Issue Number 1014 | Gay-baiting Ads Get Their Due

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Gay-baiting Ads Get Their Due

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

By Neal Broverman

From The Advocate September 9, 2008

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.

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Name: Charlie
Date posted: 2008-08-21 4:18 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

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