I don't find either of them offensive. In the first spot, I see a pink poodle and boas. While the kid could be gay, even my cat would look at me with distaste, and Skylar is a BDSM kitty. The guy on skates was so incredibly over the top that I felt it wasn't trying to imply the guy was gay.

In the second spot, I know that frat bros are always trying new things to sneak food and booze into stadiums. If i were a bro, and my bro showed up in drag, I'd probably beat him down on principle, then hand him a six pack of PBR to stash under his blouse.

Harmless commercials... plain fun.

The first one is a little offensive, saying that someone expressing themselves is wrong.

The Taco Bell ad is not offensive to me. At no point do they make degrading comments or disgusted reactions. His friend is just surprised to see him that way.

Apparently, my comment has been hashed about and I appear to be a violence-advocating, trans-insensitive douchebag.

I never back down from a statement I made, though I often regret when it is mistook. Unfortunately the commentary I made was read as violence advocating; that wasn't the case.

I wanted to express the feeling of a friend being met at a stadium by a scheming pal in drag, when that individual obviously isn't a CD or trans. Not from disgust but for the ridiculousness of the situation did I advocate the "beating down." And in hindsight, I should have wrote "tossed his wig" or "broke his heel," or maybe "glared in bemusement." the last phrase in the comment: "then hand him a six pack of PBR to stash under his blouse" meant that there wasn't anything wrong really and that the "violence" would have been playful among friends.

As I learn more and more from being a contributor on TBP, being sensitive on a public forum is key, especially when one is a representative of that forum. I apologize that the comment was offensive and could be construed as violence advocating.

I really don't see any way to view the Pupperoni commercial in a positive manner. As wysiwyg14 said, there are only 3 ways to interpret it, and none of them are any good.

The Taco Bell commercial was just dumb and silly, but not really offensive. This is actually one of the least offensive commercials involving drag as humor I've ever seen. I actually did laugh, the idea is so stupid.

Actually I found the Pupperoni ad kinda offensive, because the dude was meant to be gay. Or at least that's how I took it. The dog is Nixon's "silent majority" or, you know, the opposite of those queer, librul, hippy freaks you see in the street. No matter how many there are of them and how few there are of "us," "we" surround "them," right, Glenn Beck?

The Taco Bell one, well, I'm interested in what people think, since that person is obviously neither trans or CD. But I guess that's kinda like that Snickers ad everyone was mad about a little while back with the two guys kissing and then beating each other up - they weren't gay but the message about homosexuality being offensive was clear.

The dog commercial is just plain mean.

The transmisogyny in the Taco Bell commercial (we practically never see trans men or women in men's clothes in commercials do we?) is all too common in our culture. That's why I find this it offensive. My concern is that it reinforces yet again the concept of a trans person as being a deceiver, like in "The Crying Game" etc., which then reinforces the stereotype that trans women a "really men" in drag. It also reinforces the idea of a man wearing female styled clothes to break rules about entry, reinforcing the lie that male predators could use drag to get into ladies rooms to molest women and children if trans inclusive non discrimination laws are passed.

The overt message in this commercial is only slightly offensive but the assumptions underneath it, and the false conclusions it relies on to get its intended effect are very damaging to the attempts by our community to make the greater culture realize that trans women are not dishonest perverts bent towards invading prohibited spaces by faking their "real" gender/sex.

In the Taco Bell commercial, the message is that the nachos are so appealing that even a man who is NOT a cross-dresser will dress up as a woman in order to have them.

The "joke" wouldn't work if the man were an actual cross-dresser, trans individual or drag queen. The point is that HE is not, but he's willing to go in drag in order to have Taco Bell. That's how good the nachos are, supposedly.

How is this offensive, except in the banal way that most commercials are offensive? Is a straight man wearing a dress like a white person wearing blackface?