Doritos’ gay Superbowl ads? Funny contest entries not considered finalists
”What’s funnier than a man making eyes at another man? What’s funnier than hapless homosexual males guessing that a straight guy is interested in them? I know: assuming an audience of 80 billion also agrees it’s funny. Gay panic is just the tops.” — Louis Virtel for Movieline
”I guess there are only a handful of memes available to Super Bowl advertisers, and one that seems to keep on resurfacing in recent years raises that eternal question: ‘Say, what if you were gay?’ … (I should also add that the Super Bowl TV spots are — so far, at least — just about men maybe being gay. I guess the idea of women maybe being lesbians isn’t as funny. And also there seems to be a rule that requires snack food to facilitate the blurring of sexual boundaries).” — Erik Sass for MediaPost
”Doritos has a nice, gay friendly Super Bowl ad which features two rather stereotypical (but not over the top) gay men and their neighbors. The ad is simple, direct, and rather funny while also being rather cute. Ads are starting to take in the fact that the LGBT American population is about one in ten, and that we are a diverse and necessary demographic for them to cater to.” — Bridgett LaVictoire for LezGetReal
Reactions emerging today about a couple of commercials submitted to a 2011 Doritos/Pepsi Max contest.
One of the gay-themed ads features a married man licking his lips in the direction of a shirtless gay couples’ bag of Doritos. Another has two men in a sauna — one eating from a bag of Doritos between the other’s legs. (A similar entry was made for PepsiMax, others feature girl-on-girl action, and another has men in women’s underwear.)
The contest accepted many other video entries for each of the two products. According to the contest site, the top finalists receive $25K, and a chance to win an additional $3 million. The current top 10 are decidedly less controversial. Nevertheless, some complaints have arisen from bloggers that these videos might get played on Superbowl Sunday, Feb. 6. There does not appear to be any indication that these non-finalists are scheduled to air, though they did get a lot of views. (CrashTheSuperbowl.com)
In 2010, gay-themed ads from the web host company GoDaddy and a gay dating site called ManCrunch were rejected by CBS. In 2007, Snickers featured an ad where two male mechanics accidentally kissed while eating the same Snickers bar, then physically abused themselved to “do something manly.”
So, are these ads funny or potentially offensive stereotypes? Have your say below.
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