New Snickers Ad Called Homophobic By Other Bloggers; We Think It’s Funny

Our issue with the super-sensitive among us is this: Humor is often, in part, about cruelty. Cleanse every instance of mild cruelty out of every TV show, movie, and candy bar ad and we’ll be left with a lot of episodes of 7th Heaven and a bunch of mild, humorless hippies lying around hugging each other.

Is there a balance to be struck? Sure. But we’ll take a few candy bars thrown at speedwalkers any day so long as we can keep our Helen Keller jokes.

RELATED:
Homophobic Joke of the Week

Open Letter to Omnicom (AdAge)
The Homophobic Problem Inside Ad Agency Omnicom (Queerty)
AdAge Critic Blasts Omnicom (JoeMyGod)

0 thoughts on “New Snickers Ad Called Homophobic By Other Bloggers; We Think It’s Funny”

  1. Susquehanna Hat Company

    Jay, speedwalking DOES look silly, but when you have Mr. T on a big military vehicle with a cannon firing objects at a guy with swishy hips, it’s not because he’s speedwalking. As I mentioned in my first post, substitute John Cleese doing his “silly walk” routine for the speedwalker and tell me if the commercial would then play differently.

    Of course you can be gay, self-loving and able to look at things from the perspective of a teenage boy, but do you really think no one is looking at this commercial with their pals and saying, “Way to go, Mr. T! Get that fag!” If it inspires a bunch of senior high schoolers to pile into a car, drive to Boystown and hurl beef jerky at people walking on the sidewalk, would they be doing it because they hate speedwalking? It wasn’t us who came up with the slang where the phrase “That’s so gay” is a negative connotation. It’s a small step from laughing with them to laughing at us, and I don’t think it’s PC to be concerned about it, even at the risk of losing one’s “hip” status.

    I know it’s trendy to be anti-PC, but would gay society would be as far along as we are if we didn’t stand up and speak out when we see ourselves (or facsimiles thereof) being portrayed in a harmful, negative light? It’s one thing to relate to teenage homophobic humor, it’s another to carry the flag for it.

  2. OMG guys. Can’t I be gay, self-loving, and be able to relate to a teenage boy’s sense of humor about how silly lookin speedwalking is? I really don’t see how finding this commercial funny leads to a) violence or b) gay hate. Is it really our job always to be PC sticks-in-the-mud whenever straight men want to make jokes about girly men? The culture may evolve, eventually, to tolerate all kinds of people — be they gay, lez, tranny, or whatever — but that doesn’t mean no one is ever going to laugh at anyone else! And to the commenter who thinks we’re endorsing gay bashing and the isolation of gays from the larger culture: we abhor gay bashing, and do not want to isolate our demographic so much as we want it to retain its edge and its *sense of humor.* You don’t have to find this funny, and we don’t deny that there’s a little bit of homophobia built in here… but maybe our minds are just nimble enough to still see it from a straight man’s perspective and have a guilty giggle. xo, jay@TheSword

  3. Highly offensive and unnecessary. I can’t imagine how self-hating you would have to be to find that funny.

  4. This is not homophobic and I don’t think I deserved beatings in high school, but I wasn’t Speedwalking either. Speedwalking is about as gay as Richard Simmons. And the candy bar demographic (ironically Richard Simmons too) being mostly young males would love to hurl candy bars at speedwalkers (and ironically Richard Simmons too). This ad is more about gender discrimination and the notion of how men should be hyper-masculine. This is also a fag on fag crime with our leather daddy deodorant/cologne free bears. Well, fags may corner the effeminate market IN America not all Speedwalkers are gay.

    On a side note.
    I do wish we’d keep “queer” as a positive term we’ve already got “gay” to describe rainbow wearing sashaying parade marchers. Shante shante shante!

  5. Susquahannah Hat Company

    Geez, is the writer one of those guys who thinks he deserved the beatings he got in high school? And, uh, yes, I call making fun of a man who wiggles his ass in an exaggeratedly effeminate way (“speedwalker” here is obviously meant to stand in for “fag”–and not in that “good” way) and told he needs to run like a “real man” homophobic. This seems to be deliberate, otherwise why choose the amped-up hip-swinging style of speedwalking instead of, say, having John Cleese do “The Ministry of Silly Walks”, which would have made the same point, but without the obvious subtext?

    There is cruelty in humor, but that comes from being on the outside looking in. The writer here may accuse us of being “super-sensitive”, but in his own super-INsensitive way, he is obviously identifying with the man shooting at the fem guy, and not with the guy being shot at. TheSword always gets upset when gay culture threatens to merge with straight culture. I guess siding with homophobes and endorsing gay-bashing is a way to keep that Great Divide. Bravo, Sword! Well-played to the demographic that for some reason you seem intent on isolating.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 50 MB. You can upload: image. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Scroll to Top