UPDATE: Looks like they did indeed pull the site, at least as far as I can see. The URL now goes to the main snickers site instead.
UPDATE: Americablog goes into the story in more depth, including pointing out that two of the “alternate endings” of the video result in violence – one with one guy hitting another with an wrench, and and the other with one guy slamming the other under a car hood. Disturbing.
The offensive reactions that the football players have to the commercial are in the small thumbnails at the bottom of the afterthekiss.com page, and now that I see them, I’m pretty pissed at their reactions. Assholes.
Contact Snickers and tell them to yank this homophobic website.
AfterElton.com covers the whole issue in two recent posts on their blog: One discussing the commercial [Funny? Stupid? Homophobic?] where two guys “accidentally” kiss while jointly eating a Snickers candy bar:
Then I noticed that the end of the commercial directs you to go to Afterthekiss.com. Curious, I head over there and it turns out there are four versions of the commercial you can vote for and the winner is going to be run during the Daytona 500. One is the ad from the Super Bowl and two others are basically the same version of that. In one, the guys drink motor oil to prove they’re manly. In the other, they whack each other with a wrench and the hood of the car. I guess it’s aimed at the Jackass crowd.
But the fourth, called The Love Boat, involves a third man with long, white hair who strolls up, flips his hair likes a woman and asks if there is room for a third on this Love Boat. WTF? Okay, it doesn’t even make sense, but presumably this guy must be gay if he wants to get in on some same-sex macking with two other guys.
Frankly, the whole thing seems to stupid to be offended by, but what the heck was Mars, Inc. thinking even doing such a dumb commercial. You’d think in this day and age, they’d be going out of their way not to risk offending the LGBT community with the idea that kissing another guy isn’t manly and whatever is going on in the Love Boat spot.
And this post announcing the website was just yanked off the air, possibly because of the public homophobic reaction of Bears players to the commercial:
Mars Inc. just shut down the whole website they built to promote their Super Bowl ad showing two men kissing. Perhaps it’s because of pictures like this?
This is Mushin Muhammad, Bears Wide receiver and this is the face he made upon seeing the two men kiss in the ad. Some of Muhammad’s choicer comment? “Is he eyeing him the whole time? Oh, my God?”
What the heck was Snickers thinking with this? I’ve already contacted Mars, Inc and have been promised a statement shortly. Still waiting to hear back from the NFL as well.
However, I was able to go to the site and see the different ads, so it still seems to be up.