Love lights the world...

You've probably already seen this, but if you haven't click below:






and then this one:






Great job, Honey Maid. Now I've got a lot of the same critiques of the first commercial as I did of the Cheerios commercial. Like, how much do you want to bet they had those paper rolling artists on standby, long before either of these went up? If you never read my Cheerios critique, click here.

But there are two things that Honey Maid did in the second commercial that Cheerios didn't. First, they gave a ratio of positive to negative comments. It is so easy to read the comment sections of blogs and think that the world is just filled with bloodthirsty, racist, homophobes. But the reality is, said comments are more likely to be written by a socially maladjusted 13-year-old than a federal judge. Not saying there aren't racist federal judges, just saying they don't spend their time writing youtube comments.

Second, and most importantly Honey Maid just basically gave a big F-you to the people that didn't agree with their point. Yes, they wrapped it in a nice little message about love and upcycling, but they doubled down on the TWO GAY DUDES CAN RAISE A BABY!! idea. Lots of people have a problem with that. However, instead of being a company that tries to be all things to all people in order to make as much money as humanly possible, Honey Maid is taking a stand.

Now, don't get me wrong--I don't have a problem with companies who want to stay out of everything because the only color they care about is green. That's called capitalism. I also don't have a problem with companies that take a stand even if it's something I don't personally agree with (See: Hobby Lobby).

What I do have a problem with is wishy washy corporations like A&E who suspend someone for a weekend until they do the calculations of all the money they're gonna lose if the whole Duck Dynasty family walks off the show, and then come up with some wack excuse about why they didn't cancel the show. See previous paragraph, if A&E had just kept their mouths shut, I could understand that. But I feel like what they did was the worst possible outcome, because it showed them to be lacking convictions while trying to appear as if they had some. Don't suspend the guy for a weekend, that's just offensive.

Got sidetracked for a bit there, forgive me.

So HoneyMaid is basically saying, You gotta problem with this?! Don't buy our cookies then!

I respect that, more than I respect the original commercial. The original commercial can be written off as a trend in multicultural advertising. The second one cannot. They burned some bridges with the follow up commercial and took a real risk.

Those of us who appreciate that should let them know by buying their products, and letting them know that we're buying (more of) their products because of this campaign.

Finally, I want to see a white family in a trailer park pitching me a product. Or anyone broke in general.* Because the whole point in advertising is to create a need. They make you think you can be like the people in the ad if you buy the product. Most of the time, the people in the ad are attractive and/or rich. In the HoneyMaid ad, they're saying buying their cookies will make you feel love. This is not true, and all savvy consumers should know that. But I want HoneyMaid (or some other corporation,) to show me that I might want to be like a white family in a trailer park, because they're happy and love each other. Show me that people that don't have a lot of money still have value and deserve to be put forth as some ideal on a tv screen. Because even more than race or sex or gender, the idea that you have to be of a certain economic class to be admired is an extremely pervasive idea in our culture.

*I know everyone that lives in a trailer park is not necessarily white nor broke. I'm just trying to make a point. If you were offended, let me know and we can talk about it.

Do you have any thoughts? If so, leave me a comment.


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That freakin' cheerios commercial.

So two people told me directly about this commercial. I had seen it on four or so other blogs before that. A couple-three people posted about it on facebook, and I've seen it discussed on two tv shows. Watch it below, if you haven't seen it already:




So here's what I think about the whole Cheerios interracial couple commercial. Get ready for the bullet points.

--Are we surprised that people leave racist comments on videos on youtube? If so, I don't know why.

--This reminds me of racist hunger games tweet Johnny that I wrote about in this post. Wow, you don't have a problem with interracial marriage? How forward thinking of you. If you would like to take this opportunity to feel morally superior to some trolls on the internet...knock yourself out.

--Who broke the story that Cheerios had to close down the comment section on the video? Was it Mr. Cheerio? Call me cynical, but they have gotten a truckload of free publicity from this story. I'm sure they're familiar with how youtube works (see two dashes point #1)--is it possible some ad guy/gal was thinking a couple steps ahead and saw where this might lead for them?

--As far as my personal feelings about the commercial: It's fine. I have not written about this here before (mainly because I didn't want it to affect my street cred,) but I am in an interracial relationship myself. I am glad that George can see a kid that looks like him on television. But I think their next commercial needs to be hot white dad/hotter black mom--so George can really feel like his family is being represented ;)

--Yes, there are all types of families. Which ones should get the mainstream corporation commercial treatment? Interracial couples? Gay couples? Polygamous families? Polyamorous families? Families where one partner is old enough to be the parent of the other partner? Single teen mothers? Couples where the mom is taller than the dad? Families where everyone is obese? Where someone is blind? Where the family lives in a trailer? A public housing project? Where they're homeless? Some of these and not others? Why?

--The first place that I saw this commercial was an online magazine whose target audience is young black women. One of the conversations going on in the comment section was that commercials like this one serve to help destroy the black family and discount the idea of black love. I put it in italics only because it's an actual thing/concept that I am assuming most of my readers are not aware of. Now that the cat is out of the bag, I think I may write a whole 'nother post (or several) about interracial relationships, but I want to just stick to the commercial for now. I did this bullet point because I think it would surprise some white people to know that some black people aren't super excited about the chance to be featured as member's of a white person's family.

--Which leads me to my final two dashes point. We need to be very wary of the we're just like you, strategy. MLK seemed to be a fan, and I feel like the current push around gay rights seems to have strong elements of this as well. One thing that was so striking about this commercial was that it was so normal. And by normal, I of course mean that it could have been an all-white family with no changes. Because isn't that who gets to be called normal--white people? This whole accept us because we're just like you--we dress like you, talk like you, think like you, waste perfectly good boxes of cereal like you way of thinking is dangerous for at least two reasons. First, it opens up members of your group (of which there are usually many,) that don't conform to this mainstream way of behaving to what appears to be legitimate ridicule and exclusion. Second, it accepts without question the idea that the dominant culture's way of doing everything is the best way. This just reinforces the idea of supremacy that we are supposedly fighting against. White people have had some great ideas (like being on time,) but they haven't figured out the best way to do everything. Some of their ways of functioning are just as destructive as other groups. So instead of trying to fight for your slice of a dysfunctional pie, change the recipe so by the time you get your piece, it already tastes delicious.

You deserve to be treated with dignity and respect because you are a human being, period. Don't forget that.

So those are my thoughts on the Cheerios commercial. As always, I would love to hear what you have to say--so feel free to leave me a comment.