by Danny Cross
03.01.2013
82 days ago
Last night around 9:30 I was just minding my own business,
watching some harmless comedy shows on demand when a commercial came on
that piqued my interest via a typically dumb interaction between a dude
talking to a babe in a bikini. I was waiting for some type of cliché to
end the interaction between the two — something like a beer-commercial
crotch shot or the woman doing something weird like licking an ice cube —
when the story took a most-surprising turn: the dude in the scene was
gay.
The woman sits down on a beach chair next to the guy, who
is squinting into his iPad-looking device like a dork. She starts
reading her Kindle like the sun is no big deal and he says: "That's a
Kindle, right?"
Woman: "Yeah, it's the new Kindle Paperwhite."
Man: "I love to read at the beach, but..."
Woman: "This is perfect at the beach. And, with the built in light, I can read anywhere anytime."
Man: "Done."
Woman: "With your book?"
Man: Nope. "I just bought a Kindle Paperwhite." *Leans toward her.* "We should celebrate."
Woman: "My husband's bringing me a drink right now."
Man: "So is mine."
Husbands waive from the bar.
I watched it again this morning (the email I sent myself
on the subject after having several beers and talking about sports all
evening only says: “Gay kindle commercial. What does that commercial
mean?”), and it’s actually pretty genius. Gay-rights groups have pointed
out that this type of media is following steps taken by shows like Ellen and Modern Family, which depict gay couples as pretty much ordinary anymore.
Check it out here:
Naturally, some people on the Internet think it’s way icky.
And organizations like One Million Moms
(a weird, conservative Christian group that should be named something
more like “One Million Mean Moms.” Ha.) took exception to it. OMMMs
wrote this: “We have Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite commercial that
promotes gay marriage. Instead of Amazon remaining neutral in the
culture war while showcasing how their product has no glare even at the
beach, they chose to promote sin.”
People flagged the ad as inappropriate enough times on
YouTube that it was briefly taken down for review, but it was posted
back on the site later.