A gay friendly McDonald’s commercial that was supposedly designed to coincide with Gay Pride celebrations held primarily during June of each year to commemorate the Stonewall Rebellion has become a global internet sensation going viral in a matter of hours. While it aired on television originally, and still does, that is only happening in France. No other country has picked up on the idea and run with it. Contrary to popular belief, the commercial is not overt, it is actually rather sweet.
A teenage boy that appears to be perhaps 15 or 16 is sitting in a booth at a McDonald’s looking at his class picture when he receives a phone call. He speaks into the phone “I was just thinking about you” with palpable affection in his voice. After a brief pause he says “I miss you too”, and hangs up. He looks at his father who comments that he was quite the ladies man when he was young, and that it’s too bad his son attends an all boys school. The young man says nothing to that, but shoots his father a smile.
The tagline that follows says “Come as you are.” Anyone can, or should, be able to figure out the boy is gay and was talking to his boyfriend he was likely not going to see until school resumed. While many people say big deal, it actually is a rather big deal in a certain sense. McDonald’s has never had an ad or commercial which even alluded to a person being gay, or that they as a company embraced that LGBT segment of society. McDonald’s spokesperson Nathalie Legarlantezec said, “We wanted to show society the way it is today without judging.”
The ad is already working as several LGBT organizations have extended kudos to McDonald’s to taking the step to recognize there is diversity in society, and in the always competitive fast food market, such an advertising campaign is already winning over converts that like to support businesses that support them. The backlash has actually been rather non-existent to this point. 82% of people polled that viewed the commercial described it as sweet or charming, while 18% cited being alarmed or disturbed.
So far there have only been two actual public strongly negative reactions, one being from Bill O’Reilly, and the other from Planet Homo which is a bit of an overly pro-gay organization many LGBT persons actually shun. O’Reilly is no surprise so far as being outspoken about his less than favorable view of anything gay, and Planet Homo while seemingly somewhat pleased there was a gay character in an ad, was upset the son didn’t vocally assert his sexual preference.
It is nice to see a step has been made by McDonald’s to recognize the gay community even if it was based as a well calculated business move. The decision to air the commercial in France was based on it being a noted a gay friendly society which would likely see nothing out of place with the innuendo. So far as plans to launch the commercial elsewhere, no plans have been announced, but with the response having been so overwhelmingly positive, it may happen sooner rather than later.