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Gay-baiting Ads Get Their Due

Writer Bob Garfield takes issue with intolerance being used as marketing.



Clad in bright yellow short shorts, a speed-walker swishes down the sidewalk. Suddenly Mr. T drives up in a truck and machine-guns the walker with a Snickers bar, calling him a "disgrace to the man race," then implores viewers to “get some nuts!” This is the latest questionable commercial created by Omnicom Group advertising agencies. You may know their work: They were behind the 2007 Super Bowl Snickers spot that showed two men freaking out after accidentally kissing -- and attacking each other with wrenches in an alternative online version. And in a Dodge ad from another Omnicom agency, a macho man snidely calls a male Tinker Bell–like character a “silly little fairy,” only to have the pixie turn him into a sweater-clad metrosexual -- a silly little fairy in his own right.

After seeing the Mr. T commercial, Advertising Age columnist Bob Garfield fired off an open letter on AdAge.com to Omnicom CEO John Wren. Garfield called the company’s latest spot a "cartoonish recapitulation" of Matthew Shepard’s murder. Wren didn’t respond (he also declined to speak with The Advocate), but Snickers’ parent company pulled the ad less than a week after Garfield’s essay ran. We caught up with Garfield, a straight man who also works as a media critic for National Public Radio.

What compelled you to write the letter?
I’ve taken a very tough stand against the Omnicom agency that created the fairy commercial. And I raised my eyebrows about the first Snickers commercial, mainly on the grounds of stupidity; it was not so much homophobic as about homophobia. That was before I realized there was a wrench attack in the online version. The Mr. T ad was the last straw.

What’s been the response?
I’ve gotten support from the gay community, with a few writing, "I’m gay, but I think it’s hilarious," which makes me think of the character in the film Ship of Fools who thought he was immune to the Holocaust because he was well-regarded. If some American gay men think it’s innocuous, God bless ’em, but I think they’re wrong.

Does advertising reflect cultural attitudes or create them?
It’s more of a mirror. It not only has a responsibility for decorum, but you’d think advertising could at least not resemble hate speech. Some said I overstated the case when I compared the Mr. T ad to Matthew Shepard. On the contrary, it is a direct parallel -- it depicts doing violence against a person deemed insufficiently masculine.

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Reader Comments
  • Name: Mario
    Date posted: 8/21/2008 4:25:00 PM
    Hometown: Pinehurst, NC

    Comment:

    "Taking the term fairy out of context"? The point of using the fairy was to make a pun on the fantasy creature and gay people. That's why the fairy makes his clothes into stereotypical gay men's clothes - because he's now a fairy too. If you can't get that, then you're just dense. That the commercial was referencing gays is clear as day.

  • Name: Charlie
    Date posted: 8/21/2008 4:18:00 PM
    Hometown: Raliegh

    Comment:

    I remember both the fairy and first snickers commercials and I personally don't find them as attacks towards the gay community.The fairy one I thought was just a dumb attempt at asserting the male stereotype: anything 'girly' should be ostracized. But in the end wasn't he made feminine? Besides I believe this is just taking the term fairy out of context. It is literally a fairy! Along the lines of the Superbowl Snickers Commercial the original one that I saw ("Do something manly" *rips out chest hair*) was again just a statement on the stereotype of men being masculine. And I just watched the Mr. T Commercials...It isn't about gays just feminine men. And to say that all feminine men are gay is to take the homophobes side, and to say all gays are feminine is to reinforce a stereotype that is far from true But that's just my two cents

  • Name: Justin Phelps
    Date posted: 8/20/2008 2:44:00 PM
    Hometown: Nashville TN

    Comment:

    The gay people who think you're off-base in your complaint must falsely think that violence against gays is a)something from the past and b)can never happen to them. I've grown up around too many redneck bubbas who need no encourgement to beat up their girlfriends or shoot a neighbor. The last thing we need is advertising that tells them that brutalizing a homo is cool AND funny. Thanks Bob Garfield for being a friend to our community!

  • Name: Bob H
    Date posted: 8/20/2008 1:40:00 AM
    Hometown: Worcester Ma.

    Comment:

    Tell me why I need a straight guy to tell mr when I need to be offended?

  • Name: E
    Date posted: 8/17/2008 11:26:00 AM
    Hometown: Minneapolis

    Comment:

    Actually, Moondancer, it's a comparison and not a metaphor. Perhaps you're the one who needs a dictionary. I love how the commenters on here immediately dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as too stupid to see things the right way. And we wonder why the gay community is so ineffective at getting things done.

  • Name: Paul
    Date posted: 8/17/2008 11:04:00 AM
    Hometown: New York

    Comment:

    Violence against gay people (or for that matter, women and minorities) comes in many guises. Mr. Garfield is a hero to the gay community (even for the ignorant gay people who don't see these vicious media attacks for what they are), and we owe him a debt of gratitude.

  • Name: Tim Hulsey
    Date posted: 8/16/2008 4:54:00 PM
    Hometown: Charlottesville

    Comment:

    Moondancer: The proper word is hyperbole. Why can't we say that Garfield's inflated Holocaust rhetoric and Omnicom's homophobic advertising are both repugnant?

  • Name: Moondancer Drake
    Date posted: 8/15/2008 4:13:00 PM
    Hometown: Milwaukee, Wi

    Comment:

    Hey, Alan, it’s called a metaphor. Get a dictionary and look it up.

  • Name: Chris Sullivan
    Date posted: 8/14/2008 2:45:00 PM
    Hometown: Chicago, IL

    Comment:

    Well Alan, you are obvously too stupid to understand the very accuracte correlations he is making.

  • Name: Alan Scott
    Date posted: 8/13/2008 2:09:00 PM
    Hometown: Atascadero, CA

    Comment:

    Mr. Garfield equates a television advertisement with a brutal murder, and then compares his detractors to holocaust victims, and has the gall to suggest that it's the ad agency who's being tasteless? I feel motivated to purchase a snickers bar.



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