Puritans Ban Mum's Mayonnaise ad!

B_dumbcow

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:eek: That's ridiculous! They shouldn't pull an advert just because of a gay kiss. And there are no complaints when it's a man and a woman kissing :mad:

I thought the advert was quite funny, and I wouldn't blame Heinz for it, seeing as they were the ones who made it in the first place. I expect they pulled it because they wanted to avoid a bad reputation after the 200 complaints, and that's coming back to kick them in the bum.
 
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dong20

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It's as ridiculous as the 'pulled' ad for Dunkin Donuts ... the girl in said ad was wearing a scarf (allegedly) reminiscent of the keffiyeh worn by the late Yasser Arafat. It was thus construed as supporting (or glamorising) Palestinian nationalists, who are as we all know, terrorists. :rolleyes:

The world has gone crazy ...
 
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Meniscus

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Heinz has a few other gay positive/accepting ads, although they seem to be limited to Europe, Australia, and the U.K. (The U.S. just isn't ready for it yet.) I haven't heard anything about the other ads being pulled. I don't think I will boycott them over this, since they seem to have a good overall track record for gay-positive advertising.

Commercial Closet Association

You can see tons of gay-themed advertising at this site. Some are positive (same-sex affection, family acceptance, gay pride, etc.) and some are negative (stereotypes, homo/transphobic, GLBT punch line).
http://www.commercialcloset.org/
Heinz mayonnaise isn't very good anyway. Hellman's/Best's is much better.

Agreed.
 
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CUBE

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I thought this ad was so sweet. One of my straight friends sent it to me... and called before hand to call me "sweet cheeks" I didn't understand until I saw it. Just love it.
 
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Viking_UK

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I thought the advert was quite funny, and I wouldn't blame Heinz for it, seeing as they were the ones who made it in the first place. I expect they pulled it because they wanted to avoid a bad reputation after the 200 complaints, and that's coming back to kick them in the bum.

Ads often get pulled for fewer complaints than that. Because most people don't usually bother to put pen to paper or make the call when they're angry about something on TV, there's some formula they use to work out the number of people who've been offended from the number of complaints received.

The ad for a chicken curry sauce where a woman in a sari bent over a chicken, struck a small gong and told it to open its chakras was banned after only 25 and the Citroen ad where the model walks away from a crash with perfect make-up despite the air bag going off was pulled after 10. 200 complaints in a week is quite a lot for one advert.

There are a lot of people out there whose heads this ad just went sailing straight over. I think Heinz were a bit too clever with their humour. I suppose it might have worked a little better if the guy had had a stronger NY accent. Isn't it amazing how people immediately assumed that the ad was promoting homosexuality? Would anyone have complained if it had been two women?
 

dreamer20

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With regard to the OP, its ironic that LGBT groups caused this snickers ad to be withdrawn as they felt it promoted homophobia:

YouTube - Snickers Kiss

Although the Snickers ad included a same sex kiss, it was not depicted in a positive way. It was depicted in an "ew, gross, ick, our-masculinity-is-threatened" kind of way. The Heinz ad, on the other hand, depicted same sex affection in a positive, "not a big deal, just a normal family, like any other family" kind of way.
 

dreamer20

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Although the Snickers ad included a same sex kiss, it was not depicted in a positive way. It was depicted in an "ew, gross, ick, our-masculinity-is-threatened" kind of way.

I don't think either ad should have been banned. IMO the snickers ad depicted the kiss in a very sweet, passionate way followed by the men showing how idiotic it is for anyone to think that a kiss shared by men causes them to be less male. Both ads were hilarious. Some homophobic males who watched these ads showed the "ew, gross, ick" reaction to the kiss.

To quote ledroit, from the thread dealing with the double standard:
Girls Kiss It's Ok...Guys Kiss Then It's Gay?

http://www.lpsg.org/484088-post12.html

"Guys who freak about this have to be a little bit hysterical. But really going on about a kiss seems like the male equivalent of a bunch shrieking girls--just in a lower key. Maybe weak guys think being gay could be contagious, and even the sight of a gay kiss could contaminate their sexual orientations."
 

Beauxbatons

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I think that those responsible for getting this commercial banned completely missed the point.

This commercial is not "gay positive" (or whatever you want to call it)--if it was, they wouldn't be calling that man "mum,"--after all, we all know in the year 2008 that it is incorrect and inappropriate to refer to a gay man as a woman. So, if we were to take this commercial at face value, it would be reductive and derogatory towards the gay community.

However, I would submit to you all that not only does this commercial not endorse same-sex couples, it does not even depict one. Rather, in a surprisingly sophisticated bit of visual rhetoric, the advertiser is suggesting that if a housewife (the primary target of advertising for home products, mind you) purchases this brand of mayonnaise, then her sandwiches will have the same appeal as those of the fabled New York delicatessens. And, since this connotation is made in a humorous manner, the advertisers get a double whammy in terms of emotional impact. By substituting a deli owner for the mum, the commercial makes a clever appeal to ethos, and by doing so in a funny way, it makes a clever appeal to pathos (along with the traditional appeal to pathos of a mother's concern and care for her family). All in all, a rather effective commercial, I'd say... and nothing polemic about it at all.