Gay? Grab a Snickers

I can’t remember the last time I had a Snickers Bar, but on Wednesday, I cleaned out the stock of the Whole Foods in Manhattan’s Union Square. Despite the dubious glances from the cashier, whose excessively painted eyes seemed to anticipate the impending stomach cramps and the ogling from assorted overweight New Yorkers who licked their lips in jealousy, I proudly did my part to invest in Snickers’ future success. Still, it might surprise you to know that I am patronizing Snickers despite being gay.

You might find that surprising because, apparently, Snickers hates me and advocates violence against me. On Sunday, February 5, Snickers aired a commercial during the Super Bowl that apparently showed Snickers’ C.M. Burns-like evil plan to make the world unsafe for gay people. No, it’s not the caloric content, though my trainer finds it prohibitively high. The commercial, which had four alternate endings, showed a pair of auto mechanics inadvertently touching lips while sharing a Snickers bar. To compensate for their accidental smooch, they “do something manly” like tear out chest hair, hit one another with a wrench or a car hood, or drink motor oil and windshield washer fluid. It clearly doesn’t get more manly than that.

And the executive director of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said in an interview on New York 1 that Snickersgate “set [the gay community] back twenty or thirty years.”

Thirty years ago, the gay community was fighting (and losing) a real battle in the backyard of every Jewish boy’s grandmother. In June 1977, reacting to a modest gay rights ordinance adopted in Dade County, Florida, former beauty queen and Christian activist Anita Bryant mounted a campaign called, slyly enough, “Save Our Children.” Bryant and her SOC called for the repeal of the ordinance, which was the first in the country to grant protection in housing, public accommodations, and employment to people based on their “affectional or sexual preference.” With 69 percent in favor of repeal, the ordinance died. The HRC seems to think that Snickers is trying to pick up where Bryant left off.

There’s very little about this so-called “scandal” that makes sense. First, the only way Snickers can be seen as anti-gay is if you look at its fat content. Even there, Snickers has introduced its Marathon Energy bar, with about half the fat and 100 percent of the minimum daily requirement of 16 vitamins and minerals.

Second, the ad itself is, if anything, critical of the absurdities of straight male homophobia. That pulling out chest hair, pummeling each other with deadly weapons, or drinking motor oil qualifies as “manly” is as ridiculous as saying Red Sox designated hitter David Oritz is slender. (In case you fit another gay stereotype, the Red Sox is a baseball team, baseball is a sport, and sport is outdoor athletic activity performed by teams.) I don’t recall a chapter in “Manliness,” last year’s sensation from Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, entitled, “Power Tools, Poison, and the Scars They Leave Behind.”

What’s more, nowhere in the commercial did Snickers depict two gay men kissing, only to be subsequent victims to a straight man’s homophobic rage. In fact, in their misguided (though hilarious) attempt to erase a chocolate-caramel-peanut-inspired lip-lock, two straight men became victims of their own homophobic rage. If that is not a clever way to suggest that homophobia is counterproductive and pointless, I’m not sure what is.

Faced with a cacophonous gay uproar, Snickers relented, responding to its critics with the bland “humor is highly subjective” and acknowledging that “some people may have found the ad offensive.” Even in its apparent submission, Snickers retained its credibility. Humor is subjective and, at times, meant to rattle its audience out of complacency; the biting wits of Stephen Colbert and Sarah Silverman are perfect examples. That someone took offense is not Snickers’ fault, but rather the fault of those who sit down in front of the television just looking for something to cry about.

Once again, gay activists who claim to speak for us have gone too far. Every time they let the culture of victimhood infect and pervade their worldview, they lose a little credibility. When the real fights come along, when latter day Anita Bryants seek to impose real harm on gay men and women, gay rights activists will be impotent to act. No one will trust them, or care to listen to what they have to say.



Ari E. Waldman ’02 was a history concentrator in Winthrop House.