Good luck finding anything wrong there. You have to first guess at how it could be misread, then see why that could be understood as a problem.At X, you can see the misreading and the consequent outrage in motion.
For an overview of the path to apology, read "Heinz apologises after ad featuring black family sparks anger online/Firm accused of stereotyping in advert spotted at Vauxhall and Manor House tube stations in London" (The Guardian).
They can't say hey, idiots, the bride's dad is the man on the left.
Ironically, it's the white groom who doesn't have a dad in the picture. I think Heinz got into trouble by trying too hard to display a correct vision of diversity.
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111 comments:
These people are just sick.
Who could resist ginning up outrage if you knew it could get you serious ink in the Guardian, with the ensuing approval of your Progressive social circle. I do not know the author, Neha Gohil--Community Affairs Correspondent--nor the Editor, but I can only guess that they are card-carrying SJ warriors.
It is the amplification of non-stories like these (yes, I suppose on Althouse as well) that keeps them in constant supply.
The fellas X feed is a joy to read. I see one outrage for someone jailed for theft, a few outrages for someone not jailed for saying the wrong thing and several outrages for nobody being outraged by someone not saying the wrong thing I’ve bent into saying the wrong thing.
If it was a "diversity" themed ad in London, Arab/Muslim would be better to include than black.
Just in case you missed it, down at the bottom of the story Guardian is encouraging us ignorant Americans to pay for the Guardian’s fresh outsider enlightenment…but wait…
We have never been more passionate about exposing the multiplying threats to our democracy and holding power to account in America. In the heat of a tumultuous presidential race
…what’s with these wankers and ‘our’ democracy and ‘presidential’ race? Good for them with the little ‘p’ but it sure sounds like this shyte is originating from the same people in charge in DC….
"If you hear the dog whistle, you're the dog." -- via Instapundit
My first reaction was that it’s another Last Supper parody.
Yes, Junkie - To be truly diverse for UK, Heinz should have done a South Asian wedding feast, with an underage British citizen bride eating spaghetti with her hands as her 40-year old groom/cousin looks on lovingly….
JSM
Two intact families in a row are unlikely to be black. That's the perception that then punishes itself.
Everyone wants to be outraged by something. If that can also get you your 15 minutes, all the better, right?
It is "interesting" from a marketing perspective that more and more ads now are comprised of "blended" families. I can understand this trend from a purely clinical position, why NOT include as much physical and racial diversity in an ad as possible so that everyone/anyone can see themselves in it and so no one feels left out. Everyone can picture themselves doing/enjoying the thing being sold.
The flip side is more of these "blends" give those that are looking for grievances more surface area to scour for ever smaller perceived transgressions. The victim wars will continue until the majority stop giving these toddlers the attention they crave. That is a BIG ask as even if most of "us" don't care about this crap, the media will highlight/push it because (a) they need SOMETHING to print and (b) in a lot of cases they support this, resulting in these things appearing to get more attention than they actually do. The rest of us just finding it tiring, boring, and try to ignore it all.
The guy on the left is the bride's father. Nothing to see here. Controversy created by ignorance.
It's a shame there just aren't enough people out there offended that the bride just broke her hymen.
I read to the spoiler. I do think the stain from the sauce on her white wedding dress was unnecessary. Otherwise, could be Megan and Harry, but then that could be an insult these days in the UK.
We’re in a sorry state now that there is actually a “correct vision of diversity” and people are offended when the pretense is not kept up.
Writing in complete sentences is always helpful but some of us sheltered folks have no idea what a "card-carrying SJ warrior" is. And I truly doubt that the upside-down ketchup makers use the term either.
Working backwards, I can see how it happened—the bride’s parents look more like the groom, while the groom’s mom looks more like the bride. So people assumed the couple were sitting reversed from their parents.
I was wondering why you would sell ketchup in a jar and put it on spaghetti.
I was wondering why you would sell ketchup in a jar and put it on spaghetti.
The stain on the white dress was the whole point of the ad. The Heinz sauce is so fabulously good that the bride would rather ruin her wedding dress than forgo the pleasure of pigging out on this cheap pasta sauce. "Based on a true story." The bride appears to have a somewhat darker complexion than her parents. There might be a back story as to how that came about. "Based on a true story."......They should have used a transgender bride. That would have helped break down gender stereotypes. Go big or go home.
Clearly an allusion to the wedding scene in The Deer Hunter, where red wine spills imperceptibly on Angela's dress, foreshadowing the tragedy to come.
We need nuclear Armageddon and we need it soon. Clear the slate and start the fuck over again. Dibs on the mandible in front of the monolith.
Man. I don't think I've ever spent that much time staring at an ad to see how it annoys me. I try to avoid ads anyway, but if I see one, I know- immediately- if it's annoying and why. It would not take me staring at it, nor would I look to read into it.
This is nothing, being made into a something by some. It's a safe, nice, nothing ad.
We live in such an era of rage.
Times are hard for everyone. But how else will they get Johnny Kerry a new private jet?
My observations before clicking the link:
- Based on the seating arrangements, the bride is the daughter of the two older white people on the left. I don't know about the UK, but in the US interracial adoption is a controversial topic, especially among the ADOS.
- Which leave the white groom with the black lady on the right for a parent. Are they thinking he was her nanny or something?
- The spaghetti on everyone's place looks pristine. So where did the spag on the bride's fork come from? Everyone knows the first thing you do with a fresh plate is mix up the contents.
- So if that is a first bite, where did the splotch come from?
- You typically spin the spag around the fork and not leave it dangling like she does in the photo. That leads to splotches on clothing like the bride already has.
One wonders if Heinz considered having a black groom and a white bride, but dismissed that formulation due to the outrage - and lost sales - that could be expected from black women.
The groom looks like a creep.
I also thought of the spaghetti harvest prank the BBC pulled back in the 1950s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU
i thought it was a badly done Last Supper parody too.
i STILL don't understand why a "family" has only 5 people???
The bride is too much of a “my oh my, dis sho is good” caricature
MM - Darn good movie.
A black hole... whore h/t NAACP and fundraiser?
Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class bigotry) not limited to racism?
#HateLovesAbortion
The groom’s daddy is off playing old man gigolo in the Kerry family tradition.
At least they got the binary sexes right, and don't suffer transgender spectrum confusion in the modern family.
How can you have Diversity without watermelon? You can't have Diversity without watermelon. And where's the chicken? Damned Diversitists.
My first thought, “Who serves spaghetti at a wedding? Maybe it’s Italian.”
Where are the snails? Stereotyping or color judgment is a liberal artifact of progressive corruption.
I know the apologists for these cringey ads say black people are more likely to buy said product if a black person is in the commercial's couple, but is that true? Has it been studied?
For real UK diversity, they could have had a white teen girl zonked out of her mind on drugs trying and failing to get spaghetti into her mouth while her
Pakistani grooming gang unzip their pants to give her their manicotti….
JSM
Judging from UK state dinners, the correct protocol would be to alternate nationalities (and sexes where possible) out from the guest of honor, so the white woman *would* be the groom's mother and the man next to her the bride's father. I don't believe each family lines up on a side as during the service. Likewise, married couples aren't seated next to each other at any formal dinner, besides the bride and groom.
Correct vision of diversity.
What's wrong with black men? Why isn't the black woman marrying a black man? Why she dippin'?
The white groom has no father(s) in the modern family. Leaving the turkey baster out of the family photo is... should be a hate crime. Bigots.
"We have never been more passionate about exposing the multiplying threats to our democracy"
LOL, The Guardian is now run by MI-6, there have been stories about how they did it, so of course they are all in on the insider cabal's efforts to destroy democracy by shutting dow the voters ability to gather the information that they need to vote responsibly.
"Propaganda is to the democracy what the truncheon is to dictatorship." is a saying that is true.
Not only that, he’s gay, and therefore only marrying the woman to act as a beard - another PC transgression!
I thought the problem was black chicks marrying white dudes. It’s so hard to keep up!
More likely a ditalini than a manicotti.
If you ever watch TV, try finding a commercial that doesn't feature at least one black person. Most of them feature black people very prominently. It's absurd how disproportionately in comparison to their population black people appear in commercials.
Assuming a father is male is just so cis-hetero-patriarchal. Heinz should be ashamed.
but I guess that means I'm assuming the model's gender ... please excuse me while I chastise myself.
I think the real problem with this ad is the implication that the bride's father is such a cheap b@astard that he'd only spring for tinned spaghetti at the reception! Haven't British black men suffered enough?
Sure seems like people get extra touchy when diversity is involved; maybe better just to skip it.
There are no Brown Lives (Matter). Where are the People of Orange (PoO)? People of Yellow (PoY)? White is albino who are taboo in modern families where albinophobia is openly celebrated in parades. The problem is clearly rabid Diversity, Equivocation, Incompetence (IED)... boom!
I think Heinz got into trouble by trying too hard to display a correct vision of diversity.
I think they got in trouble because they wanted to make the bride the center of the universe. If they put both sets of parents in there, then bride and groom would be in the center of the frame, with two parents on each side.
But they wanted her in the center. Relegating the groom to sidekick, and removing his father from the frame entirely.
Why can't the woman seated next to the bride be the groom?
ha ha
Yes, the ethics of the story is be wary of anyone who exercises liberal license to indulge Diversity (e.g. racism) [dogma]. Progress (i.e. [unqualified] monotonic process): one step forward, two steps backward.
n.n said...
“And where's the chicken?”
For the UK, I would expect a spicy jerk chicken dish from the Caribbean, or a *really* spicy chicken/fish/goat dish from West Africa.
heh heh
Obviously, it's a lesbian wedding! And her son might be the best man.
Saint Croix said…
“I think they got in trouble because they wanted to make the bride the center of the universe. If they put both sets of parents in there, then bride and groom would be in the center of the frame… But they wanted her in the center. Relegating the groom to sidekick…”
I’ve been to weddings like that.
"Family Size" is clearly showing too many people. For today's audience it needed to be one woman and a cat.
The problem is that The Guardian is needlessly encouraging Diversity. Black family? The Peach family (less the turkey baster) is, what, chopped liver?
Or not enough quantity and quality. Under Democratic's "Respect For Marriage" Act, there can be no discrimination for sexual orientation. Where are the polygamists? Where is the sister and brother? Sister and sister? Father and daughter? Brother, brother, and rent-a-womb? Et cetera. I NOW pronounce you turkey baster and male sex identifying as feminine gender groom. #NoJudgment #NoLabels #LoveWins
Is the outrage because a bride with a prominent adam's apple and a disproportionately large head isn't smart enough to anticipate the peril of serving spaghetti at a wedding?
Who are the old people supposed to be? They seem to be in their mid to upper 70's. The woman in purple could be the bride's grandmother. The groom obviously comes from a long line of Northern people. The couple on the left aren't related to anyone at the table.
Rocco - Ha! If only! Might hurt less.
I assumed the fury was caused by the portrayal of folks on the other side of the tracks.
- Krumhorn
"...us sheltered folks have no idea..." Then you're either being disingenuous, or you really do live in a thick bubble. Your frequent presence here suggests the former, and reaonably disproves the latter.
Yeah, I noticed that, but couldn't figure out how to cross the third rail.
Boys in suits, girls in dresses, is so, uh, sexist... genderist. There are diverse problems with this scene, where Diversity is the theme.
'll be blunt here ... black guys often seek a white girl as a "trophy". Remember Pepsi's Super Bowl advert? I know several MB-FW couples where the love is genuine and very deep, especially in military families, but that's not how it usually works.
I have never encountered a MW-FB couple in which the love is not profound, which is what's portrayed here. Chances are that the complainers don't actually know any mixed-race couples.
Perhaps the apology was for making the bride's head ridiculously large. All would have been well if they had just put Al Sharpton's likeness in the bride's father's seat.
Jesus. It's not like its Bud light.
Dirty secret - the left are not interested in actual diversity - they demand conformity.
The groom is using a knife to cut his spaghetti.
Yes, I can see it being ridiculous that a Bride wouldn’t care about her dress. Ridicule though can be insulting. Alas, ridicule has been a staple of British comedy over my lifetime.
Yes, but I believe some (not all) of that is because blacks comprise a larger share of viewers watching "broadcast" tv.
Who serves tomato-based sauce to a woman wearing a white dress?
I think it is kinda racist to can the ad and cheat Oprah out of her royalties.
It's not just that black and mixed-race families are overrepresented in relation to their actual share of the population, but most of these families in commercials appear to be quite affluent. I'm surprised there isn't pushback from DEI activists on this phenomenon. Doesn't it work against the interests of racial equity to constantly portray blacks as upper middle class when the reality is so much the opposite? What's the argument for reparations if blacks are already living in such fine homes and neighborhoods?
But who's holding the camera?
You'd have to be cruelly neutral to miss this one, or to pretend that the white old couple are parents to the black bride. It might have worked as an add for sickle cell anemia or gang violence prevention, but I think the sauce wanted to stir things up.
NorthOfTheOneOhOne aka Doug Emhoff's Pimp Hand said...
"I think the real problem with this ad is the implication that the bride's father is such a cheap b@astard that he'd only spring for tinned spaghetti at the reception!"
I bet they served Folgers Crystals too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emq5x4PPdt4
Long ago, last century, my first job was scooping ice cream cones at Baskin Robbins. I remember that when we got the new flavor—black walnut—it was surprising how quickly that flavor became the favorite of our Black patrons. True story.
What is wrong with this picture? (Not the question asked)
..no beverages
..unrealistic thin waist of central female
But to speak the the question asked:
..Some people are obsessed with - possessed by - an issue, beyond all reasonableness. They are mentally unwell, should be avoided and disregarded.
..Some corporations are obsess with - possessed by - the unreasonable desire to please all potential customers. There are mentally unwell, should be avoided and disregarded.
Wedding seating is fixed. The bride is on the groom's left and the bride's parents are on each side of the couple. Not that we really care here but this ad was running in England. In the picture, the person in a wedding dress eating spaghetti is therefore the groom and the other one on "her" left is the bride. The English absolutely love snickering away at disasters like that. And it gets better.
Suppose we accept the bride as the happy young woman in the picture and we also say the groom is the person on her left (though it could and should be the "woman" on her right (which I'm sure some English did say.) Then all wedding seating plans tell us that the person next to the bride is the bride's father though "she" seems to be white woman but diversity. And the person next to the bride's "father" is the groom's mother - in appearance, a handsome man of color but clearly this is 21st century family so we're looking at more diversity.
The groom is seated correctly next to the bride's mother but he has no father. Or his father got left out of the picture - perhaps he was something shameful such as a white guy of Italian background frowning at the cheap spaghetti served as a wedding entree.
The ad suggests either that the bride - who planned the wedding - has a very diverse family or that she didn't know what she was doing.
And there she is spilling sauce on her wedding dress so we know which alternative it is.
It's an ad the English are guaranteed to talk about but it just shows that there is such a thing as bad publicity.
And I'll bet the original story was about an Italian girl who preferred store sauce.
.
FullMoon said...
"The groom is using a knife to cut his spaghetti."
Seems like something a Brit would do.
And he's holding both his knife and fork wrong , too, according to British table cutlery standards.
Wedding party plans at
https://www.modernwedding.com.au/wedding-etiquette-the-wedding-seating-plan/
That's some AI-generated photo composition. "Give me a diverse wedding party eating spaghetti." With no real thought to placing the parents next to their children, and having two parents for each child. Literally no human art director looked at this and said, no, that's not how wedding photos work.
wildswan said...
"... Or [the groom's] father got left out of the picture - perhaps he was something shameful such as a white guy of Italian background frowning at the cheap spaghetti served as a wedding entree."
In a world where Chef Boyardee exists and White Castle gets served at weddings, that ship has sailed.
And we don't know enough about the quality of the spaghetti. The sauce, yes - but that's the whole point of the advert. But not the spag itself.
How extraordinarily, exhaustingly nerve-racking it must be to work in such a milieu, where even a slavishly, ludicrously politically-correct advertising campaign such as this can fall foul of the busybody commissars of political correctness. Something like being on the general staff of the North Korean military, or in the USSR Ministry of Agriculture in the days of Lysenko, at least with respect to one’s career prospects albeit not (yet) one’s neck.
Put Commiela and Beijing-boy Walz in office, and maybe people who screw up like this can be torn to pieces by starving dogs or thrown in a gulag for their deviationism.
How extraordinarily, exhaustingly nerve-racking it must be to work in such a milieu, where even a slavishly, ludicrously politically-correct advertising campaign such as this can fall foul of the busybody commissars of political correctness. Something like being on the general staff of the North Korean military, or in the USSR Ministry of Agriculture in the days of Lysenko, at least with respect to one’s career prospects albeit not (yet) one’s neck.
Put Commiela and Beijing-boy Walz in office, and maybe people who screw up like this can be torn to pieces by starving dogs or thrown in a gulag for their deviationism.
No way to eat spaghetti in a white dress.
wildswan said...
"Wedding party plans"
Interesting. I guess enough of the weddings I've been to have been informal that I never noticed the formal seating requirements when I was at a formal one.
The groom on the left and bride on the right is the only consistent thing I remember seeing offhand.
That's an Australian site, so you have to invert everything.
The advertisements are reportedly part of a media campaign celebrating rule breakers who defy conventional behaviour to enjoy Heinz’ new range of pasta sauces. In the advertisement in question, the bride spills pasta sauce on her white wedding dress.
Nobody is going to defy conventional behavior for Heinz pasta sauce.
They went with the formal wedding etiquette. Father of the bride sits with mother of the groom. They probably should have realized that many people wouldn't know that, but for once the advertisers were too quaint and old-fashioned for the public.
I’ve been watching a lot of British detective shows on BBC lately and have come to the conclusion that 83% of relationships there are interracial. Or at least should be.
The older man seated two to the right of the bride is not black. He has a ruddy complexion. And look at his nose. I will say that it is a little stereotyping or demeaning for the bride's father to be missing.
Love the ad. Reminds me of when some of my navy pals and I (about 10 of us) were in NYC in our summer whites and we chose to eat at a barbecue joint near Times Square that advertised itself as real Texas BBQ in NYC. We'll see about that we said to each other.
The entire time we were covering ourself in napkins straining against fate to keep the BBQ from sloshing or spraying on our uniforms when, in a moment of lost concentration, one dude dropped a rib and somehow a dollop of BBQ sauce was launced into the air and all 10 pairs of eyes watched as this Red Stain Missile arced across the table and right at the arm of the fella across the way who saw it coming and moved so quickly to avoid the Sauce Missile that he knocked over his plate which almost landed in the lap of the dude next to him......yet all emerged unscathed.
Given the current political environment, this particular event that I have recounted qualifies as more actual combat time than Stolen Valor / Blue Falcon Liar Walz experienced.
Spaghetti social is a liberal woke of pasta.
I wish I could figure out how to read X threads. I'm guessing I need an account?
MadisonMan said...
"Who serves tomato-based sauce to a woman wearing a white dress?"
Hey, little sister, what have you done?
Hey, little sister, who's the only one?
Hey, little sister, who's your pasta man?
Hey, little sister, who's the one you want?
Hey, little sister, ketchup in a can.
It's a nice day to start again.
It's a nice day for a white wedding
Ask any black American what they think of mayonnaise.
I've noticed the same thing about online commercials. (I don't watch broadcast TV anymore. I spend a lot of time on YouTube.) The ad industry is bending over backwards to put as many black people in ads as possible. But they still get called out for racism if the ad unintentionally offends just a few people.
Have we heard from the white dress yet?
Imagine having all this reaction to something that some nitwit 'tweeted' wrong-headedly, about an inoffensive and banal ad that's been tarted up to modern DEI sensibilities. What more is needed to prove the toxicity of DEI? It's the 'rot' that keeps on 'rotting'...
Yes. This became the case shortly after Elon bought it, prior to this one could lurk and read without having one. It's a hugely efficient and addictive time-eater though, which is why I didn't open an account. Mostly so, because a lot of people are astonishingly creative and original on this type of platform.
Some people are so unserious. Imagine having one life on this planet and wasting it getting mad at people trying to be blandly pleasant and sell ketchup
Heinz should have just said, 'you are stupid, it's spaghetti sauce, not a civil rights movement'.
Probably at the most formal, or in terms of how Emily Post says to do it but I don't think I've been to a wedding dinner where the parents sat with the bride and groom. The head table is almost always the wedding party with the parents either at a separate table together, or at separate tables along with their other close family members, depending on circumstances.
I must be very sheltered. I saw nothing odd or disturbing in picture. Indeed, what caught my attention is how British the tagline is. Ridiculously good indeed.
tcrosse said...
“But who's holding the camera?”
Doesn’t that question belong on the thread about the porn actors?
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