Human Rights Campaign, Shoes
With sorrowful piano music, this gloomily shot commercial is about a woman who lost her job.
"They fired her?" asks an unseen woman. "Yes" answers an unseen man. "But that isn't fair." He agrees, "No it isn't."
She adds, "It isn't legal." The man corrects her, "Yes it is."
A narrator than says, "In 41 of our 50 states, a person can be fired just for being gay, lesbian or bisexual... with no legal recourse. Most Americans don't know that."
This important commercial aired during the coming-out episode of "Ellen."
HRC wanted to air the ad nationally but the ABC network refused to take it, saying that it doesn't accept advocacy advertising. That left HRC with the option of buying local stations independently, which is more costly.
Still, it ran on ABC affiliates in 33 cities and because of the high ratings of the episode (36.2 million viewers), the HRC ad became the widest-seen gay issues commercial ever.
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