Gays, Pit Bull Lovers Get 'Insensitive' Ads Yanked

Attempting to use humor in a commercial? Be prepared to pull it off the air when the complaints come -- and they will come.

The P.C. police won a trio of victories this week, badgering Nike, Snickers and Verizon Wireless into ditching ads that were deemed offensive in one way or another.

Nike, reports The Oregonian, is doing away with billboards for its Hyperdunk sneakers that show hapless basketball players "getting dunked on" -- ie. winding up with their faces jammed in an airborne player's crotch. Here's a typical image from the campaign by Wieden + Kennedy:

In withdrawing the billboards, Nike cited its "ongoing commitment to supporting diversity" -- an apparent nod to allegations that the ads carried a tinge of homophobia.

That undercurrent was more explicit in a British television spot for Snickers starring Mr. T. In the commercial, the former action star stands in a pickup truck and fires a candy-bar cannon at a fey-looking man in jogging shorts, ordering him to "Get some nuts." Watch:

It's harder to deny in this case that gays are the butt of the joke. It's not the first time Snickers has used homosexuality as a punchline, either -- nor the first time that Omnicom, whose AMV BBDO agency produced the Mr. T spot, has done so, notes Bob Garfield.

More surprising is the backlash against Verizon for a commercial in which a man sneaks into a junkyard, only to be snapped at by snarling pit bulls. Dog lovers and animal-rights activists branded the ad a piece of "anti-pit bull propaganda." "[T]his perpetuates the idea that it is OK to chain dogs and it is OK to have guard dogs," a Humane Society spokeswoman told Ad Age.

My gut feeling is that the creative types knew they were engaging in gay baiting with the Snickers ad, and were at least semi-consciously pandering to the sports world's rampant homophobia with the NIke campaign. But it's hard not to see the Verizon protests as coming out of nowhere. Anti-pit bull?

Watch: