Or...the Extraordinary Acceptance of Everyday Homophobia....BagNews deconstructs the ad and the new genre of "behind the scenes of the making of a viral campaign attack ad".....
Here's a shot from the making of a campaign ad by Barney Frank's GOP opponent in Massachusetts' 4th Congressional District, Sean Bielat, showing a dancing woman in a fat suit making her moves in pre-production of Bielat's campaign ad.
Bielat's opening quote in the video is "As a Marine, I don't need to dance around the issues."
The ad is the brainchild of Ladd Ehlinger, Jr., the source for this viral Dale Peterson for Ag Secretary Ad:
Here are some other shots from the ad:
Ehlinger attempts to innoculate himself from criticism in the video: "You make any ad about Barney Frank and someone's going to say it's homophobic no matter what you do."
In for a dime, in for a dollar, eh, Mr. Ehlinger? There's no reason to suspect that you're playing off homophobia in your Barney-Frank-as-a-woman-dancing-in-a-fat-suit attack ad, is there? Just a male candidate role acted by a dancing woman. Nothing to see here....
Is there?
The full "Making of" video can be found at the NYT politics page.
Frank screen captures from video by Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times