In PR disaster news, Barilla Pasta is the latest company to publicly declare that they are anti-gay. In a recent radio interview Guido Barilla (yes, that’s his real name), told Italy’s La Zanzara radio show that the company would never advertise using a homosexual family, and if the gays don’t like it, they can eat another brand. My first thought was: “What’s pasta?”
Once I Googled it, I had a few more thoughts on the situation:
1. People’s personal viewpoints on gays should remain their own. I understand that not everyone is going to understand that I love penis, but for a company that is trying to sell a product, publicly declaring against anything is just asking for a backlash of hilarious mockery. Just ask any of the Chic-Fila locations that were bombarded with gay make-out sessions, lesbian weddings, and protests.
2. Most kinds of pasta are shaped like penises anyway, so Barilla is ignoring and attacking a potentially huge marketing opportunity.
3. Guido Barilla goes on to state that he has no respect for gay adoption, since it involves someone who is unable to choose what they want for themselves. This begs the question: Does anyone get to choose their families? And also, what child in their right mind would choose living in an orphanage, or years of abuse and mistreatment over a home in a loving family with two moms or dads?
4. Guido Barilla is a fabulous name. I am pretty sure his mother was hoping he might come out wearing a pair of ballet slippers, slathered in body glitter.
5. Barilla pasta’s stance as anti-gay has to do with the fact that they are a “family brand”. In 2013, “family” is defined by either two parents who can’t even stand to live in the same neighborhood, or sleep in separate beds and schtup Craigslist hookups on the side. The definition of family is changing, and so too, must the advertising strategies of public companies.
6. Most gays try and stay away from pasta anyway. So all Guido really did was bring on a negative media shitstorm, which is a really poor idea when all the photos of you on Google look like a 1980’s murderer’s mugshot from a Lifetime movie about stabbing your mistress to death with some stale linguine.
This photo makes me want to take a rape shower.
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he was born that way