Mark Nickelsburg | Tide to Go / 2015 [fake commercial advertisement]

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by Douglas Messerli

 

Mark Nickelsburg (director) Tide to Go / 2015 [31 seconds] [fake commercial advertisement]

 

In 2015 an ad that seemed to be from an upcoming Proctor & Gamble commercial advertisement made news across the nation.

      In the ad, a gay couple can be seen walking into a church about to be married. But a woman (Lynne Marie Stewart) stands in their way yelling “Offensive,” determined that they won’t dare “blemish the sanctity of marriage.”

      The two begin immediately to protest, but before they can even plead their rights, she has pulled out a Tide to Go “pen” and begins to white-out a stain in one of the men’s shirts. As she quickly makes the stain disappear, he asks his soon-to-be husband why he hadn’t noticed the spot.

      Their savior, meanwhile, having finished her duty, straightens the other man’s bow tie, moves aside and, almost winkingly, says “Carry on boys,” as they move forward to join the priest about to marry them.

      This ad clearly referenced the Rowan County, Kentucky municipal clerk, Kim Davis, who blocked gay marriages in her small town that same year.

      The ad went viral with over 400,000 views on Facebook, and now appears in a collation of Funny Gay Commercials. There is no evidence, however, that Nickelsburg ever succeeded in convincing Tide or Proctor & Gamble to purchase and run the ad. They did, however, produce a 2014 ad in Canada only which appears in my essays about films of that year.

       Tide evidently got this spot for free, leaving the Nickelsburg company Tiny Giant beached on the shores of good intentions.

 

Los Angeles, May 10, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024).