Our beauty is in our diversity.
One of last night’s Super Bowl commercial gems was the sweet, diversity-celebrating ad from Coke, “It’s Beautiful,” highlighting the varied cultures and experiences that make America, well, beautiful. There’s plenty to take Coke to task for, to be sure, but this commercial is not one of those things. It would be easy to talk about how frustrating or disappointing it was to see Twitter explode with xenophobic rage after the commercial aired, not to mention the rampant ignorance about what our national anthem is [Hint: Renee Fleming just sang it at the start of the game, and it is not “America the Beautiful”] or what language we speak in the United States [where, you know, we actually don’t have an official national language].
But in the words of our favorite Super Bowl champion Richard Sherman: “Anytime you run a gimmick offense, you’re a little bit afraid.”
So, rather than dedicate this space to talking about that fear or wasting time arguing that a diversity-inclusive commercial can really not logically be considered an act of terrorism, it seems like a much more worthy cause to celebrate all of the awesome packed into this ad instead. Here’s a list of what Coke totally got right by including:
– A celebration of small businesses and small-town America
– A celebration of America’s breathtaking open spaces and scenic natural landscapes
– Cowboys
– A gorgeous multilingual version of “America the Beautiful,” sung in seven different languages as a representation of the many nationalities and ethnicities that make up the fabric of our country and contribute to our shared national community
– Pretty phenomenal dancing skills
– Humans’ touching affection for our animals
– Surfing and swimming that for at least a few seconds possibly made viewers forget the phrase “polar vortex”
– Some epic family road trips
– People making music
– A celebration of religious diversity, including men donning yarmulkes followed immediately by scenes of young women in hijab
– Two adorable dads with their daughter on the cutest ever roller-skating hangout
– Kids at the movies who are having the BEST time
– Friendship, laughter, and bondedness that spans generations
The only thing that really topped the loveliness and happiness of last night’s Coke ad was this puppy and horse bestie duo from Budwiser, which the Internet trolls have of course wasted no time complaining about as well.
For the rest of us – we’re better off continuing to seek out what’s beautiful.
Kristen, Thank you for reminding me to look at the “good” and not get carried away by the “bad.” It’s easy to get carried away by your emotions when you see some of the idiotic reactions from people when things like this pop up. When Sebastien de la Cruz sang the national anthem at a basketball game, we saw a similar backlash from the moralist white ultra conservatives. When Mark Anthony sang the national anthem at a baseball game, same thing. Every once in a while that same group of idiots pop up and piss the hell out of me.… Read more »
I love that the patriots thought “America the Beautiful” was our National Anthem. OMG.