Heinz needz ballz as well as beanz in dealing with homophobic activists
Just when many of us are despairing at our inability to change the ways in which big businesses conduct themselves, along comes the answer: never mind harping on about CO2 emissions, unnecessary packaging, and social responsibility—just grab yourself a modest 202 queer-hating people secretly working together in an unholy alliance, and you’ve got yourself enough people to make a difference, albeit a very negative one.
Heinz has withdrawn a television advertisement showing two men briefly kissing during a short scene that was intended to convey, in a light-hearted and humorous way, the somewhat fanciful notion that you could have yourself the equivalent of a New York deli chef in your kitchen by buying the company’s latest mayonnaise products. Gay rights organisation Stonewall is now urging supporters of equality and fairness for all to boycott Heinz. Quite right, too—and so the tin of Heinz Organic Baked Beans lurking in our own kitchen cupboard will be the last we buy until such time, if ever, that the company shows it has some balls as well as beans.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said on Tuesday that it had received 202 objections from viewers, a high number in a short time but only a quarter of the complaints that came in for a Volkswagen Polo advertisement that drew accusations of cruelty after it featured a shivering dog outside a car. “Homosexuality in itself is not a breach but they could look at it from the point of view of taste and decency,” said an ASA spokesman, also confirming that the regulatory body has yet to decide whether to investigate if the commercial breached its rules.
Taste? Decency? It was two men kissing, not bending over and screwing each other on the kitchen worktops. They didn’t even use tongues! Put another way, while I’m aware there are many couples in the world for whom the love-light went out long ago, if my hubby gave me a kiss like that–indeed, if he even forgot to kiss me goodbye when going out, as happens in the ad—I’d be thinking he was spending time elsewhere, if you know what I mean. I don’t expect full-on passion, but the peck on the lips in the ad was about the same duration and impact as one received on the cheek. It was utterly inconsequential—although frankly the ad was rather naff and, from my perspective, completely failed to convey the intended message which was only explained in the press when the news story broke. It could have been a progressive recognition on screen that same-sex parenting couples, who are entirely invisible in the media, really do exist. But alas, an opportunity to do good was pissed away.
The Heinz advertisement was actually banned from being aired in or around children’s programming, not because it was feared it might prompt the world to end, Christ to return in a bad mood, or turn the nation’s children queer overnight, but because it fell foul of Ofcom’s TV ad restrictions relating to products that are high in fat, salt and sugar.
So not only was the ad crap, but the product is awful. As Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall, put it, ‘”The biggest irony of all is, by responding to claims it damages children, Heinz has drawn attention that it is actually not allowed to be shown around children’s programmes because it is so unhealthy.”
“Our phones have not stopped ringing with supporters who are deeply upset,” he said. “I think people are a bit surprised Heinz has responded so swiftly to what appears, on the face of it, to be organised complaints, a campaign by people who are determined to be outraged whenever there is any reference to homosexuality, however light-hearted.”
A recent billboard campaign by Stonewall featuring the words “Some people are gay. Get over it!” attracted around 100 objections in three days in what the organisation believes to have been another targeted attack. Although no mention is made anywhere in the media of who the culprits might be, it’s entirely possible that evangelical Christians are to blame.
Nigel Dickie (snigger all you like, I did), a spokesman for Heinz UK, said the Deli Mayo ad was intended as “a humorous take on a slice of life” but the company had decided to pull it before the ASA complaints, because of “consumer feedback”.
Do we believe him? No. How’s this for consumer feedback, Mr Dickie? Are you going to respond?
“Heinz is a global company and we respect all universal rights,” Dickie added, without explaining what the fuck that means because, of course, it means nothing at all. “The advertisement was intended to be humorous, not designed to cause offence to anyone. Clearly it failed in its intent to amuse and that is why we took the decision to withdraw it.” Oh, right. So you took it off air because you wasted your money on a bad ad, not because of those 202 vicious reactionaries, then?
Again, do we believe him? Well, put it this way: if he were Pinocchio, I think his nose could get him a job in freaky pornos catering for very, very strange minority tastes.
He said the company apologised if the short-run campaign, which had been due to run for five weeks, had offended anyone. Hell, a bad advertisement doesn’t offend. What does offend is a company like Heinz acting on the complaints of people so actively homophobic they actually take the time to write letters and make phone calls every time they see something they think nobody else should ever see. Of course, the more vehemently homophobic you are, the greater the chance your illness—for it is a sickness to be so hateful—stems from an inability to deal with the same-sex longings that keep you awake at night in abject fear of being taken over by them in a frenzy of animal lust. As if.
Keep drinking the bromide, you’ll be fine. Sexless, cold, cruel, unloveable and unforgiving—but fine. At least by your standards.
Somewhere in the depths of Hell, Mary Whitehouse is likely smiling at how her supporters continue to fight for the return of witch-burnings and queer hangings. But, as public relations disasters go, this latest from Heinz is one of the most spectacular ever. The company has gone overnight from being seen as a fairly innocuous, if successful, purveyor of baked beans to being seen as a champion of the anti-gay conservative brigade of hand-wringing born-agains and other social misfits for whom hatred is not only a laudable emotion, but something to be acted upon in ways that impact on as many other people as possible.
So how can Heinz dig itself out of the hole of its own making? It could start by donating tens of millions from its not-inconsiderable bank balance to any number of gay support groups, say, for example, those working to help vulnerable young gay men and women escape from oppressive homes in which their mothers and fathers sit by the TV with telephone in hand, ready at all times to complain whenever two or more people of the same sex stand too close together for their liking.
For now, though, if you value a diverse and tolerant society, and don’t want to see any one small group dictate what you can see, read, and hear, please boycott Heinz. You’ll be helping to ensure that the next time any militants conduct a campaign of hate, it won’t work as well as it did this week. Me, I’m off to find a homophobe to scare by walking up to them and saying “boo!”–that’s usually enough to send them home for an antiseptic bath in cold water, a quick round of self-flagellation using birch twigs, and several hours spent in prayer asking not to be turned to the dark side while promising never to touch themselves ‘there’ ever again because they know it makes God angry (well, angrier than hate, poverty, murder, rape, cruelty, injustice).
I leave you for now with two things: one, an online petition to Heinz calling for the ad to be reinstated–and at time of writing it has over 5300 signatures, making the 202 homophobes look as small and insignificant as they undoubtedly are—and so please sign your name to it; and two, a link to the ever-amusing, ever-outrageous Daily Mash satirical take on this news story: TELEVISION TO BE CONTROLLED BY 200 LATENT HOMOSEXUALS.
Nuff said.
tags: activism, advertising, complaints, evangelicals, hatred, Heinz, homophobia, intolerance, media, militants
3 comments on “Heinz needz ballz as well as beanz in dealing with homophobic activists”
June 26th, 2008 at 8:25 am
It would appear that Heinz is hurriedly removing every copy of the advertisement posted to YouTube, in an attempt to hide it away. The first video I posted became ‘no longer available’ but thanks to the Internet, as one goes, more appear online. So I got hold of another link to the same ad, and reposted. Again, several hours later, the video disappeared with the same message in its place. So I’ve searched YouTube again, found a newly uploaded copy–I suspect people will keep uploading as fast as copies disappear, so Heinz is now chasing its own tail big time, which is an interesting turn-of-phrase to employ given the topic of controversy!–and, if I notice the video again becomes unavailable, at least over the next week or so, I will do another search and reinsert another new copy.
If, when you read the above article, the video isn’t working, then just head over to YouTube and search for a copy if you want to see the thing.
Trying to stop people from seeing the ad isn’t about protecting copyright; it’s censorship, simply put. Heinz does itself no favours at all.
Heinz, the way to deal with your shame is not to send your emissaries to their desks with orders to ferret out copies of the ad wherever they appear in cyberspace. You’re making yourselves look even worse–and given what you’ve done, that’s saying something.
I should add, some of the YouTube copies are closed to comments but some aren’t, and the videos receive hundreds of comments from users. Some are angry about the homophobia, others are intensively homophobic, with Jesus dying on the cross mentioned more than once along with his blood, our sins, and so on and so forth ad nauseum. You have been warned…. Nobody who isn’t homophobic would ever say homophobes are nice people…
June 26th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
There’s 8088 signatures now. I’d heard the hubub about the advert on the radio but hadn’t seen it. Having now been to youtube and seen the advert in total … I wish it was hard to believe there were enough people out there who’d object to it. I caught part of a phone in and the radio presenter kept asking a man who phoned in why he objected to it but the only response was that he was ‘repulsed’ and ‘revolted’ by the scene.
I just think it’s a naff advert and will be duly avoiding heinz products.
Just popped back to view the sigs and in the few minutes it’s taken me to type this post the count has gone up to 8099 signatures!
June 27th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Beautifu1 ยป It is an awful ad, isn’t it? Utterly lame. How easily we gays offend by simply existing. Well, sorry not to those 202, but we ain’t goin’ nowhere and it’s time you woke up to the human race in all its diverse glory! Good news to read you’re joining the boycott as well! x
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