Leave it to Europe to go tramping all over America’s back asswards puritan values with a commercial for a big name company. Vive la France!
Now I’ll have to admit that I’m rather torn over this commercial. On one hand, it’s realistic and sad, seeing the boy still closeted to his dad. On the other hand, it’s good to see this issue out in the open and publicly addressed, with McDonald’s offering itself as a “replacement parent” of some sort. In this commercial, they seem to say, “Everyone might not understand you, but we do.” Of course, you can certainly find something repulsive about the thought of a fast-food restaurant taking the place of family, but to me, it only serves to hammer home the fact that gay kids still have to suffer the indignity of the closet as they struggle with the question of whether or not to come out to their families and risk losing the love and connection that mean the most to them. Things shouldn’t be this way. In a just world, this kid’s father should be referencing girls as a way of teasing his son and showing that, not only is the boy out to him, but that he accepts him as well, feeling comfortable enough to give him a good-natured ribbing.
Okay, to balance out the bummer feeling, here’s a positive (triumphant?) treatment of LGBT youth.
The lyrics are pretty cryptic, but the song’s about two lesbian teenagers growing up in suburbia:
The first single, “Phantom Limb”, is a narrative of two lesbian teenagers, told from one girl’s point of view, desperate to get out of a stifling and stagnant town that will never approve of, let alone understand them, “This town seems hardly worth our time.” The opening lyrics vividly and humorously portray the town’s favored daughters, “Frozen into coats / White girls of the north / … They are the fabled lambs / A Sunday ham.” Later, the girls are inexorably drawn to classic American rebellion: rock and roll, booze, all that good stuff. Mercer sings with empathy for the girls’ plight, misfits out of step with mainstream culture but undeterred from finding their own way around or over it. Read more
As long as you keep that thought, it all makes a damn lot of sense.
