Bless Snickers!

The folks at M&M Mars have done a wonderful thing. Think about it.

The release of Brokeback Mountain was a noisy interval in the history of the United States. Theaters across the nation had that **shameful** movie's name on the marquee... and everyone had to walk by. Lots of folks talked about it, but many more were able to avoid the subject.

But at the Superbowl something amazing happened. Perhaps 50 Million men saw two auto mechanics kissing... kissing in the process of sharing a Snickers Bar. A simple fact. And more amazing, if we assume 10% of all men are gay (whether they know it or not), perhaps 5 Million men who are physiologically gay saw the kiss.

Even if the numbers are wrong, millions of men actually saw an act of homosexual affection, saw it before they could look away.

What followed was a few seconds of 'cultural compensation'. The two men attempted to act macho by ripping out their chest hair in an attempt to compensate for their socially unacceptable act.

The folks at Snickers have done a wonderful thing, may blessings be upon them. But all blessings have consequences, and all joy has sadness.

We live in a culture of lies, and when one is exposed to us-- when something that touches our vitals-- an image of an execution on the streets of Saigon, or poverty in the dust bowl or Biafra, or death in so many places, we are, in the twinkling of an eye, changed. In an instant the denied reality shines through. And hiding in the midst of a Superbowl commercial was a bit of reality, one denied by a huge fraction of the public in the USA. A shocking truth wrapped in humor.

What about the men who suddenly discovered something about themselves? What comfort will those five million men have? Their lives are topsy. If they are married, they now see themselves living a lie. If they are near one of those highway rest areas, they can destroy themselves, their wives and their families with unsafe, anonymous sex. If they are rich they can hire an escort. If they are not, they can drink themselves to death. Perhaps they can give their lives, or their life savings to organizations that teach hatred. Perhaps they can kill themselves.

Every joy has a sadness.

The gay rights movement did the right thing too. The hooted and hollered about the unfairness of the ad. The complained bitterly about the self-destructive macho behavior that followed the kiss. Why did they do that?

"If I didn't hit ya, he was gonna. And he's a whole lot bigger than me!" I'm not sure what movie that line is from, though I think John Wayne said it to Jimmy Stewart... obviously after Wayne knocked Stewart to the ground. The attack from the gay rights movement was a framing attack. It put the commercial into the news, but it put the second half of the spot on the spot, and robbed the affection-control elements of society from asserting the evil of Snickers' subversive act, for to do so would be to agree with the evil gay rights fringe! Further, it put out the message that one need not react self-destructively, that there is another way.

There is hope.

So we have a story with legs... Did you see the Snickers ad? Did you see those men kiss? Did they really kiss, or was it technically not a real kiss? If the ad had been placed in another event would it have done as much? The Rose Parade? Ellen? Queer Eye? No. There is no place else in the television schedule where a commercial will be seen by more men than the Superbowl. Someone understood that, and exploited it perfectly.

Brokeback Mountain exposed many people to the very existence of men kissing-- normal men-- mechanics and cowboys. But the act itself, and the demonstration of the physiological brain reaction was kept safely away, like the Playgirl covers on the top shelf at the airport, you have to seek them out to see them. Snickers found a way to bring one bit of truth into fifty million middle-American homes, while they were looking.

It was, in fact, brilliant. It was, in fact, a public service. It was, in fact, a blessing.