[QUOTE=Lightnin’]
Weird. Straight guy checking in here- I never thought she gave him the gay. I thought she turned him into a fratboy.
[/QUOTE]
I have to agree. I thought of the new him as being the guy who has friends named Buffy and plays tennis before going out to the yacht club. Nothing gay about it.
[QUOTE=Weirddave]
My feeling is that if gay people expect to be accepted as a normal part of society, then they have to be prepared to be depicted as an intrigal part of society, and that includes being the punchline of the joke sometimes. Even so, what exactly is so “gay” about what he was turned into? The sweater? The pomeranians? The pink leash? (My dog had a pink leash, does that make me gay? Or does it make my dog gay?) What exactly? There is no reason to be offended by this commercial unless you’re looking for something to be offended about.
Again, what is negative about it? Seriously. What?
[/QUOTE]
Actually, it makes you both gay. Congrats! 
[QUOTE=Weirddave]
Bullshit. Nowhere in any context in the commercial, even viewing it with an eye towards being offended, is it stated or even implied that the changed dog walker is representative of “the entire group” of gay people.
[/quote]
Dude. You’re the one who brought up the idea of a segment of a group dressing “outrageously.”
Clearly the commercial works on more than one level semiotically. Are you suggesting that it’s impossible to read the guy as gay? And the opposite of “jock” is not “preppie.” The opposite of jock is “sissy” and in America “sissy” still means “gay.”
Agreed. What would be nice is some level of balance. Gay imagery is almost non-existent in mainstream American commercial advertising. When it does show up, it’s almost always as the punchline. It gets tiresome.
Oh well, if the straight man says there’s no reason for gay people to be offended,
I guess gay people should go with his take on it. Because the straight man clearly has more experience in the matter than gay people do.
If you can’t understand why the sissy stereotype is negative to gay people, I don’t see how anything I can say on a message board is going to clarify it for you.
[QUOTE=Antinor01]
Actually, it makes you both gay. Congrats!
[/QUOTE]
Great! When do I get the fashon sense and the decorating ability?
[QUOTE=Otto]
Oh well, if the straight man says there’s no reason for gay people to be offended,
I guess gay people should go with his take on it. Because the straight man clearly has more experience in the matter than gay people do.
[/QUOTE]
I’m a straight man too, but it’s a little known fact that I rose to the upper echelons of The Gay Conspiracy through my stunning good looks and prehensile tongue. I’ll send a message to my minions to Not Get Offended. That way you all can be accepted en masse by society.
After all, if one gay person is offended, that means every gay person is offended, and we can just reject the lot of them right? :dubious:
[QUOTE=Otto]
If you can’t understand why the sissy stereotype is negative to gay people, I don’t see how anything I can say on a message board is going to clarify it for you.
[/QUOTE]
But I think it’s been established that many viewers don’t necessarily view the “new” guy as a sissy, and THAT’S why we can’t understand how anyone could take offense to it (except, possibly, fratboys/preppies with friends named “Buffy”).
It really does seem like you’re looking for something to be pissed about. There are MUCH more obvious targets than that commercial.
Having viewed the commercial again in this link via Duke of Rat, I’d almost buy the “not necessarily queer - could be a frat boy” opinions other have expressed, except for the little simpering “Ohhh” at the end. At that point it’s evident (IMO) he’s a supposed to be more of a simpering queen than a metrosexual frat boy.
I saw both versions of the commercial just yesterday.
The Silly Faerie version was on a cable channel, the Point and Laugh Only version was on an over the airways network channel.
[QUOTE=audiobottle]
I have to agree. I thought of the new him as being the guy who has friends named Buffy and plays tennis before going out to the yacht club. Nothing gay about it.
[/QUOTE]
Straight guy here, and I never considered the fairy to be doing anything but giving him “teh gay”. “Laugh at me, call me a silly little fairy? I’ll show YOU silly little fairy!”.
The whole “turned him into a preppie” punchline kinda falls flat with the whole “silly little fairy” lead up. It would have made as much sense to turn him into a fish or something. IMHO, they were definitely shooting for turning him into a “fairy”.
[QUOTE=Lightnin’]
Weird. Straight guy checking in here- I never thought she gave him the gay. I thought she turned him into a fratboy.
[/QUOTE]
And the difference is…what exactly? :d&r:
It is indeed a queer commercial. In the beggining, she’s turning things all cute and shit. At the end, she turns the big ol’ butch boy into a preppily dressed sissy. So, what is it? Is the train homosexual? No. But obviously, the guy is supposed to be changed into a sissy. Sandwiching the silly faerie / fairy line onto that was obviously someone’s lame attempt at some sort of humor. Should one get offended by it? Depends on how hair trigger your offense-o-meter is.
Bottom line is, that chick is gorgeous and I want to bend her over the fender of my Trans Am and … well, you know.
[QUOTE=NoClueBoy]
Bottom line is, that chick is gorgeous and I want to bend her over the fender of my Trans Am and … well, you know.
[/QUOTE]
Word. Just be careful you don’t accidently tell her to screw your brains out, a wave of the wand and things could get messy.
Just watched it twice, looks to me as if she turned him into a preppie.
[QUOTE=Otto]
Clearly the commercial works on more than one level semiotically. Are you suggesting that it’s impossible to read the guy as gay? And the opposite of “jock” is not “preppie.” The opposite of jock is “sissy” and in America “sissy” still means “gay.”
[/quote]
It’s not impossible to read the guy as gay, but that applies to both the before and after versions. Gobear is quite cut and athletic, is he not legitimately gay? (Plus he had a physical crush on me. Hehe. I always love validation) The faerie had been turning the dingy grey city “cute” before she attacked the Dodge. Look at the guy before and after. He was sloppy and monotone, then she changed him to bright primary colors, in other words, “cute”. Where do you get “sissy”?
[QUOTE=Otto]
Oh well, if the straight man says there’s no reason for gay people to be offended,
I guess gay people should go with his take on it. Because the straight man clearly has more experience in the matter than gay people do.
[/quote]
No, I don’t have more “experience” at being gay than you do, but I do have an outside perspective that maybe you would benefit from considering. I have had people accuse me of saying or doing something “Because they were XXXXX” before when it frankly had never entered my mind. We all have biases (Biasees? what’s the plural of “bias”?) that we bring to how we see the world, that doesn’t always make those biases accurate. As a guy man who has had to deal with very real instances of homophobia in the past, I bet that sometimes you tend to see it when it’s not there. This seems to me to one of those instances.
[QUOTE=Otto]
Dude. You’re the one who brought up the idea of a segment of a group dressing “outrageously.”
<snip>
If you can’t understand why the sissy stereotype is negative to gay people, I don’t see how anything I can say on a message board is going to clarify it for you.
[/QUOTE]
You can’t have it both ways Otto. If a segment of the gay population dresses outrageously and behaves in an effinate manner as a badge of their sexuality (what I think you mean as a “sissy stereotype”- mincing, prancing, lisping flamboyant clothing, etc…) and we (the straight world) are expected to accept that as who they are (which I find reasonable), you can’t turn around and condemn it when it suits your purposes. No, the “sissy stereotype” isn’t an accurate depiction of all or even most gay folks, but it does exist and it has been embraced by the gay community at large as a valid expression of those folk’s sexuality. Hassidic Jews are only a small segment of the Jewish population, but if I’m looking for a quick visual immage that says “Jew”, that’s likely the one I’d pick, not my ex-brother in law Michael who doesn’t dress any differently than 99% of the other people in town. If I was looking for a quick visual image that says “gay”, a mincing, prancing lisping flamboyantly dressed man would be widely recognized as such, and would likely be a good choice. Unfortunately for those wishing to be offended by this ad, Dodge went with a preppie image, so again, I just don’t see what about the guy after the change that’s so “gay”, and you still haven’t told me what is!
[QUOTE=Duke of Rat]
The whole “turned him into a preppie” punchline kinda falls flat with the whole “silly little fairy” lead up. It would have made as much sense to turn him into a fish or something. IMHO, they were definitely shooting for turning him into a “fairy”.
[/QUOTE]
Considering the commercial (which, upon viewing the first few seconds, I thought was an ad for the Disney theme parks) begins with the fairy turning two ordinary objects of the adult world (a freight train and a large office building) into cutesy and infantilized versions of themselves, it would’ve been more fitting at the end if she had turned the guy into an oversized kid in a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit (complete with a huge lollipop).
[QUOTE=Antinor01]
I love that commercial!! I can see how some of my more sensitive gay brothers might be offended, but I thought it was hysterical.
[/QUOTE]
I’m guessing you didn’t watch any of the NHL playoffs, where the humor kinda got stale after they showed it TEN MILLION TIMES.
[QUOTE=Lightnin’]
It really does seem like you’re looking for something to be pissed about.
[/QUOTE]
I believe I already said that I wasn’t pissed off about the commercial.
See?
Of course he’s “legitimately gay.” But put a picture of gobear up next to a picture of the “after” person from the commercial and see which one more people pick out as gay.
Tiny tight shorts, pastel sweater, tiny yappy dogs on pink leashes. Transposed with butch man. Associated with the word “fairy.” Sissy.
I didn’t say anything about homophobia. I’m talking about stereotypes.
Actually, when the stereotype is used by straights to bash gays, I can and will condemn it. Note that I’m not and have never said that the intent of this ad is to bash gays. All I’ve ever said is that the after guy comes across (if not to you, then to me and to many other people both straight and gay) as “gay” and/or “sissy.” You see it as “preppy” and that’s fine, but there is simply no question that he can also be read as gay and that the inclusion of the line “silly little fairy” (somehow I doubt it was written “faerie” but if you have a copy of the script that includes that spelling then I’ll happily concede) strongly indicates that Chrysler intended that interpretation.
Most straight men in my experience, preppy or otherwise, don’t wear shorts that small and tight, and tie sweaters around their necks, and walk multiple tiny Pomeranians, and walk them on leashes that are the stereotypically sissy color pink. The opposite of “jock” is not “preppy” and “preppy” is not a synonym for “fairy.”
I’m really not sure why you feel the need to entrench yourself into the “oh, he’s just a preppy and there’s nothing else to it” position, but it comes off as more and more ludicrous with every repetition.
[QUOTE=Dooku]
I’m guessing you didn’t watch any of the NHL playoffs, where the humor kinda got stale after they showed it TEN MILLION TIMES.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, hockey players don’t do it for me.
[QUOTE=Lightnin’]
Weird. Straight guy checking in here- I never thought she gave him the gay. I thought she turned him into a fratboy.
[/QUOTE]
Same here except I thought he was supposed to be a Yuppie (an 80s yuppie at that). Most gays I know have a much better sense of style.
[QUOTE=Otto]
Tiny tight shorts, pastel sweater, tiny yappy dogs on pink leashes. Transposed with butch man. Associated with the word “fairy.” Sissy.
<snip>
Most straight men in my experience, preppy or otherwise, don’t wear shorts that small and tight, and tie sweaters around their necks, and walk multiple tiny Pomeranians, and walk them on leashes that are the stereotypically sissy color pink. The opposite of “jock” is not “preppy” and “preppy” is not a synonym for “fairy.”
I’m really not sure why you feel the need to entrench yourself into the “oh, he’s just a preppy and there’s nothing else to it” position, but it comes off as more and more ludicrous with every repetition.
[/QUOTE]
Except if you look at a frame from the commercial ( which you can do here), you would see that the guy in question is wearing knee length white tennis shorts, and a yellow shirt. Yes, he has a sweater over his shoulders, but if that’s a measure of gay, then I was flaming throughout the 80s. What you’re left with is pink leashes. Oh my, throw the book at Dodge for their blatent stereotyping! I’m afraid that what becomes more and more obvious with each repetition is that YOU are projecting. :dubious: