If you blinked you might have missed this story. I didn't get a chance to blog about it yesterday and by now it's a completely different story.
Think back to Sunday's game. Do you remember the Snickers commercial that showed two mechanics eating the candy bar a la Lady and the Tramp? The two men recoil in horror at the idea of a same-sex kiss and to prove their manliness they both rip large sections of hair off their chests. Funny, huh? Yeah. I didn't think so either. Neither did large sections of the gay community... Late yesterday the website supporting the marketing campaign got pulled down by Mars, the candy bar's maker.
The website had four versions of the commercial. All four started the same, but one ended with ever more horrific endings. One showed an effeminate guy walking up and asking the other two, "Is there room for three on this love boat?" So gay equals promiscuous. Ending number two ended with the two men drinking motor oil and antifreeze in an attempt to "do something manly." Yeah, better to die than be gay. The third though, took the cake. Entitled "Wrench," this ending had one of the men bashing the other with a huge wrench and being smashed into the hood of the car himself. Cause gay bashing is the "manly" thing to do, right? Are you laughing yet?
But here's the interesting tie-in:
At the bottom of the site there were clips from various Colts and Bears players' reactions to the commercials. While the Colts players obviously registered discomfort at the commercial's premise, the Bears players were offensive with their expressions of disgust and their comments.
So, yeah. Coach Dungy is going to fundraise for the Indiana Family Institute and then the entire team is featured heavily in a homophobic advertising blitz. Way to score points with your LGBT fans. These past couple of weeks have me thinking maybe we should be calling them "The Dolts" for their actions surrounding our issues.
All of the big blogs picked up on the Snickers story and also quickly linked it all back to our story about Coach Dungy speaking to IFI - Indiana's most vehemently anti-gay organization. So far the only thing the Colts are saying is still the same thing I got last week, "No comment." With Americablog, OutSports, Daily Kos, Huffington Post, AOL Sports Blog and other huge mega-sites helping to drive publicity about this, how much longer do you think the mainstream media can ignore this story? As I type this, Paula Zahn is on CNN covering the Snickers part of the story.
Coach Dungy and Colts owner Jim Irsay both gave big speeches about how important God was to the team. Apparently the Colts are important to God too - after all he won the game for them. From Jericho's walls to the Superbowl. What's God been reduced to? With God being featured so prominently, a tie-in to homophobia through the Indiana Family Institute and then a homophobic commercial's website featuring Colts players, can the media still ignore Dungy's speech? Several bloggers are referencing all the stories in their posts now. Will the local media continue to ignore Dungy's speech to a hate group?
See the commercial after the jump:
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I thought that the two "striaght" guys were pretty much being made the "butt" of the commercial's joke, so I found no offense. The Dungy/IFI story is the one that causes me concern.
I saw the commercial and it made me very uncomfortable. Maybe the straight guys were supposed to be the butt of the commercial's joke, but I felt there was an underlying prejudice in it. I didn't like it at all.
I also am not happy about Dungy fundraising for the IFI. I find all of this very sad.
The commercial itself didn't cross the line much, but the "extra footage" videos on the site were all very disturbing, and made it clear that the main part of the commercial wasn't innocent at all.
...and picket the dinner at which Dungy is going to speak. Seriously.
And write to Dungy at the Colts complex.
It's all we have.
And the commercial was disgusting. Nothing funny about it. I've eaten my last Mars candy. Today I'll write Mars and tell them as much.
Judy Sheppard has waded into the fray. Here's a clip from her recent press release. Emphasis mine.
The New York Times got this statement from a Mars spokeswoman. They sound sorry, right? Right!?!
I also just loved the commercial's homage to the far-right assertion that most gay men enjoy eating feces. [/snark] My first reaction to seeing those two go to town on the Snickers bar was that it looked like they were fighting over a turd; they couldn't have stuffed much more gay-panic crap into that commercial if they'd tried.
Getting the homophobic commerical at the beginning of the game and the code-laden Godspeak at the end from Irsay and Dungy left me shaken to a degree that surprised me. Dungy is more interested in being seen as a Christian than as a black coach (emphasizing a chosen affiliation over an inborn trait), but is willing to shill for organizations that actively work against gay people (emphasizing an inborn trait over chosen affiliations). It makes me sick.
You really are going to have to forgive me here but I kind of think people are over reacting a bit. I find it more offensive that they have dragged Mr T out of retirement to make ads more than anything else. Gay, metrosexual or whatever it says more about the stupidity of 80's television shows than it does about anything else.....
Hey I'm transsexual and I actually find this ad for Snickers bloody hilarious http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fOvWwC4tCM&NR=1