Snickers Makes Fun Of Effeminate Men By Shooting Them
Using codes of masculinity to sell products to guys is nothing new, but it's usually about beer, "hard lemonade" or deodorant. It's also usually funny, and pokes fun at male insecurities while celebrating them. A new Snickers commercial, however, seems to just be about beating the crap out of sissies.
It opens on a guy in bright yellow shorts sashaying down a sidewalk. He's speedwalking. Suddenly a truck comes roaring over the houses and smashes onto the street beside the man. Mr. T is in the back of the truck behind a Gatling gun. He yells at the man to stop speedwalking: "You a disgrace to the man race!" he shouts. Then he fires candybars at the man, and the man dances around on the sidewalk in fear and takes off running. The tagline: "Snickers. Get some nuts." (You can watch it here.) Yum! Now when I want to satisfy my hunger and think about shooting down a mincing, nutless homo in suburbia, I'll know what candy bar to buy! Thanks, Snickers!
Bob Garfield at the magazine Ad Age wrote an open letter last week to the CEO of Omnicon, the ad corporation responsible for the spot, accusing him of using "dehumanizing stereotypes" and "jokey violence" in of all things a candy commercial.
This letter is to you, but it is equally to your colleagues throughout the industry. Are you so bereft, of ideas and simple humanity, that you must be reduced to stereotyping and bullying? That you must identify an "other" to ridicule, or worse? That you must build a brand on the backs of people who have harmed no one save for challenging a high-school locker-room standard of masculinity?
He points out that Omnicom says it practices corporate responsibility by "ensuring that we use our position to promote socially responsible policies and practices and that we make positive contributions to society across all of our operations." Then why, in a candy ad that you assume is at least partially targeted to children, would you go this route? Garfield points out that it's not just about anti-gay attitudes, or more broadly about gender roles and what's "okay" for one sex or another. It's really about attacking people who are different or seen as weak:
You don't have to be gay to be the target of macho aggression. If you are slight, or weak, or meek or odd. If you don't like football or groove on Liza. If you read books. If you drive a Neon. If for any reason you don't fulfill the masculinity expectations of the bully, you are therefor[sic] a faggot and: ridiculed, berated, laughed at, marginalized, stuffed into a locker, beaten up, murdered. Ass-wiggling speedwalker = faggot. It's code. Likewise sweater-draped poodle walkers who squeal "oooooooh!" This kind of ad, which normalizes and even incites contempt or worse for the supposed faggots, is therefore homophobic whether the runner is gay or not.
Some Ad Age readers have commented that Garfield is being too politically correct and that it's all in good fun. After all, it's not a crime to offend someone. At the very least, one of them argued, kids today don't have the same anti-gay culture of past generations.
Is this true? I'd love to hear from Consumerist readers who are, say, in their early twenties or younger: has bullying based on codes of masculinity abated in recent years? Is that sort of behavior really a thing of the past? Because if it is, good for humanity—but I wonder if a Snickers ad that shows a pop-culture icon firing a large gun at a big ole' sissy is teaching kids it's time to bring it back.
But enough about that cheery world of high-school—the real question, writes CV Harquail on her blog Authentic Organizations, is why a global corporation that claims social responsibility would produce a spot that undermines its promises to do good.
What I don’t understand about the responses to Garfield’s letter is that so few people are focused on holding Wren accountable for aligning his organization’s actions with its words. Why is this?
Striving for authenticity, for alignment between who you say you are, what you believe about yourself, and how you behave as an organization, is the responsibility of the organization’s leadership.
And responsibility for being authentic is not confined to leadership: Keeping behavior aligned with the organization’s statements of purpose, vision and value is the responsibility of every employee. The people at Omnicom know this– it’s right here in Omnicom’s Code of Conduct statement:
Our reputation depends, to a very large measure, on you taking personal responsibility for maintaining and adhering to the policies and guidelines set forth here. Your continued cooperation in this regard is appreciated.
"An Open Letter to Omnicom President-CEO John Wren" [AdvertisingAge via Towleroad]
"Homophobia and (In)Authenticity at Omnicom: What can a leader do?" [Authentic Organizations]
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Comments:
Crimes against good taste are sometimes best punished with silence.
Given that yesterday's church shooting appears to have been motivated by that church's stance in favor of gay rights (and, of course, by the shooter being absolutely insane), this ad's "joke" is as unfunny as it can get.
Here, they are best punished with money. As in, let Mars Inc. know their competitors be getting your junk food money.
The people who are whining about "political correctness" need a boot to the head. No, you are not creating a hip, daring response to overbearing PC when you're a bigoted asshole.
Leave Mr. T out of this!
I don't really hold a favorable opinion on speedwalking thanks to that Malcolm in the Middle episode. Either walk normally, or RUN!
And Snickers was also the product advertised with the homophobic "Gross! Men kissing!" ad, one version of which ended with men beating each other with wrenches. I can't imagine that the company stayed with the same creative team after such a debacle, but damn, two homophobic violence commercials in a row? That's pretty creepily coincidental.
I thought the commercial was great. histerical. I'm sure you can take every commercial and say it makes fun of someone. You can find a commercial portraying a guy like he has an IQ of 5 and say that it's making fun or stereotyping retarded people. Should snickers redo the commercial and show a big beefy bodybuilder speedwalking? i think the same effect would come across and i would laugh histerically. everyone else...get over it. it's a commercial
I think the commercial is funny. Why do people get so touchy? Why is everything an attack against one group or another? It's a commercial folks. Read into it whatever you want. Why has everyone gotten so whiny?
This is fluff. Period. I certainly feel that it’s worse that Garfield felt that an effeminate and easily bullied man is an accurate representative of the Gay community. At no point in the commercial is it implied that the speedwalker is gay. He’s just a pushover. Stop getting your pretty panties in a bunch over something so stupid.
Video?
I hope that they lose some money over this, they deserve it. It's in terrible taste.
@mythago: I agree that we should vote with our dollars, but I also think that making a big, public fuss over this is playing right into their strategy.
I'm not really a "Consumerist reader" (I read a few of the other Gawkers and check in over here every once in a while when something looks interesting), but I'm 20, so I'll help.
I'm not exactly the most masculine guy in the world. And I'm fine with that. OK, I don't, like, power-walk in yellow shorts, but that's just not my style. Personally, I haven't ever really seen people being bullyed for not being "man" enough, but that could just be that my circle of friends doesn't care about that. I'm sure it probably does happen, but when I saw people in high school getting in fights, it wasn't related to this idea.
Personally, I don't like ads like this, ones that make fun of men who don't measure up to some sort of imaginary "manliness" standard, but I'm not offended and I don't really think it promotes gay-bashing or anything like that. If you like it, have a laugh; if you don't, just ignore it. It's a candy bar ad. Be offended by something that matters. If you get offended by Mr. T doing just about anything (especially shooting candy bars), you need to get your priorities in order.
Ok, to all the people saying this commercial is preaching violence against homosexuals, I say... really? REALLY? He's hurling candy bars at a speed walker. I mean c'mon.
I think too many people have too much time on their hands and are looking for things to be offended about.
Is there something wrong with Neons? I didn't get the memo.
If everyone should STFU because it's a commercial, then why are you posting "it's just a commercial"? Why are you getting your panties in a bunch that people are unhappy with this commercial?
@Platypus Man: Yes, because if you care about one thing, you are INCAPABLE of caring about anything else. Except not.
You don't know crap about the priorities of anybody offended by this ad.
This is fluff. Period. I certainly feel that it?s worse that Garfield felt that an effeminate and easily bullied man is an accurate representative of the Gay community. At no point in the commercial is it implied that the speedwalker is gay. He?s just a pushover. Stop getting your pretty panties in a bunch over something so stupid.
Well, to me it sounds fantasticly funny! I want to see it!
Mr. T yelling at some poncey twit sounds hilarious!
I saw one of those hard lemonade ads. The funny thing is...what self-respecting man drinks "hard" lemonade anyway? Might as well crack open a nice cold Zima and be done with it.
Anyway, I have no problem with this ad, except that it's stupid. I mean, this company really wants you to associate the nuts in Snickers with balls? Really? Ew. That's the worst thing to happen to Snickers since it was used as the fake turd-in-a-pool in a million elementary school kids' pranks.
How PC can we get?
It's a funny commercial, get over it.
Found the video. It's on the "beating the crap out of the sissies" first link of the post.
I wonder what percentage of gay men are effeminate? The ad agency obviously thought the percentage to be so low that their ad wouldn't offend the mass of gay men (and lesbians) that are NOT effeminate. I wonder how they felt when their "all in good fun" little ad got them labeled as homophobes?
Shame on Snickers for funding this crap, not catching it, or not caring.
Straight white suburban boys who have never ever set foot in the jungle of the real world are clearly the nutless ones. They also probably think Senator Obama has nothing to fear from would-be assassins, and that his security is as assured as McCain's.
Gays are "whiny" because we tend to, oh I don't know, get gunshots point blank in the face, like that 15 year old kid in Ventura, CA a couple months back.
I carry a baseball bat in my truck cause I figure eventually, I'm gonna be kissing some guy in a parking lot, just like the hip kids do, and some douchenozzle like Bravo369 is gonna come along, drunk and angry, and try to get up in my face, and I'm gonna have to beat the holy fuck out of him.
See ya in Hell, vanilla!
It's about how stupid speedwalking looks. Everyone expressing outrage must believe some stereotype that only gays would be into speedwalking.
I say we're looking at this the wrong way.
Drive-by free-candy delivery ... what's not to like about that? ;-p
This commercial is so funny. It reminds me of when one of my good friends was shot and killed on July 31, 1991 by a fagbasher who felt threatened that my friend wasn't masculine-looking enough.
Sure, it wasn't with a Snickers-loaded gun, but the sentiment is still there.
eh...I think it's funny. I'm not a "manly man" but I'm secure in myself to laugh at a joke.
Commercials are less and less about products and more and more about being funny. (which is quite sad honestly)
Mr. T is the characture of a manly-man over-buff mean guy. They use his image to attack other men. It's funny. Laugh.
What makes a man? NUTS make the man. Well, according to mars, in order to distinguish Snickers, they have to ensure people know it has NUTS in it, and what better way to do that then remind them that NUTS is another way of saying TESTICLES. In this commercial we have the protypical neanderthal alpha male - Mr. T (where the "T" stands for "Testosterone") - shooting what can be assumed to be his manly chocolate spermatazoa at the lesser, effeminate balls-less modern man.
It's really quite fascinating. And dumb.
Reportedly, by the way, the ad has been pulled from television but is still available on the web. However, the site took so long to load that I gave up (the same thing happened on the main Mars site; they need to design more for access and less for flash).
@Transuranic: Yeah, the "get over it" crowd probably hasn't sat in Spanish class in high school while a bully behind you whispers, "Faggot. I'm gonna kill you, faggot. You faggot," for six weeks straight. I have, and my mouth fell open when I saw the commercial. Based on my experiences growing up, this commercial normalizes violence against sissies, girly-men, and in general the "weak." I'm pretty sure that bully and others like him would have seen it as justifying their attitudes and behaviors.
Ok I just saw it.... ANd I admit..... IT WAS HILARIOUS!!!
I did find it a little disconcerting how mr T has gotten meaner in his old age. lol!
THe first time I saw it.... I thought he called the guy "cracka" (but after multiple views... he was sayin "sucka").
I graduated high school four years ago (just got my degree, good riddance to the "alma mater"), and I've got a anecdote I think is relevant.
I ran a satirical newspaper in high school with one author who often bordered on the farcical side. His goal was generally to rile people up. It wasn't my type of humor, but I didn't want to step on his toes so I didn't. Incidentally, his pieces were always the most popular.
Anyway, he once submitted a question to our advice column (which were obviously always fake) with a thinly veiled name of a local varsity baseball player. Essentially it said something along the lines of "I like to kiss boys but I don't want people to make fun of me, what should I do?"
Against my better judgment, I ran it, fully expecting to be criticized for homophobic material. I figured most people would get a chuckle out of the sheer audacity of the remark then move on, while other, more senative, readers would be upset. I was prepared to take responsibility for my decision.
But the response was unfortunately quite the opposite of all that. The baseball player and his friends were super pissed that we had the audacity to call him gay. A small minority threw a borderline violent fit. They threatened the advice columnist and called her a "dyke" in retalliation on account of her dress tendencies.
Others either said they were over-reacting, some of their teammates even said we should have just used their names instead, as they wouldn't have been bothered. Faculty kept removing me from class to make sure nobody had confronted me.
In the end, since they overreacted so much, they weren't in any position to try to have us punished. The administrative decision was to have us all apologize to each other and move on, which is what we did.
There were a number of gay and lesbian students at the school, as well as those who defied typical gender roles. That none of these students ever had any problems (in high school at least) shows that, although some people were vehemently afraid to be labelled gay themselves, everyone was publicly tolerant. The reaction to our question (and really, the question itself), on the other hand, shows that homophobia is still strongly present.
Their general tolerance was clearly a learned bahavior. One commercial isn't going to change the world, but if this type of thing were common when my peers were younger, how might their tolerance have been affective? What if they had been lead to believe that this sort of behavior was funny?
Doesn't a show like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" mock certain male stereotypes as well?
Aren't various stereotypes of men mocked routinely in the sitcom universe still? From plumber's cracks to dumb jock to mechanic to nerdy guy, etc.
While I don't really like this, and I wouldn't choose this to advertise my product; comic violence is commonly used for fun in mass media and advertising. This isn't some guy getting stabbed by a bunch of street thugs.
joke = funny
some people are too sensitive - maybe they need some nuts too.....
First:
Is this true? I'd love to hear from Consumerist readers who are, say, in their early twenties or younger: has bullying based on codes of masculinity abated in recent years?Not really.
Second:
I know alot of gay/bi guys and women, and I pretty much assure you even they think speedwalking is pretty damn queer. (And even then, where did anyone get the idea that the guy was gay, and not just some metro fool?)
Third:
It's Mr. Fuckin' T, in a fucking pickup, driving through a house while standing in the bed of said pickup. God damn that made my sides hurt.
Finally:
Does noone get the IRONY of a supposed ""anti-gay"" commercial with a tagline of "Get Some Nuts"?! Cause that sounds like a gay meta-reference.
Regardless, the commercial made me laugh with the over-the-top vehicle carnage tearing through a house and classic Mr. T.
@Chris Walters: Man, I'm not condoning the ad. I'm not saying that what it's saying is cool. I don't like it either, though I haven't shared your experiences. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't be offended by an ad. What you had to go through it terrible, but this is an ad. For candy. It's not saying that's it's ok to do this. It's an ad and is intended to be funny, whether or not you think it is. Anyone who thinks the ad is "justifying their attitudes and behaviors" probably shouldn't take their advice from... ads.
Some things are ok to get offended over, but this isn't a big deal. People are too sensitive. I'm sorry if you don't like what I have to say, but pick your battles. If you get offended by everything, you might just go crazy.
@ratnerstar, the kind of asshats who think harassing effeminate men is funny (gee, am I looking at anyone in this thread? Yes, I am) or that it's cool to harass gay men would like the commercial, public fuss or no. "Silence" in the sense of saying nothing is a mistake. Talk in money; it's all they understand.
As for "comic violence", the point isn't shooting candy bars; it's the target. If it were a bunch of guys in a pickup truck with a Confederate flag shooting Snickers bars at a black man, shouting "You a disgrace to your race!", would that be funny?
Oh. My bad. Most Consumerist readers probably would think so, too.
@LeeEquestridomus: Agreed!
Plus it's just a joke commercial. I mean, Mr. T is in the vehicle, not Hitler.
The key to staying masculine is to eat a uninspired corporation-created candy? I think NOT!
Everyone knows that real men eat meat...preferably raw meat that they recently killed themselves.
Only girly men eat candy.
This is why Mr. T (the worldwide exemplar of masculinity) found it them more appropriate as a projectile than as a food. I am sure that (shortly after collecting his paycheck) he went back to wrestling grizzly bears for their meat.
Mars inc Sucks. The Twix commercials (and the website "game") they have thought up is pretty much more of the same as this Snickers commercial.... except it's more date-rapey : [happilybitter.wordpress.com]
good gods....
mr t was shooting snickers at a speedwalker, if anyone should speak up and gripe are speedwalkers...
I viewed the video, didnt think the guy as gay male, but a speedwalker, thats it.
this commercial makes fun of speedwalking, an unusual and "un-natural" form of movement for any animal...
i respect people that are gay, and believe they should be able to live their live as they wish, but not everything in this world is gaybashing. this commercial was simple speedwalking bashing, nothing else...
Mr. T is funny.
He's a manly man.
He's shooting candy bars at a wimp.
It is hilarious.
It's also a joke.
I carry a baseball bat in my truck cause I figure eventually, I'm gonna be kissing some guy in a parking lot, just like the hip kids do, and some douchenozzle like Bravo369 is gonna come along, drunk and angry, and try to get up in my face, and I'm gonna have to beat the holy fuck out of him.
Really, you'll beat the "holy fuck" out of someone just for trying to get up in your face? Have fun in prison.
In the meantime I'll make sure to avoid you as I wouldn't want to run the risk of being perceived as getting up in your face.
I personally don't see anywhere in the ad where they say that the speedwalker is a gay man. You PC Nazis just assume that he is because of your own stereotypes.
D'oh! Did I just Godwin myself?
I wish people in this world would quit being such damned babies about everything. "Oh my God, he shot a snickers bar at a speedwalker. The world is coming to an end! Oh no!!"
Some of you need to grow a pair.
A society devoid of humor is now within our grasp.
Those snickers do hurt when struck by them--ah, high school...
At least the snickers weren't frozen like they were for me.
Seriously, though, how insecure do you have to be to hit someone with a snickers bar?
nah. I'll be skipping snickers for a while...