The Snicker Add Poll with some reasonable options.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

Poll question: The Snicker Add Poll with some reasonable options.

i am using the word gay to encompass the enire glbt community.

[rocktivity]

1. I thought the commercial itself was simply bad

What I found offensive was the planned aftermath, including the men using assault and risking poisoning themselves to prove they're not gay.

Married With Children's Al Bundy once swallowed one of his son's acne medicine pads to prove he wasn't gay--he had unknowingly put a pair of shoes on a transvestite--but that made me laugh. It's all in the execution, I guess.

:headbang:
rocknation

[maxsolomon]

4. i don't even know what you're talking about

what snickers ad?

[rocktivity]

18. Americablog explains it all for you

(link)

As I said, my real problem with the commercial is that it was accompanied by a web site where you could vote on three different endings, two of which have the men violently struggling to prove they're not gay. Under pressure from several groups, the web site was pulled last night.

:headbang:
rocknation

[maxsolomon]

24. oh ok now i'm glad i didn't see it

what a waste of my beautiful mind.

[LoZoccolo]

2. This poll does not have reasonable options.

The option for not funny but not offensive is absent.

[Mike Daniels]

11. I'm with you. I thought it was just a stupid commercial

The whole set up was inane to begin with.

Guy sees a Snickers bar, bends his head at a bizarrely awkward angle to access said Snickers and doesn't realize that the other end of the candy bar is connected to his friend's mouth until their lips touch.

The commercial was so WTF even before the "kiss" that the only offense I detected was the offense to my intelligence.

[Beelzebud]

3. How about an option for those of us who weren't offended or amused?

It was just a lame ad. I didn't find it funny, or offensive. It was just another lame superbowl commercial.

[johnnie]

5. I am straight

I saw the ad and thought it was stupid. I have no idea about any campaign.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. You And Me Johnnie

I just thought the whole things was silly. And the tearing the chest hair out was stupid. That's not manly. It's idiotic.
The Professor

[alfredo]

6. I thought it was making fun of Homophobia.

That was my first impression. I didn't go to the site

[Zookeeper]

36. The web site made the homophobia clear...

especially in showing football players wincing/grimacing/gagging while watching the ads.

[alfredo]

43. I winced when they pulled the chest hair.

How many were gagging at the act of two men kissing or at the fact the guys were ugly as home made sin.

[Zookeeper]

46. One of the football players looked off-camera...

and asked, "Did those guys REALLY have to kiss?!?" Answer, "Yes, they had to do that scene fifty times!" Football player: "Oh no!" (Grimacing, laughing.)

The real message was unmistakable on the website.

:hi:

[alfredo]

50. Interaction between men in groups is so ritualized.

There are so many rules. The player in question could be gay, but he had to react that way or be ostracized. It sucks. I had a friend who had to hide his orientation because he would lose his source of income. He was a studio technician in Nashville. He had to play the macho games to survive. There are others in that town who put up the Macho front knowing their record deals would be pulled and they would be finished.

My friend left Nashville for the south west. He is living with his partner and loving the warm friendly clime.

[youthere]

7. I think it would have been funny..

if they would have ended the commercial where their mouths met and their eyes popped open. Cut! End scene. It's the emphasis on the behavior that follows that I think people object to.

[hlthe2b]

8. So stupid of Mars, Inc....

At a time when most of us already feel guilty about those empty calories from Snickers, M&Ms, Dove Bars, etc., this may just provide sufficient motivation and incentive to kick the habit... (Besides the fact they are a major REPUG donor and have adopted business policies that are detrimental to their cocoa-producing partner countries)

I'll go to the much healthier chocolate Silk Soy milk or the occasional premium quality chocolate bars to get my fix from now on...

[myrna minx]

9. I just can't believe how straight people

think that they are the final say of what is or isn't offensive to gay people. :crazy: :grr: By the by, I'm not a lesbian, but most of the people that I love in my life are one of the letters in the GLBT, so I'm an honorary lesbian. This is just enraging me that straight people are telling my GLBT friends to "lighten up" when they have nothing comparable, like say the mind blowing violence committed against Matthew Shepard. Arrg.

http://www.matthewsplace.com/

[LostinVA]

12. Thank you

:pals: :pals: :pals:

[myrna minx]

15. You're welcome.

:hug:

[ProfessorGAC]

13. Kind Of Convenient mryna

You're an "honorary" lesbian so you get to empathize with the homophobic threat, and the rest of us are clueless because we can't relate.

That's a bit disingenuous.
GAC

And i think some black americans in the 50's and higher might take issue with your sentiment. I think they do know.

[myrna minx]

14. Well sir, I have cleaned the blood off of the face of

a gay friend who ran into a manly man asshole's fist. I have taken a friend to the hospital who walked into a gay bashing "boot party" so call me disingenuous if you must, but violence against gays is a very serious matter to me. Those that can't relate and are the one's who are telling my GLBT friends to lighten up are yes, rather clueless.

[ProfessorGAC]

19. But, You Excluded Me

And, you know nothing of who i know or what i've done. So, you basically excluded any other straight person, aside from yourself, of getting it. I get it. I think the commerical is significantly less harmful than do many here, but i get the point. I think the commerical will essentially fail because it's stupid, not because it's offensive.

My opinion is that it will die it's own death and go on the scrap heap of bad advertising ideas, without any hyperventilating by DU'ers.

And, i'm opposed to violence against people for any reason. I don't need a reason or a cause. I just don't think it's right. So, i'm clueless because i don't have a specific reason for being concerned about violence? Silly.

My objection is that you suggest that since we don't have that threat of violence hanging over us, straight people shouldn't have an opinion, unless it conrorms to yours. But, since you're not gay, you don't have that threat either. So, if you can empathize, why would assume others cannot? That's the "too convenient" part.

And, you've now gone off on me, attempting to reply twice, and you don't even know where i stand on the issue. So, you're ASSUMING i don't get it. Well, you assumed incorrectly
GAC

[myrna minx]

20. I did assume, and for that I am sorry.

Since I have gone through the violence first hand, yes, I am very sensitive to this. Please accept my apology for lashing out at you.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. Not Necessary

I understand. Just didn't want to be painted the wrong color, is all.

Pals?
GAC

[myrna minx]

23. Pals!

:hi:

[myrna minx]

16. Oh forget it.

So, you've taken my support for my community into some racist sentiment? Good god.

[LoZoccolo]

17. Self-delete; I counted wrong. n/t

[Pathwalker]

30. I would hope that victims of domestic violence get

WHY you're offended. I understand WHY gays are offended over this ad - the same reason I, as someone who was a victim of domestic violence was offended by the Bud Light ad where all they did was slap each other. I seem to be the only one offended by that ad, though.

[myrna minx]

40. I should not have said "nothing comparable."

I am sorry for what you went through. :hug:

[Pathwalker]

42. Oh, dear - that was decades ago, and it made me

an advocate for victims of domestic violence. It seemed to me, though, that this year's ads were the most violent ads I've ever seen on TV. I can't understand why they hink this sells anything.
:hi:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. sorry i forgot the not amusing option...i was on my way to work and it was a bit rushed

[ProfessorGAC]

45. S'OK

That would have been a good one, though. I just thought the commercial insulted EVERYONE'S intelligence. It's just stupid. No matter what the reason, no matter the homophobic implications, nobody tears out chest hair to show they're a man. NOBODY! Funny has to have some element of real. Otherwise it's just dumb.
The Professor

[mondo joe]

25. Other: I am gay and didn't see it at all.

Though I'm probably one of the only gay men left who hasn't seen it.

At this point I don't even this I could see it with anything like an open mind anyway.

Edit to add: Based on what little I do know about it, I have my suspicions which fall into neither of the two most opposing camps. Mainly I just feel let down that it's not something we can all rationally discuss without nasty charges giong one way or the other.

[Lilith Velkor]

26. I am bisexual, hate football and couldn't care less.

Didn't vote.

[JackRiddler]

27. You almost got it all covered, except for the false dichotomy.

The choice is not between offensive and funny. (This is almost what the marketing division for Snickers would want it to be.)

One can find the commercial total lame and yet inoffensive.

(I found it was offensive to low-wage workers, who are presented as totally stupid.)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

28. i have already apologized about not offering not funny as an option

[JackRiddler]

29. okay i see that now sorry n/t

[cosmik debris]

31. I know how to turn my TV off

I didn't find it offensive. I didn't find it at all.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

32. just cos you dont see something doesnt mean it doesnt cause harm.

i dont watch the superbowl either. however homophobic messages damage me whether or not i watch them.

[cosmik debris]

37. A lot of things hurt.

The very existence of the KKK hurts Black People. But you can't take away their rights just because you get your feelings hurt. If you can't get over it, that's too bad. The world will turn without your approval.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

38. no one is taking away free speech rights. but i reserve that gay people can call something offensive

when it is

[LostinVA]

33. Turning off the TV doesn't make anything go away

That's nothing but hiding your head in the sand.

[Fovea]

34. I am bi

and you left us completely out of the poll.

I thought it was funny as hell, btw.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

35. i mentioned that i was using gay to ecompass glbt. i was in a real rush when i created the poll.

if it helps you any i am pansexual. which most people think of as bi anyway

[Fovea]

49. I wasn't really offended,

I just wanted to point out that we really friendly folks might be a small group, but we might also have a different perspective as a group.

No problem.

I really did see this particular advert as a smack at homophobes, but many obviously didnt.

[slj0101]

39. Very hard to say. I'm straight, and thought the ad was stupid.

Given the socio-political leanings of the Mars company, it wouldn't surprise me if their intent was to incite homophobic sentiment. I can see how this ad is considered offensive, however it also seems to be a pretty over the top satire of what it means to be "manly." Again, it's tough to say what the true intent of the ad really is, but on the face of it, it is pretty incendiary.

[Hobarticus]

41. Other: the ad was just stupid...

I'm offended just because it's so goddamn dumb.

I could see how GLBT people could be offended.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

51. yeah i should have made a "add is stupid" category

[HuffleClaw]

44. you missed 'my sexuality is none of yer damned business and i felt...'

...the overblown feigned indignation over an ad campaign that clearly lampoons homophobes' hysterical.'

[La Lioness Priyanka]

47. no i didnt. your affiliation is my business when you essentially tell me to get over it.

if you were not attacked by that add, maybe you are just ignorant.

[HuffleClaw]

52. i said no such thing.

i've made my position clear.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

54. and i have made mine as well.

[L A Woman]

48. i was more embarrassed than offended....

and i think i would have been REALLY offended if I were a straight male because the ad clearly assumes that the target Super Bowl audience - straight males - are bigoted morons.

my thought after aired was, "well it wouldn't be the super bowl without homophobia, would it?"

[MrSlayer]

53. I laughed at it.

And then I thought nothing of it again until everyone started freaking out about it.