CBS is still planning to air the Tim Tebow pro-life ad during the Super Bowl. We haven’t seen what this commercial will look like. (Though in an intriguing twist, lawyer Gloria Allred is claiming Tebow’s mom couldn’t have had an abortion even if she wanted to because such a procedure was illegal in the Philippines, anyway — in which case there could be grounds against CBS for airing misleading advertising.)
More recent news is that CBS rejected an ad for a gay dating website. ManCrunch.
Is that hypocrisy?
No. Not for this particular decision.
Here’s the “gay” ad in question:
That doesn’t look like a dating site. It looks like a hookup site. The slogan implies that, too (“Where many many many Men Come Out and Play”).
Not to mention it’s just a dumb ad on a bunch of levels. Queerty agrees:
… even the road signs behind them reek of stupid macho jokes:
a) NO ENTRY (like that dumb straight joke “my ass is ‘EXIT ONLY'”);
b) a stop sign pointing right between the two men (DON’T GO THERE, BOYS); and
c) a sign that reads “Caution: This equipment starts and stops automatically” with a brown cowboy cutout beside it. “Equipment” could equal “cock”, but maybe that’s a stretch.
Either way, the roadsigns evoke other manly things like driving and highway construction, adding to the butchness pervading the start of the commercial and feeding into the ad’s incredibly homophobic message. The ad’s subtext is that the mere touch of a man can turn gay even the most butch football fan, and that gays just can’t control themselves sex-wise — they’ll start humping each other anywhere — at a football game, in your living room, in front of your kids!!!
Not to mention the ad is just unrealistic — a Packers fan would never get it on with a Vikings fan — and if there’s one thing we know about Super Bowl ads, it’s that they’re all totally believable.
Let’s not use this ad in our case for CBS making a mistake when they accepted the Tebow ad.
We need to see a well-produced, non-controversial (at least superficially), pro-choice ad get rejected before we can claim hypocrisy.
For now, let’s just stick to the claim that CBS is accepting an ad that endorses a political viewpoint and that’s the real mistake. They need to accept or reject all such ads.
(Thanks to everyone for the links)