aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, February 05, 2007

Snickers

What were there ad people thinking? I didn’t watch the game so I missed the ads. But I just can’t imagine this selling a Snickers bar. Newsday:

The Snickers ad shown during the first half of the game featured two male mechanics working closely under the hood of a car. When one pulls out a Snickers bar and begins eating it, the other locks his lips around the other end and also begins to chomp away. Their lips meet, horrifying both of them. They ultimately pull off tufts of chest hair and scream.

Via SoVo Blog, “If the guys had run into a nearby Hooters, I could understand how that might be perceived as an antidote to “unmanly” behavior. But I’ve always thought of chest hair removal as pretty gay.”

SEE ALSO: Seth Stevenson in Slate, “Another year, another Bud Light ad to kick things off.” And later, on Snickers:

1) Ripping out chest hair is manly? I thought chest-hair removal was a firmly metrosexual move. 2) Once again, disgusting hair imagery appears in a food/beverage ad. Not appetizing! 3) Apparently, knee-jerk homophobia is still grounds for comedy.

I didn’t find it homophobic. I didn’t find it funny. I just thought it was bad.

UPDATE: The Mars site had four versions of the ad. Aravosis argues they are homophobic (I didn’t watch the one he finds most offensive). Mars pulled the website. And the ads.

LATER: I had linked to the Mars site above. Since it was pulled, I substituted a YouTube link to the version that ran in the SuperBowl.