Undeterred by previous racist backlash following the posting of a Cheerios ad featuring an interracial couple, General Mills recently launched a new video on its YouTube channel in its Cheerios Effect series featuring a gay couple. The video, which details the story of how André and Jonathan adopted their daughter Raphaëlle, was posted on September 29 and has already received almost 65,000 views.
It begins with André holding the little girl, stating, “Most of my life, I thought it would never be possible to have a child, given that I’m gay.”
Acknowledging that their unusual situation might be met with backlash — the two men are gay and white, and Raphaëlle is black — Jonathan says, “People outside, who have problems with [me calling myself her dad] they [are] going to try to put doubt in our head, and you know, we [are going] to have to fight with that.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvHGKSqBVjs
The reaction, unlike the one following the previous video, has been mostly ups with a few extreme downs. One user wrote in praise of the video, “Overwhelmingly beautiful. All three of you are so lucky to have each other. All the very best…relentlessly!!!”
His sentiment was echoed by another commenter, who wrote, “At 61, I grew up at a time when this was not possible. Perhaps in my next life, I will be able to have this in my life too. Every step forward is a good step, appreciated relentlessly.”
While the majority of the comments were respectful and supportive, a few were skeptical of the company’s motivations, while remaining respectful of the message and people featured in the video.
One user wrote, “Remember the old Days where you could walk into a grocery store and purchase a box of cheerios and enjoy it for what it was…a box of cereal….nothing more…nothing less….pretty simple.”
There were a few bigots to be found, with one user writing, “Holy s*** what is this sodomite f****try?” Despite the presence of some hateful comments, the video’s comment section has remained remarkably free of anti-gay, racist or otherwise insensitive postings.
While their notable absence could be a result of General Mills’ simply deleting offensive comments — their previous reaction to the overwhelming racism plaguing the other commercial was to close the section altogether — perhaps it’s possible that users have warmed to the company’s message and embraced its championing of diversity. The company later used the same couple from the attacked video in its Super Bowl commercial, which met with a much more positive reaction and generated more than 5,000,000 views.
The rest of the Cheerios Effect series features couples and people of a variety of backgrounds, demographics and ages. To date, the video featuring André, Jonathan and Raphaëlle has received 684 likes and 28 dislikes.