Do Something Manly

An advertisement for Snickers chocolate bars that broadcast during the Super Bowl has caused some stir in both the gay and evangelical communities. Jennifer Vanasco of the Independent Gay Forum writes about this in her latest column:

To me, the Snicker’s ad was not making fun of gay men as much as it was making fun of homosexual panic, that strange mental condition that forces otherwise sane, rational men into making fools of themselves in order to prove that, really, they’re not gay!

”Those silly men!” the ad exclaims. They’re so cuckoo that they’ll mutilate themselves—or drink engine oil, as they do in an alternate ending—in order to avoid the appearance of enjoying the lips of another man. But we’re not fooled, because that second of lust, of erotic interchange, seemed so real, that we know they’re trying to blind themselves to the obvious. After all, they don’t wipe their mouths. They don’t spit. They don’t even look disgusted, or shamed—just shocked.

I agree. I think the Snickers campaign is funny. The joke is on the straight men terrified of accidental ”gayness”.