If you blinked, you might have missed them. But there, at 44 seconds in, two gay dads and their daughter roller skate across our screens in Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl commercial. A sign of progress and inclusion? Or a token gesture from a company sponsoring the Olympics in an LGBT-hostile country?
My opinion is that for a major global brand to include gay parents in a commercial celebrating the diversity of America is indeed a good thing. I think there would be outrage from the LGBT community if there wasn’t some LGBT representation there. I also love the overall message of inclusion (and refer you to Pulitzer Prize-winner, undocumented immigrant, and gay American Jose Antonio Vargas’ excellent piece at BuzzFeed for more on that).
I do, however, think that Coca-Cola needs to take a few additional steps to combat the impression that it is sponsoring hate in Sochi:
- Show the commercial again, repeatedly, during the Olympics itself (in the U.S.)
- Put obviously LGBT people in its Olympic commercials around the world
- Continue such representation even after the Olympics
- Donate money to help LGBT people in Russia, perhaps by giving to the Russia Freedom Fund
- Putting up a message at the end of their Olympic commercials saying they deplore Russia’s anti-LGBT laws, are donating to the Fund, and encouraging others to donate, too
On a side note, I’m wondering if anyone in Coke’s advertising agency was aware that “America the Beautiful,” which they chose for background music, was written by Katherine Lee Bates, who lived for 25 years with fellow Wellesley College professor Katharine Coman in what is commonly called a “Boston marriage.” It may be ahistorical to call Bates a lesbian in the modern sense, but it takes just one look at the poem she wrote upon Coman’s death to consider her a spiritual forebear. (Clearly, Mitt Romney didn’t know about this when he quoted the song frequently during the last presidential campaign.)
For your enjoyment, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the commercial, with additional footage of the gay dads at 2:57: