On Super Bowl Sunday, ads aired for Cheerios and Coca-Cola. Both commercials should have been thoroughly unremarkable and inoffensive. The Cheerios ad depicted a family discussing the possibility of a new baby brother. The Coca-Coca ad depicted a group of Americans singing “America the Beautiful” and drinking Coke.
Predictably, Twitter blew up.
Why? Because Coca-Cola had the gall to show a diverse cross-section of Americans singing “America the Beautiful” in six languages other than English.
Cheerios had the gall to show an interracial family. An interracial marriage on television. In 2014. Can you believe that?
Within minutes after airtime, the #BoycottCoke hashtag was trending on Twitter.
Several Twitter users reported that the seven-language rendition of “America the Beautiful” was “un-American.” Because clearly, any language other than English has no place in America.
Never mind that the United States of America has no official language. Never mind that the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 35 million Americans more than 5 years old speak Spanish fluently. Another 2.6 million Americans speak Chinese language varieties, and 1.5 million speak Tagalog.
Other Twitter scholars called out Coca-Cola for “desecrating our national anthem,” because apparently “The Star-Spangled Banner” is no longer a thing, and translating a song into languages spoken by millions of American citizens constitutes a desecration.
Many people were outraged by the depiction of a same-sex marriage in the Coca-Cola ad. Katharine Lee Bates penned the lyrics to “America the Beautiful” back in 1893. Were she alive today, Bates would surely have shared in the outrage — as would her longtime partner Katharine Coman.
Other Internet commentators were equally offended by the Cheerios ad, which depicted a happy family sitting around the breakfast table. That family included a ridiculously adorable young girl, her black father and her white mother. It’s been 45 years since Captain Kirk kissed Nyota Uhura on “Star Trek,” but somehow interracial relationships still have the power to shock television viewers.
The seven-language rendition of “America the Beautiful” and the interracial family are both quintessentially American. What could be more American in spirit than diverse people finding family and opportunity in a new land?
It’s often said, but it bears repeating: America is a country of immigrants. There’s no single type of American. Not every American is blonde-haired, blue-eyed and English-speaking. People in the United States come from different places and speak different languages.
So why does an honest reflection of this country still have the power to shock and offend people? Because television is still squeamish about depicting different kinds of people. People in this country are accustomed to seeing only a certain type of person on television.
Television advertisements might have been created for the sole purpose of selling products and creating brand awareness, but in this day and age, advertisers have the power to do so much more with commercials. They have the platform to change the way that Americans are depicted in the media.
Advertisers have the opportunity to create commercials that reflect this country. They have the opportunity to film advertisements in which people can sing in Arabic or Spanish or Vietnamese if they please. They have the opportunity to film advertisements with families made up of a white man and a black woman, a black woman and a white woman or a mixed-race man and his adopted child.
Hopefully, a day will come when all of the ads on air look like the Coca-Cola commercial or the Cheerios ad. And no one will post a badly misspelled rant on Twitter about it.
Opinion columnist Megan Kallus is a pre-business freshman and may be reached at [email protected]
Let’s just speak to each other in whatever language we feel like even if those we are speaking to do not understand it. Having English as a dominant language is so racist. Countries like Japan are racist for having official languages. I’m going to order my next burger in Latin and expect someone to accommodate me because I shouldn’t be limited to English. Let’s balkanize!
Add South Korea to the list of racist countries. The official language is Korean and the demographics are 99% ethnic Korean. They should promote diversity and massive immigration to improve their economy. Why don’t they allow millions of people from the third world to help build up their economy and improve their math scores? America’s economy is improving each year the more diversity we experience. South Korea is only getting worse due to a lack of diversity. Why don’t they get that?
It’s wrong to speculate the sexual orientation of the deceased author of “America the Beautiful” . If it’s wrong to “out” living people as gay, why is it so trendy to “out” dead people or speculate their serial orientation?
“America the beautiful” is a terrible song. Why leave out the rest of the world? Are the other countries not beautiful? Only an ignorant person would write such a song. What about ” World the beautiful” or “Universe the beautiful”. It seems Katharine Lee Bates didn’t appreciate diversity and inclusiveness with such a song, especially since she wrote it in English. Hopefully the next Superbowl commercial will have a song similar to “We are the World” but in every language spoken in the universe.
Notice they don’t want to “out” people who are deemed “evil” by the public. The only speculate the sexual orientation of people with good standing. It serves them no political points to “out” Mao or Pol Pot.
They should have talked about aborting the baby in the Cheerios commercial as part of Margaret Sanger’s legacy.
The cheerios commerical was stupid. They should have put Arian Foster telling his wife and child that he’s having a baby with Britanny Norwood. That would have been funny and also promote a mixed race family.
No one has a right to be offended unless it fits a liberal multi-culti agenda.
Almost every tv show and commercial shows a mixed race couple and its usually a White woman with a Black man. There are also many commercials where the dumb person is White and being corrected by a Black person. Commercials often use a “dumb blonde” stereotype as well, but that’s politically correct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKYRp8F9U3s
As a Black man, I thank you for being courageous. These poisonous relationshps destroy us as well. My brothers go for White women because they are under the impression that White women are more beautiful than Black women. They lie and say they don’t like a Black woman’s attitude. Not true. They could have a submissive Black Sister making them sandwiches and they would still prefer the White woman. This is from the media. Instead of the strong Black families we had in the past, we have the most “desirable” Black men marrying White women. Our educated, gorgeous Black Sisters end up alone because they want a Black man and want to have Black babies. These Black men who engage in relationships with White women are ashamed of themselves. They do not want a child that looks like them.
Listen to what a real accomplished Black man, Muhammad Ali says about it:
I don’t find that Cheerios kid cute. Its funny that people say that all kids are cute, yet when they reach a certain age they are no longer cute anymore. Most kids are not cute just like most adults are not cute.
The Coca-Cola commercial is typical propaganda fitting the multinational corporation’s agenda. To them America is a brand they can sell, not a home for Americans with a common language and culture. We are all “Americans” if we drink Coca-Cola and eat McDonald’s. Reminds me of the song “Amerika” by Rammstein
Diversity is overrated. The fact is that the reason people from all over the world come to the United States is because it was created by Caucasians with European Ideas(French, English, Greek) that lead a democratic republic where prosperity could blossom. Sure America is a nation of immigrants, but which immigrants founded the United States? Had the United States been founding on Confucianism, Shamanism, or any other non-European idea, I highly doubt it would be the place so many non-whites would like to immigrate to. It also seems that the majority of the world tends to desire to immigrate to countries founded by Whites(United States, Canada, Australia, EU countries, New Zealand and even South Africa). You can even look at South America and the immigration flow is to countries with higher White populatons.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YVVfLnUMWTA/UOx-f5U3N2I/AAAAAAAANtM/VifkZyp-FMw/s1600/global_migration_2005.jpg
Why is that? Why should the whites whose ancestors created such desirable countries be happy with the “diversity” that is changing the demographics towards the places where the “diverse” immigrants want to leave? Would Asia or Africa like to be so diverse that they would lose their Asian and African character? I’m sure they wouldn’t.
Diversity is a codeword for too many whites. You never hear that Kenya needs diversity because it is “too Black” or China and South Korea need diversity because those countries are “too yellow”. Only White countries need diversity to fix their problems. Diversity is a scam to make White countries less white through massive immigration from non-White countries.