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Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks
ifchairscouldtalk writes "Pasta maker Barilla is in hot water over its chairman's anti-gay comments. Guido Barilla said his brand would 'never feature gays in ads' because Barilla does not agree with them. He added, '[if gay people] like our pasta and our advertising, they'll eat our pasta, if they don't like it then they will not eat it and they will eat another brand.' Vehement protest worldwide calling for a boycott of Barilla products via Twitter and Facebook forced the chairman to apologize with a video on Facebook."
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Pasta-maker CEO in hot water? Is his name Al Dente?
The guy is entitled to his opinion and to run the company as he wishes. If you don't like it don't buy it. Enough with the stupid fucking boycotts that are nothing but attempts at silencing free speech.
And wtf does a pasta makers stance on gays have to do with slashdot anyway? Can we stop pushing an agenda yet?
I sent off my little missive to Barilla corporate yesterday.
Sometimes apologies don't mean shit. It's far more important to know what people really believe. And to remember it.
...and that the Internet exists, and that gay people are not the pariahs they once were, and that I'm not quite rich enough to buy you all off. I will work harder in the future to address these faults. A boycott can only delay the day when I will succeed in doing so. Thank you for paying attention, but please stop.
As predicted in Slate, Guido Barilla (yes, that's his name) issues meaningless apology. For those counting at home, this is actually the forth one. Now what?
Who knew the CEO of a pasta company's thoughts were so important? I would like to see a follow up story on his thoughts on the NSA and encryption, the Syria crisis, and perhaps global warming. Maybe Slashdot could solicit questions from the readers and have him respond in follow up post.
Well, you're right that "phobia" isn't really the best term. They're not scared, they're just assholes. "Bigot" might be a better term, but it's not quite as specific as "homophobic" is.
But for that matter, homosexuality isn't really deviancy; you don't have to indulge in it, just don't discriminate against it; and you can call anybody anything you want thanks to free speech.
Not liking pasta, now that's deviancy.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
"Aplology"?! *facepalm* Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I think I need more coffee...
On a lighter note with chick-fil-a profits at an all time high what does this chairman have to fear but fear itself?
Seriously there does seem to be a general lack of respect and tolerance for the opinions of others in the faceb00c twitterverseternet. So someone thinks your god is a loser or orange people are inferior to purple people or those who eat rice with their bare hands are cave dwelling vampires. If someone says or does something you personally don't agree with or you don't like is it really always necessary to turn the megaphone up to 11 and tell the world how wrong and out of touch the other guy is? Respect is a bidirectional affair.
In my view intolerance and lack of respect for the views of others is no different than intolerance of race/religion/sex*/..etc. Intolerance is intolerance.
I want to support someone normal.
Each generation is brainwashed into a different Matrix. 'Founding Fathers' and other great men until 1960s would by today's brainwashing be denounced as racist, sexist homophobes. Kids of tomorrow may denounce you as a hateful old polygamophobe, pedophilophobe, zoophilophobe, necrophilophobe, fetishphobe, toesuckingphobe, kleptophobe.... And then you too will wonder, what the heck is wrong with these kids, while they will insist that you vet your public speaking with younger, more enlightened folks before making a fool out of yourself. Having lived in a communist country as it flipped into its exact opposite, then not long after that it flipped back, you wouldn't believe how quickly and how thoroughly the tune in schools and media changes the dominant mythology to its complete opposite. Once you experience it, you can't take any of them very seriously.
Of course, not all Matrices are created equal. Since each Matrix is a computational process, working out yet another provisional solution to the social harmonization puzzle, you can't know which is a good and which a poor solution until some time time has passed and the latest experimental solution had a chance to get tested under variety of conditions. As the old book taught, you will know them by their fruits.
But for that matter, cannibalism isn't really deviancy; you don't have to indulge in it, just don't discriminate against it; and you can call anybody anything you want thanks to free speech.
Except, of course, that homosexuality involves loving relationships between people of the same gender, and cannibalism involves murder, so they're not really comparable at all.
Anything that differs from the norm IS a deviancy!
In a statistical sense this is true, but in a social sense, something is "deviant" if it differs from what society in general considers acceptable. The only people who consider homosexuality unacceptable nowadays (within the USA, at least) are the extreme right-wing, fundamentalist Christians.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Bertolli did one better:
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/bertolli-makes-most-barilla-chairmans-anti-gay-comments-152758
Bertolli got an ad out pretty quickly:
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/bertolli-makes-most-barilla-chairmans-anti-gay-comments-152758
Am I the only one cynical enough to see this as a publicity stunt to get his product's name some free press?
Step 1: make an inane statement that deeply offends some group, guaranteeing press coverage.
Step 2: make a "heartfelt" apology for those that were offended by his words.
Step 3: draw it out for a few more weeks by meeting representatives of the groups he offended, and probably make some large corporate donations to said groups.
Step 4: profit (?)
Well, you're right that "phobia" isn't really the best term. They're not scared, they're just assholes.
Wikipedia says "A phobia (from the Greek: ÏÏOEÎÎÏ, Phobos, meaning "fear" or "morbid fear") is, when used in the context of clinical psychology, a type of anxiety disorder". Most homophobes aren't afraid of homosexuals, but they are disturbed by them which makes "homophobe" a perfectly fitting description.
Personally, I don't want anyone shoving their sexuality in my face, whether homo or hetero. Your sexuality is none of my fucking business and I don't want to hear about it unless you're a lesbian and I'm hitting on you; I don't want to be offensive and it would be offensive of me to knowingly hit on a lesbian.
"Bigot" might be a better term
Webster's:
"Bigot" is a perfect description.
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Except, of course, that homosexuality involves loving relationships between people of the same gender, and cannibalism involves murder, so they're not really comparable at all.
We're not all murderers, you cannibophobe. All the people that I eat are already dead!
Barilla was wrong to back down. Slashdot was wrong to post this gay garbage here on a tech site.
well, it could truthfully be called an "abnormality", like my left-handedness. we may get gay marriage in my state, but the banks will still fasten their pens on the right side of the lobby tables
So why did you even bother clicking the link, let alone commenting?
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No popular gay-friendly songs? Have you been living under a rock the last few years?
Actually, judging by your opinions, I guess maybe you have.
There is a difference.
From the lede: "Guido Barilla said his brand would 'never feature gays in ads"
See the single quote before "never"? That's meant to tell us that he said he would, "never feature gays in ads". But that not what he said. He specifically said gay families would not appear in ads because he thinks mothers are important. (He's probably already had gays in ads, though it probably wasn't obvious and he probably didn't know it.)
I'm not sure if that distortion appeared because someone saw what they wanted to see or if they're trying to manipulate the readers, but that lack of attention to detail is especially irritating.
You scare me.
I believe you mean anthropophagosophile
Firstly, why are Barilla's remarks considered anti-gay? I don't feel they are. His position is that if you like his pasta, gay or not, you are free to buy it.
Secondly, there is no universal "book of law" that states Barilla's beliefs & values must reflect anybody or everybody else's. Hypocrisy abounds. The fervor of gay community elements have reached shrieking "reverse discrimination" pitches.
Thirdly, Barilla owes nothing to the gay community. He makes pasta. I think if he doesn't want to feature homosexuality as a cornerstone to a freaking pasta advertisement, that should be his choice. Why should he be forced politicize pasta?
business that shows families having dinner in its advertisements says it doesn't want to depict gay families, even though gay families probably make up a tiny percentage of their market: ERMAGERD BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT
All of this happened in Italy so actually America is for once not involved.
The chairman didn't state he didn't want to depict gay families due to marketing or economic reasons, he stated that the very idea of gay families is against his personal values and the values of his company. He also basically stated "if you have a problem with that feel free to buy another brand". Guess what? Many actually stated that they do have problem with that and were going to do exactly what he suggested. No surprise he and the company backpedalled lightning fast.
If there are only five, I must know them all, because I've seen at least that many posts from folks in my fb network. So while it may be hype that will die down for something else next week, it's still more than just the media saying it.
As someone not in favour of jewish marriage and also not in favour of deliberately sticking jewish people in the media to show them off, I still find his remarks very problematic.
Choosing to not give the role of media spokesperson to someone who is jewish and a public figure in "jewish rights movements" is one thing. But ruling out that an advertisement can ever contain a jewish family is going too far.
In that case you are not disliking merely "the way in which they are jewish", i.e. they are jewish and they take specific actions and you dislike those particular actions, but you blanket exclude them regardless of what they do from the fact that they are jewish alone.
If you cringe when hate speech directed towards gays is converted into that towards another traditionally reviled minority is your dislike of gays justified? Are such traditions worth holding sacred?
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Did anyone read his actual comments? OK, his point of view supports traditional family structure, but certainly did not seem actively hostile to homosexuals. He seemed to be quite "tolerant". But tolerance isn't good enough anymore is it? You must actively embrace the homosexual way or you are a homophobe?
Give me a break, and show some tolerance yourself.
Snopes actually has a pretty good summary of the situation. The guy supports gay rights and gay marriage. He is, however, against adoption by gay parents (because it involves a person who has no choice in the matter). He wants advertisements for his pasta to focus on families, and since his beliefs (and biology) prohibit gay parents from having kids, they cannot appear in his ads.
Oh, but that's Different, you see. It's always Different when the group being targeted is someone you personally dislike.
Also: Godwin! Godwin! You called Barilla a Nazi! Now anything you say is wrong, because Godwin!
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
...to find a way to boycott the boycotters. "Fine, it's your right to boycott Barilla (or Florida or whatever the cause du jour is) but fuck you, we're all going to boycott YOUR business because of it. That's MY right."
The problem is that the most enthusiastic and noisiest boycotters tend not to do anything economically productive that could be boycotted in return.
I can't cite the exact source or wording offhand, but P.J. O'Rourke, when asked why liberal causes can generally bring out more marchers, ralliers, and volunteers activists than conservative ones, said, "Because we have jobs."
Why?
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Long story short: People react very strongly to things being unfamiliar or strange. Things you see at least occasionally are much less threatening. If occasional ads include gay couples, then people are a lot more likely to be tolerant of gays and inclined to think gays should get the same basic legal protections other people do. If there are no gay couples on TV, then people are a lot less likely to be tolerant of gays. This is just very basic low-level wiring in the brain; we distrust unfamiliar things, the same way just about all other animals do. And that means that there is significant social impact from having advertisements include, or not-include, particular recognizable classes of people.
Of course, the advertising thing might not have sunk him; it was the adoption thing that sealed the deal.
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Because the fucking-based aspect is the only difference between a gay and a straight, and it is indeed deviant behavior. Personally, I feel sorry for gays.
Who died and made you God? Because whomever it was forgot to tell you that homosexuality isn't confined to Homo Sapiens Sapiens and has been going on since sex began.
Deviant behaviour, indeed. What a fucking arrogant thing to say.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
PC has nothing to do with this, it is all about the potential loss of profit. Barilla could really care less if people are offended, unless they stop spending then it becomes an issue...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The pasta company said it happily serves gays, sells to gays, etc (no anti-gay anything) but that the corporate image is of a traditional family sitting down to a home-cooked (cooked by a mom, no less) meal... and that gays in the ads would be inconsistent with that corporate image (which it would). Corporate images are very important parts of marketing plans (think KFC and "the Colonel") the image does not have to be logical, rational, etc (Budweiser frogs?) but it is important for branding that it be consistent.
Ahh, but OH NO! the uber-tolerant left finds this completely INTOLERABLE!!!!
Under the rules of "tolerance" we may all think what we think and believe what we believe and live as we wish to live... unless we disagree with them and their ever-mutating, evolving standards. The moment somebody says something that can be in some way twisted into so-called "hate speech", these paragons of peace, love and tolerance HATE him. Off with his head! Destroy his business! His right to freedom ends anywhere their rhetorical fists choose to fly. They refuse to acknowledge his right to market to average families with the images of average families. By this standard, gays should be banned from using gay imagery to market products to gays (by not using straights, they are being HATERS!)
The extreme dishonesty and duplicity of the left on cultural issues is tiresome and juvenile... it's where you end up when the focus of your life is on what's between your legs (see: gay pride parade)
It's occasionally funny when the two mix. Like when liberals defend neo nazis.
The population leans younger and some of them have just discovered that people have interesting things between their legs. Some of these young people suffer from confusion and/or body dysmorphic disorders and there are others here who are much older but never grew beyond the initial fascination with their own private parts and the private parts of others. These people latch-onto anything related to "personal plumbing" and try to relate everything to their private bits.
It's like a kid with a hammer - everything is a nail.
Some geek with abnormal sexual tendencies sees something related to his personal issues that angers him and he HAS TO post it everywhere including on a non-sexual site - because his sexual proclivities are the most important thing in his life (whereas most of us keep our private lives to ourselves). Most people would rather not know the odd preferences/hangups of the people around them, but gays DEMAND we all know theirs and that we recite after them: "it's normal, it's normal". It's on Slashdot because somebody with a disorder decided we all had to have it jammed into our faces; it's not enough that he live his sad little life in his little corner of the universe, everybody must acknowledge him and accept him and embrace every aspect of his life (even if we never do that even for "straights"/"breeders") We are all required to join him in his OUTRAGE that somebody SOMEWHERE on Earth disagrees with him (Oh, the HUMANITY!)
We all have the right to know which companies are "gay friendly" and to not buy from them
This political boycott stuff runs both ways - and it's dangerous; We should all just buy based on price, features, performance, etc. and let each individual believe what he wants to believe and live as he wants to live.
Perhaps there should be web sites that keep track of which businesses hire gays, and straight people could use this info to inform them on where to shop and what to buy... I'd bet this would immediately be denounced as "hateful" and gays would immediately DEMAND laws against it (they've actually demanded and been rewarded with a law in California that requires schools to teach positive things about gays and forbids teachers from mentioning anything negative). For the activists, this has never been about "free speech", or "tolerance"; it's always been about demanding that society embrace their standards and punish anybody who disagrees.
Now they're all eating Big Gay Al's Big Gay Spaghetti! You know that scene in Lady and the Tramp with the spaghetti? The photo on the box of Big Gay Al's Big Gay Spaghetti is two dudes french kissing over a plate of spaghetti.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Not buying it is boycotting it son. Maybe you should have thought that out a little bit more before you ranted.
rationally debate with a homophobe (or any bigot for that matter). their fear gets in the way of any rational thoughts.
into the world trade center. That is why you don't wast time listening to nut jobs.
But, as we all know, homophobia, like other forms of bigotry, is not an intellectual position.
Every human being on earth exhibits some sort of deviant behavior. A rich man giving half of his fortune away to charity is deviant behavior. It isn't a moral judgement, it's simply an observation.
Hating someone for their sexual orientation is deviant behavior, and I personally find bigotry reprehensible. I feel sorry for gays because of the bigotry they have to put up with.
A woman I knew once said to me that she wished she wasn't a lesbian because she didn't want t go to hell; her preacher had just preached an anti-gay sermon. I pointed out to her that that bigoted preacher's sermon was sinful and hypocritical; we're all sinners. I guess he forgot what Christ died for.
I suggested she find another church. This sort of bullshit is why I feel sorry for gays. They don't deserve to be treated like that, nobody does.
"Everybody's got to deviate from the norm" -- Rush (the band)
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So .... the chairman is a coward? Check.
I appreciate your reasoned response and I apologise for my outburst, I failed to understand the thrust of your original post.
However, I still don't see how or why you consider homosexuality a deviant behaviour when it has been known as a normal part of mammalian life for some time now. That said I'd rather a biologist were here to weigh in as I'm only Wikipedia-qualified on the topic. Are you out there Samantha?
Biology is obvious, Tab-A goes into Slot-B and that makes sense to everyone. Perhaps you feel that using these components in any combination other than the aforementioned is a deviation from original purpose; if so, then we are probably just arguing semantics rather than fundamentally disagreeing. "Deviant behaviour" in our society has somewhat stronger connotation than 'deviation from the norm' does in discussions about statistics.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Yes, homosexuality isn't unique to our species. And I should have been more clear when I commented.
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Were teh gays pressuring Al Dente to have gay scenarios in his commercials? I think not and he should have kept his mouth shut except for when he is inserting noodles into said orifice.
Probably most of them. But a few that I know better I'd be pretty confident in saying the feeling is their own. Still might be a more chronic version of what you're talking about, where people learn to "care" about the kinds of "news" that get clicks and headlines. Maybe you don't see that as any different...anyway I do.
The link to "news for nerds' is pretty tenuous in this case. Something is big in FB and Twitterspace, so that makes it news for nerds? I thought nerds were the people that most shunned semi-useless crap like FB and Twitter.
deviant behavior
If there isn't anything you do that someone somewhere would consider deviant, I feel sorry for you.
Oh, should I have sugar-coated that?
I just said pretty much the same thing to someone who took offense at the comment. "Deviant" shouldn't have a negative spin, charity is deviant behavior. Mother Theresa exhibited deviant behavior. People shouldn't be so uptight about words and instead look at the word as communicating exactly what the dictionary says it communicates.
FWIW I pity gays because of the bigotry they're subjected to. I especially dislike the "God hates fags" preachers and feel especially sorry for a gay that wanders into one of their churches. God loves everyone and your sins are no worse than mine or anyone else's and are none of my business.
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I don't know what kind of activities you engage in with your partner, but that's pretty much what sexuality means. Ergo, people who have homosexual partners will perform, or desire to perform, homosexual acts. Otherwise, it's no different that having a close friend. So yeah, people should be obsessed with the intercourse and intimacy aspects because that's all of sexuality.
Now I know you've never had a serious significant other.
No one who has would say it's just a "close friendship" with sex.
Mother Theresa exhibited deviant behavior.
I think she exhibited deviant behavior too, but a lot more disturbing than most people were aware of.
This was scored -1, but it should really be +1 funny, insightful.
Quite possibly, I never met her.
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