I’m male, not gay and I don’t eat pasta, but my kids might yet be gay and eat pasta anytime I (the primary cook in the house) put it in front of them. So no more Barilla in our house.
This is what businesses that sell things like pasta fail to realize. It just isn’t that hard to switch brands when you are talking about spaghetti - the differences are minor. There will be absolutely zero impact on our household or family to buy a different brand - which will be the default from now until something changes. I’m the primary grocery buyer in our house So being a bigot in public has no real upside and tons of downside for their business.
Would that make a difference if he had said: “I wouldn’t like a commercial with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect but because I don’t agree with them. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role,”
Also, I’ve seen some comments that take his last sentence about the role of a woman in a classic family as sexist/anti-feminist/downright negative. I can’t add enough subtext to that to reach the level of disgust of my peers, what am I missing?
That’s one of the first things I noticed about Barilla when I first saw one of their commercials: it appeared to be shot in Italy, and featured people with Italian accents riding around on Vespas. And yet there was also a small note at the bottom of the screen that said, “Made in America for American tastes.”
If there’s one nice thing I can say for Mr. Barilla it’s that he’s more honest than his company’s advertising.
It would be different, for sure, but still pretty bad. Suppose you substitute “homosexual” out for “black” or “Jewish.” It’s fine if someone isn’t gay, isn’t black or isn’t a Jew. When they start saying that they wouldn’t like a TV commercial because it featured those people, that shows that it’s not just that they are not those things, it is that they are put off by those thing. He is disgusted by gay people. It may not be a roiling, raging hate, but to go out in public and say, “Look, I find Chinese people disgusting. I mean, I have respect for all people, but it’s my personal view that they are off-putting and I wouldn’t film a commercial that had a Chinese person in it,” you would have to actually really, really not like Chinese people.
As for that last statement about women, I think we all know that in many families a mother plays a very important role. But he is strongly implying that in his view families that are not organized like that are not as good. The idea that people are not going to take offence when you go in public and say, “My family is better than yours,” is pretty far-fetched. And in addition to women who may be insulted, I’d like to point you to a very offended single dad a little higher up in the comments.
Sometimes when you have an opinion it is better to keep it to yourself. You don’t walk down the street telling every person whether you think they are fat or not, and there is nothing wrong with you “hiding” your thoughts on that matter. If you have such a strong opinion about whether or not someone is fat that you have to tell them, that suggests that: a) regardless of how respectful you claim to be, you are actually quite obsessed with the issue; and b) you lack emotional maturity.
