JJ Vincent is convinced that this could have been the boldest ad of the year ever. What do you think?
Super Bowl ads are supposed to be big and bold. They are supposed to make you talk. Some of them will make you shake your head and wonder, “What were they thinking?” Some of them will have you talking about them years later.
And then there is this gem, which was submitted to be part of the big game.
It’s bold for a few reasons.
1. It follows AND defies all rules of How to Sell Snack Foods to Men by having babes in bikinis, manly tattoed hunks, prominently placed Bold Packaging, and a short, chubby, effeminate man as the centerpiece.
2. It features a gay (yes, Leslie Jordan is, and very outly so) man selling a Manly Product. There are no rainbows, unicorns, or anything else even slightly girly. This is straight-up Manly Food.
3. That man is short, pale, white-haired, chubby, and nervous.
4. That man dances boldy, with the help of Doritos.
5. With the power of more Doritos, he gets drop-trou-and-dance bold.
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So let’s recap. Ad for salty, spicy, hot, bold snack chip features 4’11” tall roundy gay man dancing to sell product, surrounded by the usual suspects.
The brothers who created this submitted it to the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest. It did not make the semi-final cut, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good.
It’s flown around the internet like wild fire. It’s started conversations about everything from gay stereotypes to bullying to the nature of these contests. It was among the highest-rated submissions.
And even if it’s not in the Big Game, it shows that a little bit of “thinking outside the box” can go a long way.
Could the stripping at the end be the boldest move or could the actor being effeminate make the stripping at the end less “threatening” especially to female viewers, which doesn’t sound like a bold move at all?
I would say it felt a lot more like laughing at him rather than with him. i may be reading too much into it, but laughing at an effeminate man is hardly a new idea for Leslie in particular i have always seen him represented in this light. I would have liked him to be portrayed as a true “Hero” type for once. for me that would have been truly bold. and still could have been funny.
You make good points but in the end it still falters a bit by depending on the “guy’s genitals are unattractive” feel. Its like they build it up to say that this guy is doing someting new a different and presenting manhood in a “bold” new way….but being confident in your male body is still out of bounds.
The ad is drawn up to get people to laugh at him for stripping at the end.
Danny, when you say laughing at him, so you mean in a derogatory way, or because it’s a goofy thing to do, or ?? Just curious.
Honestly I think the delivery is calling for a derogatory laugh.
I can’t see how this could be anything but derogatory.
He’s obviously in on the joke, which largely makes it inoffensive in my book. But, it’s cheap and lacking any wit. This trailer could have subverted plenty of common tropes, but it bails at the end and chickens out by falling back on clichéd safe ground, rather than going all out and finishing strong.
Ultimately, this feels like a safe, by-the-numbers, attempt at subversion and it lacks any genuine, positive message.
Agree with Danny. No matter how far the ad creators have taken it (and props to them for taking these risks), our hero gets shamed in the end for his naked body, which invites the viewer to deny that for the first 27 seconds of the ad he was our hero.
Enough body shaming. If he had won the models and the casting agent over (presumably with the awesome power of that Doritos crunch) then I’d be on board.
Enough body shaming. If he had won the models and the casting agent over (presumably with the awesome power of that Doritos crunch) then I’d be on board.
Agreed.
They really picked a good topic to do a commercial about being bold. I just wish we could have seen the boldness actually have a positive pay off. As it stands we are just left with a funny moment.
Sorry, but I disagree. No matter the social issues that you mention, to me the ad just comes across as somewhat bland . . . just my opinion.