It is that wonderful time of the year again when the shops fill up with gooey goodness that is Cadbury Creme Eggs and to celebrate the ‘goobilee’ of Creme Eggs (yes, we have been blessed with these lil’ dudes for 50 years!), Cadbury has released a brand new advert showcasing all of the different ways to enjoy a Creme Egg – I’m defo a licker.
Youtube video courtesy of @Cadbury
Unfortunately, however, not everyone is too happy about the advert, in fact, over 79 thousand people want it removed from the TV.
Why?
Because it features a gay couple sharing a Creme Egg.
The Citizen Go petition, that is aiming for 100,000 signatures, described the advert as featuring ‘a gay couple engaged in a highly-charged sexually provocative act’. You can see that the real-life couple Callum Sterling (they/them/he/him) and Dale K Moran (they/them) are actually doing nothing sexual at all; just before the sharing of the creme egg, they are shown to be holding hands and playfully spinning in a circle.
Catholic campaigner Caroline Farrow, who started the Citizen Go petition, told Premier: ”A kiss can take many forms; this is not a mere peck on the cheek or familial show of affection but rather two adults snogging, using their lips and tongues to exchange the contents of a creme egg in an extremely sexually suggestive fashion”.
The ‘kiss’ if you can even call it a kiss, involves less contact than the average Disney kiss, only this time it’s not a heterosexual couple. This is just another example of the attitude that a lot of people have: ‘It’s okay to be gay, just don’t shove it in my face’. Or in Dale’s words, for PinkNews, ‘people are “generally OK” with seeing gay people on TV, but the general public “don’t want to see them kissing of touching or doing anything ‘gay’”.
Cadbury told AdAge: ‘Cadbury has always been a progressive brand that spreads a message of inclusion, whether it is through its products or brand campaigns. We are proud of our Golden Goobilee advert which celebrates the many ways that everyone can enjoy a Cadbury Creme Egg.’ . This seems to be true since Dale and Callum have reported that there was no specification for the gender of the couple in the audition process. So it doesn’t seem that their feature in the advert was a form of tokenism or an attempt at appearing ‘woke’.
Personally, I loved the advert and I will enjoy my Creme Eggs even more this year. I just wish I had someone to recreate the scene with.
Words By: Alice Colton
Edited By: Harsheni Maniarasan