http://youtu.be/dyzDKILkNp8
In the above ad, Ritz Crackers suggests a queeny hairdresser should munch on its new snack-size package to avoid accidentally chopping a client’s ear off in a hunger-induced swoon. Meh, a little chuckle-worthy maybe.
But where are we gays in the cultural zeitgeist, anyway? Have we reached some post-liberation point where we can laugh at caricatures of LGBT people and know no one will think they represent all of us? Or should we be offended.
Take a bite in the comments section.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Glen
What are effeminate gay people for if not something straight people can laugh at?
Patrick (but call me "Trick")
I found it extremely! What were they thinking?
Gary Indiana
We can’t be at a post-liberation point until we’re equal citizens under the law.
Get back to me about laughing at gay caricatures after the federal government excepts marriage equality.
iciyapi
as a stylist for 27 years, i find this stupid and offensive. it gets old this assumption that male stylist are queeny or too trendy. of course there are stylist like this , i have worked with a few but it just gets a bit old in my opinion
Plankton Menace
Wait, the gay hordes are always insisting on their right to act just this way and be proud of it. Please don’t be offended when it is reflected in the culture as the norm.
Owen
I’ll make my decision when Andy and Ann from Gay USA tell me if its offensive or not. 🙂
GayMafiaKingpin
If you’re offended by this, are you also offended by actual queeny hairdressers? They do exist, and this is just an over-the-top charicature. I can’t say I’m offended by it at all. It’s not particularly creative, but not offensive, either.
Scott
Not a good commercial. Didn’t make it’s point well. There are plenty of commercials where straight people act like jackasses so there can be commercials where gay people act like jackasses. However there are more commercials where straight people are presented as normal but I only remember 2 where where gay people are presented as normal: the French McDonald’s commercial, and the blue jeans commercial from a few years ago. The inequity is the problem. Off topic: income inequity is also a problem.
Erich
99.9 of the time when I see a man in a salon he acts like that, so no, not offended. It’s a reflection of reality.
Thomas
OFFENSIVE
There wouldn’t be commercials portraying negative stereotypes of other minority groups, so why should we put up with it?
Callum
Well he could have been nellier, black and the crackers watermelon flavored….
Of course the ad is offensive! It stereotypes a male hairdresser as being Gay and also a gay hairdresser as being so dammed nellie the hairdresser character becomes offensive to the average Gay or Straight viewer. And if you disagree then please consider the Watermelon flavor idea above….
Red Assault
Let’s face it, fags…. We present ourselves as a bunch of freaks and weirdos and weaklings and fembots on tv…. We portray the image of gay people as being like that…. Straight people will react in a few ways….
1) laugh at gay people… Tell us that if we don’t act like that, we’re “straight acting.”
2) vote against any rights for us… You don’t want your kids raised by a buffoon like that.
3) use us as entertainment. They love to go to gay bars to laugh at us, love to turn on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and laugh at us… But we’re not human to them… We’re just a bunch of limp-wristed freaks.
Every time I get bugged that gay people carry on like this, people tell me I’m “self-loathing” and then when we get our rights voted away, those same queens burst into tears, dress up like nuns in clown paint and take to the streets to show the straight people they made a good choice voting away our rights.
samo
Red assault you have a very good point. Effeminate gay men should blame themselves for fay caricatures like this in the media stop denying your true natural masculinity either man up or get a sex change. And nobody wants to fuck those flaming guys either they probably get no ass ans are a disgrace to the so called gay rights movement.
John
Well….don’t we ALL know someone that acts like this?
Rory
article material here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17796511
Ian Kyle
@John, I know plenty of black men who speak “ebonics” and have the total ghetto persona, but I don’t see them being held up to ridicule in Ritz cracker commercials. If they were, you can bet the NAACP would be on that like white on rice.
John
@Ian Kyle: Then I guess you’ve never heard of rap music….or BET…where ebonics and ghetto personalities sell Gucci, Escalades and cognac. FACE!
tookietookie
Omg, this commercial was based on my real life! I am a hungry queeny hairdresser, and now you’re all saying you find a depiction of me offensive. I hate you!
Sean
It’s funny.
randalaw
As much as we may hate to admit it, stereotypes are never based on the observance of only one example of a given behavior. I don’t particularly like this ad, but among the many less-than-positive LGBT depictions that are out there, this one is pretty benign.
Me
I saw this on TV and it never crossed my mind that he was gay. I thought he was just a strung out hipster or something.
Tone
Meh, I have never understood the attraction between peanut butter and Ritz biscuits. As for the advert, it’s very skippable.
Drew
Ugh queens like the fool in the advertisement are the reason why people hate us, and queenie guys give all gay men and LGBT people a bad name.
Just being real
Agreed Red Assault, samo, and Drew.
Gary Indiana
@Just being real:
And this is why homophobia is the sister of sexism.
Queenie boys are delightful, more so because they act themselves for themselves. They don’t bumble around striving to “man-up” in the hope that people who will always hate them will tolerate them just a little bit more.
You are disgustingly weak.
Adam
I agree with whoever said that it’s not so much offensive as just badly made.
Just being real
Gary *Yawn* I knew you’d pull out the “internalized homophobia” card. I’m fine with myself as a gay man and you really should get out more and stop living in a world of BS queer theory and gender studies.
I’m naturally masculine and when I describe myself as being this way since I am there’s always some queen who pulls the “Since you’re not a queen/femme then you’re not comfortable with your sexuality!” BS.
I could care less about acceptance from society at large. My family and friends accept me and that’s fine.
Jase
I like how everyone is whining that it’s a “negative stereotype.” Gotta love the “if we act straight, straight people will accept ups more!” gays. Yeah, while ur at it, if you stop sucking dick the straights will like you more too!
Jonathonz
@Drew: Why do you dislike effeminate gay men? Homophobic a little?
Jonathonz
I don’t mind this a bit. There are plenty of people out there that act like this and you know what? They’re often very funny people. They’re just a part of our diverse world and commercials like this normalize them for the mainstream. We need more portrayals of gay people in the media in ALL our colors including this one.
Drew
We have to understand that the public at large is much more comfortable dealing with gay people who can readily be recognized as stereotypical “queers”. The effeminate, non-threatening gay man who readily identifies as playing for the “girls team” is somebody that can be nobly supported because he is “different”, a “minority” and in need of “protection, compassion and understanding”. But the gay guys who are indistinguishable from the other masculine guys are unnerving, upsetting and incomprehensible to many heteros—–especially women. These gay men who appear straight are a direct assault on the effeminate gay stereotype that has kept so many gay men closeted. Because if heteros can’t tell if a guy is gay, that means a man you assume is straight might really be gay…… and that thought can really play with a straight person’s head.
Ryan
This isn’t offensive. I know plenty of guys that are more effeminate than this. Why is that offensive to you? It’s not as if they’re claiming that he represents us.
Should all commercials come with a “WARNING: THIS GUY IS GAY EVEN THOUGH HE’S ACTING REALLY MASCULINE” disclaimer before showing a totally normal guy being gay? Because that seems pretty ridiculous.And did they even say he was gay in the commercial? They didn’t. So how do you know that the muscley, masculine guy in the Axe commercials aren’t meant to be gay characters? Why aren’t we talking about how they’re making us all look “too masculine” by just ASSUMING that they’re gay? It’s reverse homophobia, you guys. You’re pigeon-holing YOURSELVES (giggity) by choosing to be offended by something that wasn’t even directed at you.
I don’t get why our community chooses to be offended by a personality type that happens to also be a stereotype. It’s not their fault for being queeny. It’s the homophobes fault for assuming we’re all like that. So don’t get “offended” by the fact that those people are allowed to be in commercials or that they’re allowed to be portrayed in commercials. Get offended by the people who then go on to say, “EW ALL GAY GUYS ARE LIKE THAT.”
Because getting offended by this is just stupid.
MaddM@
Not offended, but saddened by the cheap hack joke of going to a stock stereotype character. It’s much less offensive to me than some others I’ve seen like the (I think) snickers commercial where two guys kiss and are immediately extremely disgusted. I think the character was stereotypical but there wasn’t any negative judgement on him so can’t say I was offended.
Jawsch
Their “math” annoys me more than anything.
Lunch was 4 colorings ago?
Typical hair stylist works 8-10 hours in a day.
Colorings usually take a MINIMUM of 1 hour.
So ~4 hours ago was lunch (which is usually taken halfway through your shift)
Haircuts also usually take a minimum of 1 hour (even for short haircuts)
So dinner is ~6 hours away. (and that’s not counting the time it takes to drive home)
So he’s working like a 20 hour (or more) shift?
Their math is wrong and it offends me that no one thought this through. 😐
Jay
Jonathonz queens and the sissy characters like this one are walking stereotypes and are attention whores and only act femmey/queenie, or love to spread drama so they can fill the void of attention that they so desperately need.
Mikel D McGrew
It really is a pathetic attempt to sell what are essentially peanut butter crackers. Okay, they’re whole grain crackers, but I think this ad is going to make people avoid them – just because the two people are so unflattering. You can be the rather homely woman waiting to be transformed into – what – or the ditsy queen. Not much choice in my book.
RedAssault
@Gary Indiana: No… guys like that do NOT act like “themselves.”
They act like big fairies and irritating weirdos. nobody is “like” that naturally. That’s just a big act that fools like that put on because they think it’s… I’m not sure.
All I do know is that when 95% of the gay character on TV act like this loser, that’s what most straight people think gay people are.. and feel very comfortable voting against our rights. Yes… it’s the fault of these guys and the fault of mainstream TV for portraying us all like this guy that Prop 8 passed.
Kev C
The point many people are missing is that Ritz Crackerfuls are intended to appeal to gays, with flavors like Garlic Herb and Garden Vegetable. These snacks are GAY!
HarlemGuy
So look, gay, inc. has spent the past 10 years or so trying to convince America that we are all: rich, white, trendy, stylish, etc, etc. because if we do so and make them comfortable with this image then people will be less homophobic and we’ll have equal rights, right?
WRONG. This is what happens. This is who’ve you convinced them that we are. Don’t be surprised when it comes back to bite us all in the ass.
Larkin
I’ve written to Nabisco about this ad calling it in poor taste and asking them to pull it.
I don’t think it’s exceptionally offensive, but it is in poor taste and not funny after you get past the ‘omg it’s a nellie gay hairdresser’ joke.
Perhaps I wouldn’t be offended if we had equal rights, but we don’t. This just enforces a stereotype of a segment of our community that doesn’t represent us all… but that is how the bigots see us.
Maybe in 20 years this kind of ad would be acceptable after we’ve advanced as a society who values all it’s members, but it isn’t that time yet.
Robson from Brazil
I think he is kind of cute and perfectly doable
Grevin
@RedAssault:
It always amazes me when I encounter individuals like you…
Those who are so uneducated as to blame the bigotry of society on the very types of individuals who started the gay rights movement. People so ignorant of the ways in which human societies work as to think that conforming to expectations of bigots will gain you acceptance. Those who spout childish nonsense while telling others to man-up.
People like you are the reason I take offense when someone calls me straight-acting.
Jody
This is always a hot button issue in the gay community and I think everyone gets so defensive that you can’t even begin to understand the other sides point of view.
I Think masculine men need to understand that a certain amount of what society has deemed to be female traits is inborn and natural to about half of the gay male population and they do not deserve to be persecuted further by their own community.
What feminine men need to understand is the inborn traits are not what most of the masculine men have a problem with, it’s the over the top flaming bitchy queen act. And yes I said act, no one is born predisposed to behaving a certain way. And although you are free to behave as you wish , masculine men are not self hating because they do not want to be lumped in with that caricature. Also to presume self hatred as the cause here would imply that feminine is the gay male default.
This is what I don’t understand. If a gay man wants to put on a dress and make up and call himself and other males “Girl”, then is he not in fact a trans-gender and not gay? I get that the feminine may naturally walk different or have different mannerisms, but whats the difference between a trans-gender and a feminine gay?
Simon
@Jody:
Pretty good response.
I’m gonna take it further and say that judging the character in this commercial is pointless because it attempts to exercise control over someone else’s expression… which no one has control over. It’s a non-starter to say that shame a certain stereotype of a gay male because it exists. It’s like saying “people don’t like rain a lot of the time. Let’s stop it from raining!”
So yeah for RedAssault, I’m not sure it’s self-hatres so much as internalized homophobia. Blaming a less invisible gay stereotype for an entire group’s oppression is scapegoating and ignoring the problem (y’know, that everyone is free to express themselves)
Furthermore… Judith Butler wrote this awesome called Gender Trouble; the biggest idea she presented in it was that all gender is performance (which is based in social constructs). Gender is totally subjective. For example, in New York I read as a middle of the road masc/femme gay. I live in Paris where I’m like the king of the butches. When I go to Chicago people read me as a total queen. Remember that website Gay or European?
Jody, gender identity and sexuality are separate things: “Transgender is the state of one’s “gender identity” (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one’s “assigned sex” (identification by others as male, female or intersex based on physical/genetic sex).[1] “Transgender” does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them.” From the Wikipedia transgender article (it’s surprisingly comprehensive).
Kev C
Historically speaking, gay men were ghettoized from straight society into jobs such as hair dressers and interior decorators. Few jobs were available for openly, or semi-openly, gay men And it became a stereotype and an offensive joke. Like a black janitor or black housekeeper, those were the few jobs available.
Darling Nikki
I’ve seen this on t.v. and was offended.
The actor is straight. He’s done tons of commercials and even was featured on the golden nugget of a show “Trading Spaces” back in the day.
I’m not easily offended and can laugh at myself but I found this commerical SEVERELY distasteful.
A minstrel show.
Just as white actors/performers no longer do “black-face”, straight ones shouldn’t mimic supposed “gay stereotypes” with limp-wristed queeny/campy antics. If you want a gay/queer audience to buy your product, you struck out Nabisco.
I personally don’t care about “acceptance by society”. Stepford wives are boring. I just want my equality like any other tax payer. I don’t have to accept religious sycophants but it’s their right to exist under our Consitution. Unfortunately federal recognition of same sex marriage makes us separate and unequal. In NYS, when filing federal taxes you have to “lie” AND FILE AS SINGLE (and your children are screwed out of benefits that their peers whose parents are hetero enjoy). So we’re not passed anything. We’re still in the infancy of our fight for what’s due us.
Sorry for ranting off-topic, but this act of minstrelsy just re-emphasizes the pandering we’re subjeted to. I know it’s just a “cracker commercial”, but it’s the underlying message that we’re all some sort of jokes not worthy of anything but ridicule.
Darling Nikki
I meant the lack of federal recognition.
I just get so mad at the insidious bigotry that passes for entertainment that I get a little heated.
Blah, bla..huh?
Actually, to me that guy looks like a straight guy playing a queeny part. Is this the latest genre of exploitation media, Vaudville style? I would call it gay face, but that’s too confusing. Queenface, the new Blackface?
Lorenzo
Well you’ll be happy to know that they’ve pulled the commercial from the air. The spot where people are on a plane continues to play. If anyone was offended by Lorenzo I have a feeling they get offended by a lot of things. Small victory I guess, but definitely a bummer for Lorenzo and his family