Callum Sterling, who shot to stardom last week after appearing in a same-sex ad for Cadbury Creme Eggs candy, has lashed out at his detractors, queer and straight alike.
The ad depicts Sterling alongside his real-life boyfriend Dale Moran as “sharers” who eat one of the creamy candies out of each other’s mouths. An announcer says “We’re down with that” as they do so.
According to Sterling, the ad invited its share of haters along with those who saw it as striking a blow for equality. According to the model, along with the predictable homophobic comments, the commercial also saw blowback from some corners of the queer world who saw the inclusion of a gay couple as “gay-baiting.”
Related: Same-sex couple share intimate moment in new Cadbury Creme Egg advert
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Now Sterling has taken to Instagram to strike back against the critics. The model posted a Maybelline make-up ad from the 1980s of actress Lynda Carter promoting lipstick with a series of sexual innuendos.
“So it’s ok when an advert sexualizes a women, [sic] a Caucasian women THIRTY SEVEN years ago even, to benefit the male gaze and make others feel inadequate if they do not live up to this beauty standard,” Sterling wrote. “But it’s not okay, in 2021, to have an advert of a multi-racial (strike one) gay couple (Strike two) on your screens for 10 seconds (Strike three) eating/kissing/sexualized (strike four.)”
“Does anyone see how ridiculous this is?” he went on. “I’m so happy that @dalekcreative and I ended up being the faces for this moment as I’ve been in the dance industry for 11 years full time and let me tell you, THAT, alongside living in London as well as being an out queer and proud human is enough to make my skin so thick that I genuinely don’t feel once [sic] ounce of hurt from any negative comments being put out into the world as a result of the advert.”
“The only way for people to get used to it is to normalize it, and how else to normalize than by seeing it on your screens,” Sterling concluded. “And let’s be honest, I’m sure there would be half as many complaints if it was two ‘beautiful’ cisgendered hetero-looking Caucasian women. Get your act together world: y’all are as hypocritical and uneducated and bizarre as Donald Trump.”
The man has a point. Two boys kissing on TV is always fine by us, whether or not creme is involved.
Josh447
There are always going to be irrational mental cases blathering on the internet. I believe it’s best to ignore them as they are attention seekers and will never get their fill of attention most likely lost to them in their childhood growth period.
Cam
Nothing bigots hate more than public evidence that LGBTQ people exist.
KyleMichelSullivan
OMG, the uproar over something so benign and simple. I loved it…and thought the cream dripping off a woman’s fingers was far more suggestive.
I’m gonna buy me one, now. I’m a chomper…
Milton
We put too much stock in social media, how many complaints were there? A couple of thousand? Maybe more…maybe less. Unless more than 50% of the potential audience complains (the UK population is roughly 67mill so knock off 15 for too young or too old so 21 million
complaints) then the outrage is pointless and should be ignored. Stop giving these morons oxygen by even trying to engage with them.
LumpyPillows
I hope to live to see the day when being gay is boring to everyone, well, except to the gays 🙂
Old Prude
The whole advertisement is unnecessarily tacky and too sexual. Proud ass eaters unite! Why do we always have to be associated with smut!
boblrice
Well, at least your screen name is apt.
mg10
I don’t think his skin is as thick as he claims or he wouldn’t have bothered to post this.
8millionandcounting
I loathe this shortening of words thing. Simply hate it.
The US already ranks pretty low in education compared to other countries now we can add “too lazy to speak or write out an entire word” to that.
Den
This would be great if only Cadbury eggs weren’t so awful!
Second rate chocolate, and way, way sickly sweet center.
But props for an entertaining ad.
I’ll take their shortcake snacks over the eggs any day!