Especially if you're Snickers and you're letting NFL players make your Super Bowl spot into a homophobic horror show. After complaints from gay-rights groups and an outpouring of outrage on left-leaning political blogs, the spot was pulled and the web site removed.
No PC, bleeding-heart liberals here, but as soon as we saw the online video of various Colts and Bears grossing out over the male-to-male "kiss" we cringed and knew there'd be trouble. Because not only were comments in the videos-- which were meant to allow you to see which of the 4 possible endings to the spot the NFL players preferred-- incredibly mean and homophobic, the construction was also pretty darn racist: 3 clearly-not-too-bright Black players focusing on how disgusted they were with the very idea of two men kissing while Rex Grossman, the (white) Bears QB, practically offers a business school analysis of the marketing strategy behind the campaign.
Now what's ironic is that the spot itself wasn't particularly offensive- you can argue that the humor stems from the ridiculousness of the two main characters homophobic reaction. But the website unfortunately took it into a whole other category and that's where Snickers got into trouble and why they were forced to pull the spot.
So much for the oft-repeated notion that "nobody really cares what's on the web. You can do whatever you want on there."
Ooops.
UPDATE: thursday 02.08.07
HighJive alerted me to the "Player Reaction" videos on YouTube, where they are causing a maelstrom of a debate about homophobia.
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