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NFL's Homoerotic Dirty Dancing Ad Scores With Super Bowl Fans
NFL's Homoerotic Dirty Dancing Ad Scores With Super Bowl Fans
Super Bowl commercials have a troubled history of gay jokes. Is this a turning point?
Nobody puts Odell Beckham Jr. in the corner.
The New York Giants wide receiver and Eli Manning -- the team's quarterback -- re-created a famous dance scene from Dirty Dancing, the 1987 romance starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze, in a lauded Super Bowl commercial.
In the Sunday ad, Beckham and Manning groove together to "(I've Had) the Time of My Life," with an assist from Hamilton choreographer Stephanie Klemons and teammates as backup dancers. At one point, a coach moving to break up the routine is stopped by safety Landon Collins, who says, "Just let them dance."
The pair conclude their routine with Manning catching Beckham over his head, in a nod to Swayze's iconic lift of Grey.
The ad is titled "Touchdown Celebrations to Come," a campaign for the National Football League spotlighting teams that did not make this year's Super Bowl.
"Celebrations were a highlight of this season, and we had so many breakout moments where players showed their creativity together," said Dawn Hudson, commissioner of the NFL, according to AdWeek. "We wanted to keep that fun going for the Super Bowl and give our fans something to smile and laugh at that was just about football and how awesome it is to be part of a team."
Commercials aired during the Super Bowl have some history of making laughter at the expense of gay people. Snickers, for example, enacted a Lady and the Tramp moment between two male mechanics in 2007 that ended in a head slammed under a car hood.
But "Touchdown Celebrations to Come" earned praise from social media users across the political spectrum, with many crowning it the MVP of the evening's ads.
\u201cOmg that's the best thing the New York Giants did all season. #DirtyDancing\u201d— Tyler Sperry (@Tyler Sperry) 1517797331
\u201cBest ad yet! Manning and Beckham #DirtyDancing\u201d— Andrea Mitchell (@Andrea Mitchell) 1517797401
\u201cTime of your life. An extremely enjoyable experience. \n\nYes, watching @OBJ_3 nail the Baby move qualifies. #NFL #DirtyDancing\n\nhttps://t.co/Gtow5Kd3SX\u201d— Dictionary.com (@Dictionary.com) 1517797619
The New York Post even cited the commercial as an example of this year's advertisers trying "to get the most yardage out of levity rather than politics." Of course, outside of this Super Bowl ad, an interracial same-sex pair dancing might still be considered a political act.
Was the NFL ad funny or offensive to gay people? Let us know in the comments.
