Homphobes are from Mars...

I was outraged to see an article at AmericaBlog today that Snickers ran a disgusting homophobic commercial during the superbowl. It has two car mechanics who accidentally kiss while eating a candy bar. On the Snickers website they have 4 different endings to the commercial. Each one shows the mechanics jumping away and obviously feeling disgusted. One guy says to the other, "Quick, do something manly." One ending shows them drinking motor oil and antifreeze. Another shows one mechanic trying to attack the other with a wrench and the other guy slams the wrench holder under the hood of a car. Those are just two of the endings. All of them are disgusting. On top of all that, they have a video of various Bears and Colts football players watching the commercials and looking very disgusted at the two men kissing saying things like, "That just ain't right!" They also comment on how funny it was that two men who accidentally kiss harm themselves and each other. The underlying message is that gay people are disgusting and should be beaten up or should harm themselves.

If you find this outrageous, be sure to let Snickers know here and their parent company Mars Inc. can be emailed at contact@policies.mars.com. Spread the word about this horrible commercial and demand that Mars end its support of such bigotry. For those of you straight people who can't see all the fuss look at it this way: what if the commercial were between a black man and a white man accidentally eating each other's candy bar and doing the same violent things. It would not have gone over very well in this country.

Mars Inc. has their 5 principles of success on their website. The second principle reads: "Responsibility - As individuals, we demand total responsibility from ourselves; as associates we support the responsibilities of others." How is it responsible to denigrate gay people via a commercial that promotes homophobia and violence? This is the kind of thing I get so mad about, and it almost never gets covered in the mainstream media.

Update: John at America Blog received a call from Mars/Snickers and they have pulled the homophobic commercials from their website. They have promised him over the phone that they will never air these commercials again. John did note that he had heard from some of his readers who stated that they had seen the commercials on both Comedy Central and Spike TV. We'll see how quickly they respond in pulling these commercials. I hope that Mars/Snickers follows through with their verbal promises.