Re: "I do not like gay cookies": Conservatives vow to boycott Oreo over new ad

Viktor Tandofsky <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]: 

> Lee wrote
> 
>> All queers belong in jails or mental health insitutions for life.

Anew two-minute short film about coming out, collaboratively produced by 
Oreo and PFLAG, has predictably gotten under the skin of conservatives. 
Already, Greg Kelly and Ben Shapiro are among the right-wing talking heads 
vowing to boycott "gay cookies" following Oreo's public display of LGBTQ 
allyship. 

"The Note," which was directed by Alice Wu ("Saving Face" and "The Half of 
It"), depicts a young Chinese-American man practicing a coming-out speech 
before a few close family members. Before the young man shares his truth 
with his grandmother, his mom slips him a note. "She might be my mother," 
it reads, "but you are my son."

The video ends with a message for viewers to pay it forward. "Coming out 
doesn't happen just once," it says. "Be a lifelong ally."

Related: "For the morning gays": The importance of LGBTQ-owned cafes as 
sober, queer spaces

"The Note" is, for sure, a tearjerker. Despite my admitted initial 
cynicism about "rainbow capitalism" and whether a multi-billion dollar 
corporation can assert itself as an ally, Oreo is doing all the right 
things here. According to Fast Company, the film — which was refreshingly 
not released as part of a Pride Month campaign — was accompanied by a 
$500,000 donation to PFLAG. 

What's more, there's history here. "The Note" follows the 2020 short film 
"OREO Proud Parent," which was also released in conjunction with PFLAG. In 
it, a woman brings her girlfriend home to meet her family. 

Initially, the dad is chilly towards the same-sex couple, but everything 
changes after he witnesses a neighbor look disparagingly at them. The 
video ends with the dad painting his white picket fence the colors of the 
rainbow.

Is it a little on the nose? Sure, but the film's message that "a loving 
world starts with a loving home" is a poignant one — especially amid 
current events. In addition to Florida's controversial "Don't Say Gay" 
law, transgender students are facing increased discrimination and 
violence.

"'The' Note is not Oreo's story," Oreo senior brand manager Olympia 
Portale said in an interview with Fast Company. "Oreo is there to lend our 
megaphone to the community we want to support, to illustrate the message 
we, as a brand, want to stand behind is a great place to start." 

Instead of engaging with the message of allyship, several conservatives 
pundits responded by vowing to boycott "gay cookies." 

"COOKIE!" Newsmax host Greg Kelly wrote on Twitter above a photo of Sesame 
Street's Cookie Monster. "I love COOKIES. C is for COOKIE. COOKIE IS FOR 
ME.  I do NOT like GAY COOKIES.  'Sexuality' has NOTHING TO DO with the 
Cookie experience.  Cookies are for ALL!  Basically Cookies are 'asexual'-
--why is the WOKE LEFT messing around with OREOS?!?!  STOP THE INSANITY." 

In a more concise tweet, Lila Rose, the founder of a movement dedicated to 
ending abortion, told Oreo to "stop sexualizing children."

With the passage of the controversial "Don't Say Gay" law, Florida 
Republicans revived the deadly "queers recruit" myth. While Oreo is newly 
feeling the heat, Disney has thus far been a more prominent recipient of 
conservative wrath. 

As Salon's Amanda Marcotte recently wrote, "Fox News has run a dizzying 
number of segments accusing the company of 'sexualizing children' and 
creating 'propaganda for grooming.' This is unhinged QAnon stuff, designed 
to give credence to the conspiracy theories of the growing right-wing cult 
that believes Democrats run a secret conspiracy of blood-drinking 
pedophiles."

Kelly followed up his tirade about the sexualization of the Oreo with a 
tweet comparing the taste of the creme-filled chocolate cookies to 
"driveway gravel." 

"Not MOIST. Even Nabisco knows the truth--the cookies are too DRY," Kelly 
wrote in his review of the more than 100-year-old sandwich cookies. "Milk 
Reliant, not a stand alone cookie. Go with the FIG NEWTON. We don't care 
about Mr Fig's orientation!" 

Ben Shapiro, who infamously weighed in on a different moist-to-dry 
spectrum after listening to the Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion song 
"WAP," tweeted a link to "The Note." The accompanying caption read, "Your 
cookie must affirm your sexual lifestyle." 

Commenters quickly pointed out the hypocrisy of Shapiro's attempted barb 
by sharing images of him shopping at Home Depot in 2021. Georgia's 
controversial Election Integrity Act of 2021 — which President Joe Biden 
dubbed "Jim Crow in the 21st century" — was then under a tremendous amount 
of heat from major corporations like Coca-Cola and Delta. 

As Forbes reported at the time, Home Depot, on the other hand, stayed 
silent — prompting calls for a boycott. In a show of support, Shapiro 
filmed himself shopping at the home improvement retailer and emerging from 
a check-out line with a single piece of wood in a plastic bag. 

"Your wood must affirm your conservative lifestyle," one Twitter commenter 
wrote below Shapiro's post. 

As Zachary Petrizzo wrote for Salon in 2021, conservatives love to 
announce boycotts of prominent brands — but they somehow never pan out as 
planned. 

"Then there was the occasion in 2017 when Sean Hannity fans destroyed 
their Keurig coffee machines to back the Fox News host after the company 
pulled its ads from Hannity's program over his defense of Alabama 
Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore," Petrizzo wrote. "Hannity tried to 
save the advertiser (and the valuable ad dollars) by giving away 500 
Keurig machines, but it was too late. By the end of the boycott, an 
unknown number of Fox News viewers were just left with expensive coffee 
machines they had tossed off balconies or otherwise obliterated." 

In 2016, angry Breitbart readers dumped Kellogg's cereal down toilets 
because the manufacturer of Corn Flakes wanted nothing to do with 
Breitbart News, whose former executive chairman was Steve Bannon. 

And in 2021, Trump called for a boycott of Coca-Cola over the company's 
aforementioned objections to Georgia's Election Integrity Act. As 
recounted by Salon, a Coke bottle was spotted on Trump's desk only a few 
days later. 

To that end, it will be interesting to see just how long conservatives' 
newfound allegiance to Fig Newtons and Hydrox cookies lasts. 

https://www.salon.com/2022/04/05/i-do-not-like-gay-cookies-conservatives-
vow-to-boycott-oreo-over-new-ad/