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I’m going to deviate slightly from my usual posts and say something because it needs said.
Recently I saw this brilliant advert on TV by Heinz advertising ‘New York Deli’ style (use of) mayo. If you haven’t already seen it, you might have to head on over to youtube, because Heinz withdrew it.
Because…wait for it….
200 people complained that it was two men kissing.
Kids wandering into the kitchen and shouting thier mom for a sandwich. Mom hands them over and in a broad new york accent gives them instructions and ‘mom talk’ for the day.
Dad runs in, grabs his lunch and ‘the wife’ (in case anyone missed it, he’s being played by a man, dressed as a new york deli worker) asks him if he’s forgotten something - he goes back and kisses her goodbye.
Most sane and reasonable people, I’ve found, take that advert to be a representation of ‘becoming a new york deli sandwich maker’ - whilst still being ‘ourselves’. Like the mayo makes the difference to the sandwich
We’ll completely ignore the fact that in the time of Shakespeare, that men played ‘women’ in plays, and that no one batted an eyelid. No one screamed abberation then…
I actually thought it was really very clever, and that anyone that can’t take the inferrences needs to consider reading more - gender specific roles being twisted on thier heads aside - and sterotyping, not only the 2.4 kids, the dad and the ‘mom’ (including the stereotyping of the loudmouthed, ‘new york deli owner’) was more important, more annoying, and to be quite frank, would have been grating if they hadn’t done some character substitution.
Advertising that doesn’t make us think - and work - and infer, and enforce brands isn’t worth it, at all. That did make me think ‘new york deli’ just by switching out the stereotyped mom for the stereotyped deli owner. I KNOW it’s unlikely I’m ever going to meet a deli owner like that - but at the same time, I’ve never met a mother that stands in a kitchen ‘ala’ Marge Simpson, making sandwiches, kissing family goodbye and generally being immaculate. It’s almost as unrealistic as the double standard in advertising today.
However, this is something that I also wanted to highlight. BECAUSE of the fuss surrounding the advert - it will be more memorable. In being more memorable, more people are talking about it - and positive or negative buzz is one of those interesting things that tends to increase sales if it’s not directly related to quality or a ’scare’ surrounding the product itself. So no matter what way you look at it, Heinz are getting ‘good’ advertising.
I stick by my opening statement though - two men kissing is not automatically ‘gay’. And I wish society would come to grips with that - we might move on and be more accepting if that were the case.
As an addendum to that - even if two men kissing equals ‘gay’, does it really, honestly matter? Our obessession with what’s right and proper should only be within our own four walls and our envirnonment, as long as the behaviour in question doesn’t hurt anyone else. Religious taste, gender status, music, clothes…everything that falls under the remit of personal choice - should be personal. And if it were, and we were more accepting of that - as a society, I truly believe that there wouldn’t have been ‘200 complaints’ and a really cute, kinda funny advert that had the impact I’d have hoped for in an ad, would still be on the air.
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