A recent Snickers commercial starring Mr. T that aired in the UK was pulled after complaints from the United States that the ad was offensive to homosexuals. It hadn’t even aired here in the States, but it featured Mr. T firing a Gatling gun full of Snickers at a speedwalker. The Human Rights Campaign surprisingly interpreted this as “homophobic” instead of “totally fucking awesome.” Mars, the maker of Snickers, caved, but not before basically insulting America’s lack of a sense of a humor. The Daily Mail reports:
A spokesman for Mars said: ‘This ad is the second in a series of UK Snickers ads featuring Mr T, which are meant to be fun and have been positively received in the UK.
‘However, we understand that humour is highly subjective, and it is never our intention to cause offence. Accordingly, we have pulled the Mr T speedwalker ad globally.’
I’m pretty liberal, and even I think this is some bull to the shit. First off, Mr. T mounting a machine gun on a pickup is as American as apple pie made with bald eagle crust. Second, the ad’s not homophobic. It simply warns people of all walks of life about the lameness of speedwalking while simultaneously promoting the firearm capabilities of chocolate-covered peanuts and nougat. In fact, I’m sure gay men will love it because, at the end, Mr. T professes his love of nuts.
UPDATE: Here’s a statement from T himself:
“Mr. T thinks everyone should put their penis wherever they want without discriminatory jibba-jibba and pities the fool who says otherwise. [Due to a hectic schedule forging confectionery-themed attack vehicles, Mr. T kindly requests you punch yourself in your own face then flex for emphasis.]”
Thanks to Craig who took a Mallomar to the hip back in Nam.
#38, besides your rock-hard member, can you add anything to the conversation yourself besides acting like your above it all? Sure the politico bullshit is just that, but comon. I think Mars needs to take the cue from Mr. T and their own commercial and grow a pair – they had a great, short commercial that was amusing and did just what a commercial is supposed to do – make an imprint in your mind to make a snickers gattling cannon and pummel random speed-walkers. Sorry, gotta go send in my patents before they beat me to it.
Here is the ad. And it is awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bUxi_Eo6fU
No, it’s more like I’m afraid that one of my good friends, who happens who be a gay man with an effete style of walking is going to get his ass kicked for not ‘walking like a ‘man’ by idiots who share the same violently homophobic attitude. This add re-enforces the idea that those men should be penalized for not exhibiting the right amount of ‘masculinity’. That they should ‘get some nuts.’
Any moron who was going to kick a gay man’s ass for not being “tough enough” would have done so before this commercial.
Puh-lease. I don’t think Mr. T going after a speedwalker with a snickers bar is going to incite violence. It’s obviously meant to be funny….if you’ve seen the soccer commercial, it’s along the same lines.
Besides, who in the hell said that speedwalking = GAY. I don’t get that from this ad.
You are all IDIOTS! Its called a “Viral Add!” It’s not actually band. duh!
and this ISN’T offensive to homosexuals?
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this is going to CAUSE violence. I’m saying that it affirms the idea that it’s okay to enact violence because a person isn’t acting manly enough. It’s not that speedwalking = gay, it’s the implication that that guy isn’t acting ‘manly’ enough. If you remember, at some point during the ad, Mr. T says
‘You’re a disgrace to the man race. It’s time to run like a real man.’
Now, that alone is not so bad, but this is a reaction to the shot of the guy’s ass and hips waggling back and forth is obviously supposed to conotate femininity. It’s the Mr. T character and the ad’s contention that this is improper, and as a result Mr. T attacks him, in an absurd way, yeah, but he attacks him none-the-less. The less of this sort of thing that there is in the public consciousness, the less the public will think that it’s okay to victimize men for being feminine or homosexual. Yes, there will still be morons out there who want to attack men or women for being gay, but at least those ideas won’t be praised and confirmed by the establishment and public consciousness.
If you take out the shot of the swinging hips, and the “Walk like a man.” line, this is still a hilarious ad. It doesn’t have to be as offensive as it is to be funny.
That commercial was AWESOME!!!
“GET SOME NUTS!!!”
As for the gay part…. Well…..
GET SOME NUTS!!!!!
lol
Naturally, I get excited even when the letters M,R, and T are in a sentence. So this particular post just made me shit my pants.
Recently, quite a few celebrities and pro athletes were said to appear on the millionaire luxury club “W e a l t h y L o v e s. c o m” to hook up with hot girls, ladies, models… OMG!!! Are these famous guys fond of internet dating for now?? Maybe they are indeed so rich that they feel boring sometimes to need new things? It was reported on MSN Charlie Sheen has found his girl there last May
Justin: kudos to you, sir, for having an honorable, kindly discussion. I see more posters reduced to calling anyone who disagrees with them a “douchebag.” We could actually use more posters like you.
And you kinda brought me around to your way of thinking as well….I agree it would be just as funny w/out those two lines.
@57 problem with that whole theory is this: the ad was called “homophobic” meaning someone up there decided that any feminine behavior equates homosexuality.
Not to mention that i’m gay myself and am more offended by the whiny p.c. fags who can’t take a damn joke and want the whole effing world to be puppies and sunshine because nobody should ever be offended or feel bad or be in any way dragged from their prozak stupor and face reality. When will the world just grow a pair and laugh already.
And Mr. T is right. Speed walking is a crime against testicles.
@38 — amen. I hardly ever read the comment section anymore because of all the retarded political rants. Anyone remember when the comments here used to be funny? PapaHotNuts, we miss you.
To the people that got the ad pulled……What’s wrong with you? It has got to be the funniest ad I seen in a long while. Don’t you have any sense of humor or does everything have to be against you. I feel sorry for you if you can’t see the funny..LIGHTEN UP.
Why don’t they just change it to “Get some nuts in your mouth!” Gays shouldn’t object to that.
To those who are bashing America. This isn’t the opinion of Americans. This is the opinion of a powerful lobbying group for a minority. We’re as sick of this crap as you guys are.
#55. actuallly, you’re not allowed to call out everyone as idiots if you can’t spell. it’s “ad”, if you’re trying to abbreviate “advertising”.
…oops, BUSTED!!
#48, LMFAO!!
and sorry for my #29 and #30, that makes no sense.
Okay, is it just me or did the Human Rights Campaign just call the speedwalker gay when no one else in the ad did? I mean, since when is telling a guy he’s being weak automatically considered an accusation of being gay? Only if you are homophobic to begin with and associate it that way. (Plus having lived in the UK for a long time, a lot more guys look/act like that speedwalker than you might think). It’s like saying that Mr. T was being racist because he shot snickers at a white guy whom he proceeded to tell to get a ball sack. Loads of men need to get some balls and I’m not afraid to say it – gay, metrosexual or otherwise.
I’m jus’ sayin’.
That was fucking awesome!!! LMFAO
Hey everyone! Snickers on me!
I mean really on me. I’ve got like three hundred snicker bars with me in the tub. Mmmm, all that nougat and milk chocolate!
Wow, anyone got a glass of milk?
First they pull the Heinz mayo ad there, and now this bullhunk?
And I thought it was just us Amurk’ns who were knee-jerk PC stupid.
That speedwalker isn’t even necessarily gay, right? He’s just speedwalking.
It seems like the Human Rights people are stereotyping gays, and that’s not cool on their part.
HAHAHA run like a MAN
“problem with that whole theory is this: the ad was called “homophobic” meaning someone up there decided that any feminine behavior equates homosexuality.
Not to mention that i’m gay myself and am more offended by the whiny p.c. fags who can’t take a damn joke and want the whole effing world to be puppies and sunshine because nobody should ever be offended or feel bad or be in any way dragged from their prozak stupor and face reality. When will the world just grow a pair and laugh already.
And Mr. T is right. Speed walking is a crime against testicles.”
Thanks so much for your mature, scholarly take on the topic. just because you’re gay doesn’t mean your pithy reduction of gay rights activism to a desire for sunshine and puppies has any more ballast than it would if a heterosexual were to have said it. Why do so many people not understand that racism or homophobia is not always as explicit as graffiti or murder? Part of what fuels homophobia is precisely that inverted misogyny that you so sarcastically dismissed as “the problem with that whole theory.” A person who thinks all black people have rhythm and play great basketball may not think they’re being racist when they are surprised that the black person before them can’t dance or play hoops, but they are. They are subscribing to stereotypical profiles and using them as a way to view the world around them, which is a dangerous precedent to set. There are a multitude of social and psychological factors which perpetuate these cycles, and media plays a very large part here. Why is the ad offensive? Because it assumes as a mundane fact that if men don’t act a certain way then they are not men, and depicts violence as a humorous male response to effeminate mannerisms in another male. Ask Matthew Shepherd’s parents, or the parents of any young man killed for nothing more than what you saw in that commercial, what they think of it. Before you respond that I’m over-exaggerating, ask yourselves: what did Matthew Shepherd do besides “act gay” in a small town? What was the man in the commercial doing to warrant being attacked: speedwalking, (whose characteristics are exaggerated for cheap effect) which is viewed as a wuss version of running, in the same way that a gay man is viewed as a wuss version of a “real man”, a connection that Mr. T actually makes for us when he uses the epigram against the guy in the commercial (a “disgrace to the man race” he adds). All of this is constructed around the potential double meaning of the tagline “Get Some Nuts,” because he was lacking nuts before and Snickers and Mr. T have now replaced them and snuffed the effeminate out of him. It exploits the widespread valorization of traditional masculinity as the norm at the expense of those who don’t fit that mold, and suggests that violent reprisal to any deviation is funny.
There are plenty of examples of people’s behavior betraying their prejudicial attitudes, which are frequently excused, as this message board attests, because they’re not violent. These attitudes don’t stay in vogue without social conditioning. The constant imperceptible flow of media through our everyday lives affects how we perceive and react to things all the time, like the way you remember a brand jingle as you’re shopping for the same product the jingle advertises. The repetition of images and ideas over time come to form a basis for prevailing attitudes of the day. Why do you think people ever freely tossed around words like “fag” and “nigger” as insults? Because the prevailing attitudes of the day told them it was okay to hate and to express it openly. The laws said it was okay, the people in your neighborhood said it was okay, books, magazines, movies, and TV all used the words and/or stereotypes to define others in harmful fashion, everything said it was okay. You would be surprised at just how much anti-Semitic, anti-Indian, and anti-black rhetoric is casually spewing from even the most seemingly innocent of American films from the 20′s right up to the early 70′s, in a way that we would never dream of doing today because we recognize it as offensive. (Homophobia was more coded, smuggled in covertly because any visual depiction of homosexuality was outlawed from American filmmaking.) What’s just as shocking is that people today actually complain when a COMMERCIAL is banned because it is said to reinforce the physical abuses to an abused and ostracized minority. I’m sorry, were our lives all the richer until the banning of a Snicker’s ad sapped us of our joy and mirth? I think one less ad for a company which makes money solely by selling us stepladders to diabetes and heart disease is something to celebrate, not bemoan. Especially if it’s stupid and insensitive to boot.
This post might be over, but I just wanted to say:
#73 & 74 – You are absolutely right and you make an excellent point. Bravo.
PS. I like you.
This post might be over, but I just wanted to say:
#73 & 74 – You are absolutely right and you make an excellent point. Bravo.
PS. I like you.
PPS. Sorry for the double post.
Everybody should be proud to be homopervertophobic. Get rid of them all. Yea mr T.
Well that wasn’t done that well. sorry to say. but hey……….am i wrong. i know u tried so i wont be mean. it could be better though dude.