Friday, September 27, 2013

Andiamo boicottare Barilla!

It's (probably) Italian for 'Let's boycott Barilla!' Yup, it looks like it is no longer ok to eat Barilla brand pasta after the hilariously named Guido Barilla said that his company will never use a gay family in its advertising. Why? Because he's an idiot. So for those keeping track, we're boycotting pasta, Hobby LobbyChic-fil-A (twice), Ender's Game and Russia.
They will however use tiny naked babies with wings wielding
forks and fighting for control of a plate of spaghetti because...uh...Europe?
Here, enjoy some of the some stupid, stupid remarks he made during a radio interview:

Hey Guido, why don't you try another
brand. Here, eat a big ol' bag of this one.
"For us, the concept of sacred family remains one of the fundamental values of the company...If gays like our pasta and our communication, they will eat our pasta. If not, they can avoid it and eat another brand...I won't do an ad with a homosexual family not because I disrespect gays - they have a right to do whatever they want without disturbing others - but I don't think like them and I think that the family we try to address is anyway a classic family."

-Guido Barilla, chairman of Barilla Pasta
...really? His parents named him Guido?
Well, it's great that Guido has given his blessing to hot gay sex (as long as it doesn't disturb others) but did I miss the part where we all decided to ask the pasta industry to weigh in on what constitutes a family? 
Pictured: Classic Family preparing some Barilla Brand ® pasta for dinner.
Not pictured: Gay people, because seriously, do they even eat pasta?
And don't get me started on the single-parents and childless couples...
Above: A guy who doesn't know
when to keep his penne-hole shut.
You know, all he had to do was go ten minutes in an interview without trashing gay people. Would that have really been so hard? I mean he runs a major corporation, shouldn't he know better than to opine about other people's sex lives? Sure, I guess the interviewer asked him directly if we'd be seeing gay people in a Barilla ad someday, but holy shit, would it have killed him to just say something like: "Sure, why not? Gays love pasta too!"? It's not that the guy isn't entitled to his own narrow, medieval opinion, it's that he should keep it to himself if he'd like to do business in the 21st century.

"A family? No, we just found this kid on the 
ground and decided to raise it together."
He tried to apologize, but just kind of made it worse saying that: "In the interview, I simply wanted to highlight the role of women in the family." And that "[Barilla] has always chosen to represent the family because this is the symbol of hospitality and affection for everyone." Oy. So not only is this guy unaware that there are lesbians in the world, but he's also missing the point that the definition of family is bigger than 'the people from whom you inherit your pasta company.'

Oh, and just out of curiosity, why is a radio show interviewing the chairman of Barilla in the first place? I know it's Italy, and pasta's probably a bigger deal there, but for real, who's tuning in for that? 
"Shadda upa you face, he's a going to talk abouta the pasta!"
-Italian people
(sorry)


By the way, I don't know if you clicked on the first link, but the BBC article totally wins for most adorable headline. Behold:

Here, I'll type it the way they'd say it:
Italian pastah brand Bariller in gay advert raow.

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