, but that is absolutely hilarious. To make it obvious though, would take quite a while. You'd have to portray them both as gay before they kiss, then afterwards the girl should shout to the guy "quick, do something camp!" and the guy to the girl "quick, do something butch!" they'd then do the Time Warp and down a larger respectively. If you managed to direct that ad so as that it made sense and fitted in the time frame, you would be quite an awesome director. Also, I wouldn't stop giggling for about two days.

[Dak]

^lmao.

 

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.

 

well, yes. but all we can say from that is that alf garnet was, intent-wize, a good thing, whilst the ad is, at best, neutral.

 

 

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.

 

I kinda agree. if it was, say, accidentally homophobic, then i'd be more inclined to say that mars should have checked it's possible interpretations more thoroughly.

 

but, my point with alf garnet is that even an obviously anti-bigotry message can get interpreted as bigoted by bigots, thus re-enforsing thier beliefs. given that, the only way to avoid something that could be interpreted as bigoted would be to avoid anything that refferences gays, women, blacks etc and isn't patently neutral or pro-group. hardly a desireable state of affairs, as it precludes parody, humourous refference, critisism, and parody of bigotry.

 

all im saying is that the burden of responsibility for peoples stupidity should rest with those people. the ad was clearly not homophobic. if people interpret it as such, despite the obvious problems with such an interpretation, then that is their fault, not marses.

 

to clarify, i'm not talking 'people who interpret it as homophobic' such as you are doing, i'm talking people who actually see the advert as 'gufaw, look at the fags, aint they crap'. to actually think the advert is saying that requires missing the rather obvious ridicule that is being layed on the men for being homophobic, sexually insecure, and/or masculine.

[ParanoiA]

That's why humans need to quit worrying about what is being "put out" and concentrate on what is being "put in".

 

I remember something my Dad told me as a kid, and I've argued this out with several people in my life, and I still believe it to be true. No one can make you feel anything - you make you feel offended. And it's true. Even down to someone walking up to you on the street and calling your mother whore. You don't have to get pissed about it. They didn't make you get pissed about anything - you chose to get pissed.

 

At first, that's kind of hard to take. Keep in mind though, no one's blaming you for getting pissed about so and so calling your mother a whore. It's perfectly natural to get pissed about it as 99% of us would be the same. But, it really is a choice to get pissed about it. It's a choice to let it offend us.

 

So maybe that's where we need to grow as a species. Instead of trying to make everyone be really nice to each other, with gray areas of reason blurring everything - we should learn to control our choices.

[Saryctos]

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".

 

Alright, they're not saying it, they're doing it. I said nothing of creating stereotypes vs. reinforcing them. I do however say that they would not have demanded the ad be pulled unless they wanted to shape the the way people think. Break it down logically, why would you not want people to see something? Plenty of reasons, which one matters in this discussion? Why does that reason matter? yea...I thought so.

 

 

Don't quite understand the democracy comment, why is that there?