Meanwhile, back at the secret underground complex of Unilever, the Klondike Ice Cream team is hard at work to produce another 40 second laugh-riot. Let's listen in...
So, how disgusting and icky is the thought of two grown men holding hands?!? I know, right? Totally gross! Eww!!!!
But what if it were two rough and tumble, hyper-masculine, stereotypical badboys, like bikers or something with bandanas and moustaches, holding hands? Oh-em-gee!!! Double gross!
And then, get this...they're humiliating themselves, by expressing affection...and they're doing it so that they can have ice cream! LOL, they're big and manly but being forced to do something totally gay! How funny and stupid all at once!
I've tried to ignore this commercial and every time I see it, it makes me angry. Homophobia doesn't have to be violent in order to be ugly and I think ugly describes this ad fairly well.
What does a child learn from this commercial about men expressing affection for one another? It's gross and wrong. The message I see is that gay men cannot be masculine and, the other way round, real men should be loathe to make physical contact with other guys (save the rampant ass-patting of televised sports).
The saddest part of this is that I don't doubt for one second that the ad development team was conscious of these things and did it anyway for cheap laughs and maybe some free publicity.
If you are inclined, you can contact Klondike here.