For those who don't know about this, basically, Coca-Cola aired the following ad during the Superbowl this past Sunday: And the reaction to the commercial was... not so positive. Many took to Twitter to lash out hateful tweets in response to the commercial for having the song "America the Beautiful" sung in different languages other than English. So my response to this is... SO ****IN' WHAT?! I'm a bilingual American citizen who speaks mostly Arabic at home. Does that suddenly make me un-American? It's pathetic really. The following points listed in a Huffington Post editorial best represent my views: All in all, I feel these bigots on Twitter have done nothing but disrespect the meaning of "America the Beautiful." Shame on them.
Some people are just pissed that that a song about America is being sung in languages other than English, and now they're threatening to boycott Coca-Cola for that. Hence... controversy
Because singing something in a language other than English is completely controversial. That's certainly logical.
Surprise, surprise, racists still exist. Anyway, I admit that it did seem a little risky for Coke to make a commercial like this, considering who some of the general audience is watching the Super Bowl. I thought the commercial itself was a little sappy, but still pretty neat to see. One of the languages present in that was a Native American language and I believe they posted a video about the singer who helped translate the lyrics. I guess that kind of thing speaks for itself.
Looks like someone forgot what was written at the feet of the statue of liberty. But then aren' t the Kosh brothers financing the tea party ? Just one of their many ways to actively screw America, but hey, gotta keep looking good on TV ! Guess what Coke, you reap what you sow.
The greatest part was everyone on twitter saying stuff like: "a song about America, your supposed to speak English," when they can't even type English correctly. But whatever, just another thing to piss me off about how unaccepting some people in this country (and all over the world, really, but that's another story) are of people that are different than them. I thought the commercial was beautiful. People are singing about their country in their own language and it's great because it shows how diverse America really is. The ones getting upset need to realize that English wasn't the first language spoken here.
To quote myself from Facebook (because I'm too lazy to reword my thoughts for this site): To the people that were outraged at the Coke ad where America the Beautiful was sung in different languages: a) to paraphrase a tweet, this teaches that they are two types of Americans: true Americans and white people that forgot that they're European; b) a historical moment where a same-sex couple is shown in a Superbowl ad for the first time was missed because of this silly outrage (though that'll probably caused more outrage); and c) Yá'át'ééh, e la na tte? On top of that, I think my favorite is the people who are angry about the "national anthem" being sung in other languages...it isn't the national language. The funniest thing about it is that Katharine Lee Bates, the song's original author, was a lesbian and according to wikipedia:
Ok, I'm not american, but this commercial looks good. I thought America was supposedly all about diversity, and freedom, yet when someone puts this commercial up, some americans are outraged by it? Seems a bit contradictory in my opinion.
It is... in theory. The country is still grappling with extreme racism and prejudice towards immigrants, despite being a country of immigrants. People seem to forget that 50 years ago, maybe 100 depending on how long your family has been in this country, they were immigrants who probably did not speak "the national language" (as if we have one). What makes America beautiful is its diversity and welcoming... or at least, that's what we were founded on. Today this country is more about prejudice and bigotry.
What's even more surprising is that no one responded to the Cheerios Superbowl commercial, which had an interracial couple AND an interracial kid. I consider it a good thing, both to to the Cheerios commercial and lack of backlash. Hopefully that means we're at least making SOME progress.
It's not surprising because people have reacted to it. If it wasn't for the Coke ad, this would be the headline. However, this is Cheerio's second interracial ad (first of which came out last...May, I think? And got a **** ton of backlash) and I'm pretty sure it's the same exact family from their first one; so people were probably outraged, but not as surprised as the Coke ad.
Not only is English not the native or official language of the United States, it is most certainly possible some of these people are descended from Europeans who were not British and therefore would not have natively spoken English. French, Spanish, Italian. Idiotic, not worth an outrage or more than a observation, these jumped up White American elitists are terribly fickle.
You know, I'm watching this and I'm failing to see why it's so controversial. Really. Are people just coming to false conclusions or do people just want something to lash out at for no good reason? I find the advert nice to be honest and thats not something I say very often because I hate adverts. All I can say is people love to over-react.
Someone posted this somewhere saying it was controversial and I watched it expecting some provocative something-or-other and when I saw it I couldn't figure out what the controversy was. Then I heard the reason is because of the different languages. I thought it was beautiful. I thought it was a wonderful portrayal of mixing many cultures, and here people are upset for that very reason. I'm disappointed in you, America.
It feels very much like it is a combination of ignorance (i.e. in regards to both the role of immigration in society and the lack of an official language, among other things) compounded with the atmosphere of slight hostility and defensiveness over certain ideas that I occasionally feel from certain folks in the States these past few ideologically confrontational years. At the end of it, people have different conceptions on what it means to be American, or a citizen of the United States. Unfortunately, some of these ideas are extremely narrow-minded. I am simply happy that there are some slow steps going towards improving the public opinion of minorities in the States. In fact, the airing of this commercial on the Super Bowl would be intentionally risky, as was stated earlier in the thread, for good reason of simply being one of the most popular events in the country. Target as many people as one can, as it were. I may not be a fan of your corporation as a whole, but good on you for this beautifully touching advertisement with its very strategic placement, Coca-Cola, even if it might just be expanding your consumer group, eheheh.
