Kraft Foods, Cowboy
Two cowboys lean against a fence in a rural setting. The shot is a nod to the movie Brokeback Mountain, conjuring a gay motif. One of the cowboys asks the other, "So you're saying he's a fairy?" His friend responds, "A snack fairy."
The snack fairy, a foolish man in a tutu (Colin Mochrie of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"), is the centerpiece of an ongoing campaign for the brand. He is running from a tractor: "Help? A little help!"
Without acknowledging the fairy's plight, the first cowboy asks the other, "And he brought you gifts?" His friend replies, "Yup, he brought these." Pleased, he thinks aloud: "Fig Newtons? 100% whole-grain?"
"They're good actually," his friend adds.
"Yup, they are good."
One of the cowboys shouts to the snack fairy, who is now riding the tractor, "We love your cookies, Sir!"
The incompetent snack fairy shouts back, "What?!" He proceeds to fall backwards off the tractor: "Ahh!!"
The cowboy reacts by yelling, "Walk it off, snack fairy!"
The snack fairy pops up from under the brush to say, "Snack Happy!"
Despite the ongoing appearance of the Snack Fairy in other ads, it is the first to directly address the cross-dressing nature of the character. The ad earns a Stereotypes rating because it plays off of the age-old reference to gay men as "fairies," a homophobic slur used unambiguously. While some might find it humorous, many others will find it offensive.
A way to remedy the commercial's treatment of the subject would be to have the cowboy address the snack fairy with a more indifferent tone, as opposed to a bossy and belittling one.
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