Is This Dodge 'Fairy' Commercial Actually Hate Speech in Disguise? (AdAge)

(I found this over at AdAge.com and though folks here might find this interesting. Ad Age is the trade magazine for the advertizing industry.)

Is This Dodge 'Fairy' Commercial Actually Hate Speech in Disguise?

Bob Garfield's Ad Review:Watch the Video (at link below)

<http://www.adage.com/video/Player?spotId=176&instanceId=&startId=&PageDate=&PageTitle=Pixie',578,500>

By Bob Garfield

Published: April 17, 2006

Faggot. Queer. Fairy. These are synonyms, epithets one and all disparaging gays -- or, more often, heterosexual men deemed insufficiently masculine. Let's call that Fact No. 1.

Macho brand
Fact No. 2: Dodge is marketing its new Caliber subcompact as a tough little car, as opposed to sissy little Civics, Corollas and the like. This comports with Dodge's long-cultivated macho image, as exemplified by the grunting, Aerosmith heavy-metal music tag punctuating every spot.

Fact No. 3 is that one of the introductory commercials from BBDO, Detroit, features the juxtaposition of a burly tough guy and his Doberman with a sweater-draped girlie man who is walking four little lap dogs. Fact No. 4 is that the only line of dialogue in the commercial is the burly dude exclaiming, "Silly little fairy!"

And Fact No. 5 -- the genuinely astonishing fact -- is that Daimler Chrysler asserts that none of the above is meant to invoke a sexual insult.

"Was it intentional? Absolutely not," says spokeswoman Suraya Bliss, whose voice quavered as she spoke, perhaps because she was choking on the corporate line. "It's not the kind of company we are."

(more at link)

<http://www.adage.com/columns/article?article_id=108621>

It's A FAIRY....the damn thing is female and looks like Walt Disney's Tinkerbell. Tinkerbell was a fairy.

where the butch (I guess straight) guy is transformed into a pastel wearing, high pitched voice poofter by the fairy after he says "stupid fairy."

...was turned into a fakey looking thing. The train was turned into a pastel train. The building was turned into a pastel looking castle. Then it fails to change the cool car and runs into a building and is insulted by the ugly guy with the dog who gets prompty turned into pastel preppy.

nt

I have better things to worry about than looking for insults that don't exist in a car commercial.

I thought the ad was very cute and well made. Thumbs up.

But that ad's not as good as the cavemen/FedEx commercial, which I like even though a small dinosaur gets kicked and one of the cave men is tragically smushed under the foot of a gigantic dinosaur.

Because it was there in the on-line video.

...who aren't into big gas-guzzling trucks, and don't want to be accused of driving a "chic car."

I don't worry about that sort of thing at age 42, but when I was in my 20's (without a girl-friend) and especially in my mid-30's "...and still not married," that really was a worry.

It's quite devious, this ad.

My take was, the car is already "pretty". The dog walker and his dogs just became fancier than what they were. Is this guy just to sensitive?

...or building.

either. I don't know what macho has to do with it. Everything the fairy changed she made pretty.....if the car couldn't be made prettier, isn't it the intent of the commercial to say it can't be made prettier?

like you're too overcompensating for something anyway. Where's those Joe Jackson lyrics when I need them? Oh, right here:

Take your mind back - I don't know when
Sometime when it always seemed
To be just us and them
Girls that wore pink
And boys that wore blue
Boys that always grew up better men
Than me and you

What's a man now - what's a man mean
Is he rough or is he rugged
Is he cultural and clean
Now it's all change - it's got to change more
'Cause we think it's getting better
But nobody's really sure

And so it goes - go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

See the nice boys - dancing in pairs
Golden earring golden tan
Blow-wave in the hair
Sure they're all straight - straight as a line
All the gays are macho
Can't you see their leather shine

You don't want to sound dumb - don't want to offend
So don't call me a faggot
Not unless you are a friend
Then if you're tall and handsome and strong
You can wear the uniform and I could play along

And so it goes - go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

They could go a long way wiyh that concept.

You know, their new SUV that takes it's aerodynamic cues from that Scion shoebox thing.

Dodges newer names are meant to evoke images of explosions. Both Caliber and Magnum are firearms references. Nitro is an explosive.

I'm sure if it weren't for the millions already invested in the name, the Neon would have gone out the window as "too pansy" long ago.

Fairies are just popular right now. I can't walk through the garden center without seeing several of them. I can't walk through the mall without seeing at least one little girl in t-shirt with a fairy on it.

I think they are just cashing in on a current trend.

I thought the guy was turned into his own disparaging remark.

It's the type of ad Karl Rove would come up with if he worked for an ad agency. Close your eyes and you can almost imagine Rove snickering and getting a stiffie over coming up with the concept and wondering if he can get away with a whole series of car ads in which a shuffling African American drops his watermelon and turns white when he catches a glimpse of the car, an Asian with thick glasses and an inability to pronounce "L's" gets behind the wheel and promptly has an accident, a Mexican swims the Rio Grande and promptly finds a Caliber and steals it, or a Native American wrecks the car because he's too drunk of "fire water."

The fairy is obviously female, turning things 'cute' - a buidling into an ice-cream sundae, a train into a wooden toy train. I thought the guy got turned into a preppy at the end of a commercial.

Disclosure: I am a "Fairly OddParents" fan and tend to see fairies as just ... fairies.

Further disclosure: Yes, I'm in my 40s. What of it?!

My husband and I recently noticed that the "silly little fairy!" line has been removed.

serious unresolved issues and chips on their shoulders.

just changed a tv ad for similar reasons. Too many complaints that the ad made two young African American males stereotypical by using the "F" word.

On this ad, everywhere the word "free" was supposed to be, the ad bleeped it out to make it appear that the young men were actually saying "Fuck". The ad ended by saying that the price bargain at McDonald's for it's dollar menu was so good that it was obscene.

This ad generated a number of complaints, so the company has changed it and now the word "free" is audible.

Sometimes these ad companies just go too far.

But at least they are subtle, you should see the god-awful local Car Dealer commercials we had here around St. Patrick's Day. :puke:

is that these companies will continue to stretch the envelope with these bigoted or poor taste ads and unless enough citizens get off their butts and write or call in to complain, they will get away with this crap.

Everyone loves those "bleep" things -- even though it has been done to death. It would have been MUCH funnier, however, if they showed a range of people, from suburban housewives, to old ladies, to a preacher, to a cop.

And it would have made a GREAT series of ads if they took your suggestion... had old ladies etc. :D

out of it was a fairy trying to make things look cutsie (in her own taste) and the car was too powerful to transform. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

I found nothing offensive about the ad, other than the fact that it was selling something that I can't afford.

It should be take off the air for being a sexual insult. I got it the first time I saw it.

It's just a commercial.

I really don't see what the fuss about this commercial. I don't think there's any homophobia behind it.

I think there are far more important things for gays and lesbians to focus on...such as the upcoming vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment in the Senate in June.

I did find it somewhat offensive. Especially the end where the guy gets changed into a little faggy guy with a bunch of little dogs. The message seems to be that all other cars are wimpy 90 lb weaklings compared to OUR car. Your car is the type that gets beat up after school by OUR car. Ugh.

This pandering to the super-tough, macho image of a pick-up truck is just stupid.

I also hate that commercial where the man is talking to the little fluffy puppy in the pet store window, and that ex-football player Howie Something drives up and looks disgusted and nods over at the other window where there are pit bulls or dobermans or something.

Of course, this is nothing new. It just seems a little more overt lately.

your ass.

:rofl:

Rat terriers. They'll BITE YOUR LEG OFF DAMMIT!

that the preppy guy at the end is 'faggy'. How does one look 'faggy'?

You're projecting your own inner stereotypes about what looks 'faggy' while complaining about the supposed use of a stereotype.

The guy at the end looks like the milquetoast WASP's that play golf out here in the Hamptons.

Gays don't dress like that. That shit was tacky.

"So what's wrong with cute?" And the cute stuff they did as far as redecorating structures, etc was on the tacky side.

It never occurred to me to interpret it in that way. It's just your typical macho he-man attitude, which is to say they hate cutsi-ness because deep down they see it as a thread to their very tenuous masculinity.

The fairy was trying to make things pretty, but she couldn't make the big car pretty. And I didn't think that the fairy turned the burly guy into a gay guy at the end. I thought she turned him into a preppy-freeper type as a punishment because he insulted her, which was an amusing ending and made me root for the fairy.

Therefore, in order not to be offended, I DEMAND all books, publications, radio programs, TV, blogs etc. be destroyed and that nothing ever be published again. Also every person in the world must never speak, make gestures or even move

That should stop all forms of Hate Speech.

But, I do clearly think this ad is saying Dodge is to tough a brand of vehicle for fairies.

I was prepared to be unoffended, but the one line is so close to this one it has to be an echo.

Is the ad meant to exude machismo? Sure. Is it meant to suggest that it's more macho than its competition? Sure.

Does making someone out to be a sissy or preppy automatically equate to gay? Absolutely not. Most of the preppy boys I went to college with are wealthy rethugs today. Preppy = wealthy and upscale, not gay (though there were undoubtably some gay preppies, of course).

The fairy was trying to make the whole world sweet and nice. The Dodge ad was saying that this car doesn't want to be sweet and nice, and if you want to be "manly" you should drive it. That's a disturbing way to market a car, but it's not anti-gay.

It isn't hate speech

it's a funny ad

people are too sensitive

But I'm glad that these guys have the balls to put out an ad that might inspire controversy in this age of focus groups and political correctness. The fact that a few liberals might be offended is not a reason to stifle commercial free speech.

EDIT: You know what? Claiming that this particular ad is "hate speech" is actually the closest thing to hate speech that I can see in this situation. HATE SPEECH? An ad about cars and magical, fictional fairies? Are you kidding me?

In its original form, the commercial was clearly using the multiple meanings of "fairy" and the graphic presentation to imply that their product is "fairy-proof." The language that makes that apparent got removed, according to some posters.

How did this ad get made?

Someone tossing around ideas for a commercial for the truck says "THE OTHER GUYS ARE FAIRIES!!" And someone else says "great, how are we gonna get away with that?" The other guy takes another shot of Tequila and says "We'll make it a story about real fairies, and go from there."

The article seems wayyyyyyyyyy over the top with this one. I found the commercial to be completely harmless. This one is really a stretch for me.

but i did think it was a crappy ad for an uninspiring product