Showing posts with label McDonald's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McDonald's. Show all posts
Is it really so hard to understand the French McDonald's "gay-themed" ad?
Here's the ad:
Allahpundit is mystified:
As stated at the end of the O'Reilly clip, the ad is part of a series, showing different characters. I haven't looked at the other examples, but it's easy for me to understand the ad. Like many American ads I've seen over the last few decades, the viewer is drawn in by something other than the product itself. We're shown characters that interest us for some reason, and the product is woven in subtly in way that feels positive. In this example, we see a young man and understand something about him — he's gay — and then we see his father doesn't really get that, but they love each other and spend time with each other... at McDonald's. They don't share everything, but they can share a meal at McDonald's. It's really a typical McDonald's ad, showing the restaurant as an easy, comforting family place. It's not about controversy at all. It's about commonality. We're different in a lot of ways, but we can all agree that it will be good to eat at McDonald's. The ad is well-done, charming, and sweet, and it creates a good feeling about McDonald's.
Obviously, it is also true that the ad won't work on people who get riled when they see gay people presented as regular people who are part of ordinary life. I'm sure, back in 1980, some people didn't like to see a little white boy give his Coke to the black football player Mean Joe Green in the famous Super Bowl ad. And Coke might have thought about that. This will alienate some people who are not ready to see black and white people sharing a simple intimacy. But Coke chose to do the ad and take advantage of the good feeling it would give a lot of people, a feeling that would halo around the product. They were right, too.
When O'Reilly jokes about McDonald's doing an ad in this series showing a member of Al Qaeda, he's revealing that he thinks gay people are a group that most people view with justified hostility. McDonald's, operating in France, hasn't analyzed things that way. That's their judgment call, and I hope it's a good one.
Some people say that gay people should keep their sexuality private: Why does anyone need to hear about what anyone else does in bed? But the reaction to this ad shows how obtuse that is. This young man is looking at a photograph and talking to another male on the phone in a way that lets us know he's in love. It isn't at all leering or overtly sexual. It's mild and innocent. It doesn't make any sense to say that's something that belongs only in the bedroom. The idea that expression like this should be kept hidden only makes sense if you actually believe homosexuality is shameful.
Allahpundit is mystified:
French McDonald’s running gay-themed ads for … no apparent reason
More specifically: This isn’t an ad about how awesome the burgers are, with a gay protagonist singing the praises of Le Big Mac. That wouldn’t be a “gay-themed ad” so much as a “food-themed ad” with a gay pitchman.This is a true gay-themed ad, with the product almost wholly incidental to young Jacques experiencing l’amour fou with a guy while papa blathers on ironically about being a ladies’ man. Why’d McDonald’s do it? Er … no one seems to know. Apparently there was no anti-gay incident at McD’s over there that they’re trying to atone for. The obvious explanation is “controversy for controversy’s sake,” but I can’t believe French viewers will bat an eye. Maybe they hired a director who fancies himself an aspiring Godard and he simply decided to indulge his inner auteur, burgers be damned? All theories welcome!
Actually, maybe the “controversy” theory does make sense. Below you’ll find O’Reilly making an offhand comparison to Al Qaeda, which was enough to provide Media Matters with hours of content. It’s great when everyone wins, my friends.
As stated at the end of the O'Reilly clip, the ad is part of a series, showing different characters. I haven't looked at the other examples, but it's easy for me to understand the ad. Like many American ads I've seen over the last few decades, the viewer is drawn in by something other than the product itself. We're shown characters that interest us for some reason, and the product is woven in subtly in way that feels positive. In this example, we see a young man and understand something about him — he's gay — and then we see his father doesn't really get that, but they love each other and spend time with each other... at McDonald's. They don't share everything, but they can share a meal at McDonald's. It's really a typical McDonald's ad, showing the restaurant as an easy, comforting family place. It's not about controversy at all. It's about commonality. We're different in a lot of ways, but we can all agree that it will be good to eat at McDonald's. The ad is well-done, charming, and sweet, and it creates a good feeling about McDonald's.
Obviously, it is also true that the ad won't work on people who get riled when they see gay people presented as regular people who are part of ordinary life. I'm sure, back in 1980, some people didn't like to see a little white boy give his Coke to the black football player Mean Joe Green in the famous Super Bowl ad. And Coke might have thought about that. This will alienate some people who are not ready to see black and white people sharing a simple intimacy. But Coke chose to do the ad and take advantage of the good feeling it would give a lot of people, a feeling that would halo around the product. They were right, too.
When O'Reilly jokes about McDonald's doing an ad in this series showing a member of Al Qaeda, he's revealing that he thinks gay people are a group that most people view with justified hostility. McDonald's, operating in France, hasn't analyzed things that way. That's their judgment call, and I hope it's a good one.
Some people say that gay people should keep their sexuality private: Why does anyone need to hear about what anyone else does in bed? But the reaction to this ad shows how obtuse that is. This young man is looking at a photograph and talking to another male on the phone in a way that lets us know he's in love. It isn't at all leering or overtly sexual. It's mild and innocent. It doesn't make any sense to say that's something that belongs only in the bedroom. The idea that expression like this should be kept hidden only makes sense if you actually believe homosexuality is shameful.
Camouflaging myself in a Matisse...
... doing a picture-in-picture Picasso...
... stopping for that train-in-a-fireplace Magritte...
... and getting lost amid the dimly lit glass cases in glass cases in the surrealist passages.
(These are just some more of my pictures from the Art Institute of Chicago. We've moved on to Lafayette, West Lafayette, and back through Chicago, and — almost to Madison — we're picking up free WiFi (and cheap cheeseburgers) at a McDonald's near Beloit.)
"Satan is content in letting us profess Christianity."
"As long as we don't practice it."
Canah Chapel, Freewill Baptist Church, is in Erwin, Tennessee.
But we weren't there either to profess or practice Christianity. We went here...
... to pee, drink coffee, and access the internet. Satan let us do all that, but we don't know whether or not he was content. I understand why Satan — if he existed — would be happy to see folks professing but not practicing Christianity. I think he wouldn't care one way or the other about urination, but that he'd be pleased to see us drinking coffee, even as I think God gave us coffee in the hope that, energized, we'd turn to the good.
As for the internet, I'd say it depends on which websites you go to, and the subtle preferences of God and Satan are unknowable to us, but perhaps they are both keeping track of the entire history of all of our website visits and that we'll be called to account in the end.
But it was not the golden arches anymore than the cross that got us to take that exit. It was the sign for the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site. But then another sign said it was 31 miles away, and Satan made us go to McDonald's instead. This morning — the morning after — I sorrowfully regret not making the pilgrimage to the dishonored President's place of honor.
"Want to go back?" Meade says. No, no, we've gone too far ahead. We got all the way to Berea, Kentucky last night, where we walked around until night fell...
Canah Chapel, Freewill Baptist Church, is in Erwin, Tennessee.
But we weren't there either to profess or practice Christianity. We went here...
... to pee, drink coffee, and access the internet. Satan let us do all that, but we don't know whether or not he was content. I understand why Satan — if he existed — would be happy to see folks professing but not practicing Christianity. I think he wouldn't care one way or the other about urination, but that he'd be pleased to see us drinking coffee, even as I think God gave us coffee in the hope that, energized, we'd turn to the good.
As for the internet, I'd say it depends on which websites you go to, and the subtle preferences of God and Satan are unknowable to us, but perhaps they are both keeping track of the entire history of all of our website visits and that we'll be called to account in the end.
But it was not the golden arches anymore than the cross that got us to take that exit. It was the sign for the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site. But then another sign said it was 31 miles away, and Satan made us go to McDonald's instead. This morning — the morning after — I sorrowfully regret not making the pilgrimage to the dishonored President's place of honor.
"Want to go back?" Meade says. No, no, we've gone too far ahead. We got all the way to Berea, Kentucky last night, where we walked around until night fell...
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