A two-dad family stars in a new ad for Google Home—and while it’s as normalizing a slice of family life as we ever see on TV, it’s also a very clever use of a family because they’re a same-sex-headed family.
Here’s why. The ad is for the new service that allows multiple user accounts on Google Home, the company’s smart home device. Say both you and your spouse keep separate Google Calendars or Google Play music. Now, your one Google Home device can distinguish between your voices when you say, “OK, Google, what’s on my calendar for today?” or “OK, Google, play my Chill Out playlist.”
Pretty cool—but perhaps less impressive when it’s a bass-voiced dad and a soprano mom in the household. To really show off the technology, Google needed a harder challenge. Enter a two-dad family, where the two parents’ voices are harder to distinguish. Google Home nevertheless does it with aplomb.
Enjoy the ad, then, for what it says about the chaotic mornings of every family with school-age kids, and for its specific use of a same-sex-headed family because of its special (though admittedly not unique) property of two similar adult voices—a difference that is nevertheless supported by the technology and the company. (On that note, see also Google’s series of videos from last November celebrating trans lives. Also, Bonus Lesbian Mom Fun Fact: Former Google executive and lesbian mom Megan Smith was Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. under President Obama.)
