In one of the dumbest, most pointless, idiotic things I have seen from a CEO in the past few decades, I offer you this:
Guido Barilla, chairman of the world’s leading pasta manufacturer, prompted calls for a consumer boycott on Thursday after telling Italian radio his company would never use a gay family in its advertising.
“I would never do (a commercial) with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect but because we don’t agree with them. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role,” Barilla, 55, said in an interview with Radio 24 on Wednesday.
Barilla – one of the best known pasta brands around the world – is one of Italy’s biggest advertisers, and for many years has used the image of a happy family living in an idealised version of the Italian countryside, with the slogan: “Where there’s Barilla, there’s home”.
In the interview, Barilla said he opposed adoption by gay parents, but was in favour of allowing gay marriage, which is not legal in Italy. His comment about advertising was in response to a direct question about whether he would ever feature a gay family in his company’s commercials.
If gays “like our pasta and our advertising, they’ll eat our pasta, if they don’t like it then they will not eat it and they will eat another brand,” he said.
What is wrong with these people? Beyond the bigotry, how stupid must you be as a chairman of a company to wade, completely unnecessarily, into this kind of controversy? Despite the gutlessness of the Starbucks gun statement a couple weeks ago (“We’re banning them but not really but please don’t bring them but if you do ok, anyway, but at least we got to talk this out and I have it off my chest, but really, it would be swell if you wouldn’t bring your guns here…”), I really felt bad for the CEO because he just wanted nothing to do with the issue whatsoever, all he wants to do is sell more shitty overpriced coffee and gut bomb carrot cake and what other pretentious crap they can sell (CHECK OUT THIS NEW NEKO CASE CD WITH BONUS STING ACOUSTICAL SESSION TRACKS AND A FREE ITUNES DOWNLOAD OF NORAH JONES NEWEST SONG).
Barilla dived into this shitty cesspool all on his own, so I guess now that the upper crest really do own everything, not even greed and profit can keep their bigotry at bay.
I immediately threw out all my barilla products, of which there were quite a few. Someone should set up a tumblr with nothing but people in the grocery store taking pictures of their middle fingers and the Barilla products and where they were in the country. Maybe enough of a kick in the wallet will matter.
Yatsuno
They already got the money, so no real point in throwing out good food. Instead I plan on getting another brand of pasta from here on out and encouraging everyone else to skip them.
Giada must be flipping her shit right now.
srv
May FSM strangle him with a noodly appendage.
De Cecco Spinach Spaghetti guy, FTW.
Ruckus
At both my local Ralph’s(Kroger) barilla is the only brand available. To get anything different I have to travel 6-8 miles versus walking a mile. And pay more on a basically fixed income that isn’t all that great. Sometimes a shit sandwich is all there is for dinner. I may purchase something else in the future but I’m not throwing out perfectly edible food that I’ve paid for just because the CEO/whatever is a douchebag. Even if it’s cheap pasta.
MTmofo
I’d give mine to the local food bank system or homeless shelter. Some will take partial packages. YMMV. Just sayin’
Omnes Omnibus
Umm, throwing out things you already bought won’t do much. Letting the company know that you won’t buy from them again is a start. Think it through.
Alison
@Ruckus: I’d say your bigger problem is that your supermarket only stocks one brand of dried pasta. The fuck? I’ve never been in a store – bigger than a corner store – that didn’t have at least two name brands and usually also a store brand. That’s weird.
Also fuck this guy. Gay money is money, dude. My lesbidollar is worth just as much anyone else’s.
Jane2
@Yatsuno: Best FB comment: “I’ll never buy your bigotoni again”.
grass
Concur with everyone else on the throwing out good food. That’s just dumb..
TG Chicago
Not really. They asked him the question. He didn’t go into it on his own.
The problem is the bigotry, not the corporate messaging.
ETA: You seem to be saying that this is worse than the Starbucks thing because Barilla chose to get into it. That’s not why it’s worse. It’s because it’s worse to say gay families can’t adopt than it is to ask gun nuts to leave their guns at home.
Yatsuno
@Jane2: Okay that rulz.
scarshapedstar
Neko Case is pretentious now? Fuck it, I quit.
scav
Pasta firm Barilla boycotted over ‘classic family’ remarks. He’s a noodle on multiple fronts. ETA might be where he dug himself in deeper, hard to judge this late at night.
See, there’s a bit of additional context where he decided to dive in and defend the “classic” family, one where apparently women serve a critical role (of waitstaff?) and presumably a world where watching same roles will necessarily attract the classic wimminz (presumably) into buying said classic pasta.
wasabi gasp
We are all Fusilli Jerrys now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zpQu7zAZ44
Joseph Nobles
@Ruckus: I’d also be surprised to find only one brand of dried pasta at your local store. My Kroger here in Dallas has three or four.
And there’s always making your own.
Mart
Assume he is old, Catholic, and very rich. He did say OK with gay marriage. For an old traditional guy, living the big Italian extended family fantasy; seems a bit progressive. Rest the stuff not so good, but there is some hope for the man here.
Yatsuno
@Joseph Nobles:
Mine has six, including a hella expensive artisanal brand that goes out of its way to identify as Italian. Plus Kroger does the Private Selection, which is an in-store brand but has really high-quality pasta. Having only one pasta option is very rare especially for a store in the Kroger system.
Keith P
You should have made a “One Man, One Pack of Barilla” video and posted it to youtube.
amk
How is this gay bashing cesspool? The guy says he is ok with gay marriage, though against gays adopting. He just says he won’t use gays for advertising his products and they will buy his products if they like them. Unlike that chickafil asshole and other similar gay baiting US business dittoheads, he sounds reasonable.
Mary G
@Mart: He’s only 55, young enough to know better.
I’m not throwing pasta out, but will look for another brand. Trader Joe’s is fine and cheaper, also, too.
PurpleGirl
@Mart: The man is 55, that is not that old. Catholic, yes, because is presumed to be Catholic in Italy. But 55 is not that old. He is thinking traditional, though. (He’s younger than I am.)
I like Barilla pasta but I don’t like their sauces. It won’t mean much for me to boycott their products because I’m not supposed to eat pasta anyway.
His comments about advertising fall into the same area of stupid as the ‘real muricans’ who don’t like the Cheerios commercials with the inter-racial family. (That little girl is so adorable and cute, leaving Cheerios on her napping father…)
scav
Consider it an exchange of mutual courtesies. He invited gays (and presumably others) to eat and purchase other brands if they didn’t like the pasta or advertising — said invitation is being enthusiastically seized upon and the offer transmitted to others, a free advertising multiplier in effect. No doubt many Putin and chickenproduct admirers will rush out to buy additional boxes in a sign of solidarity with the classic family, wimminz, gays and pasta-product places strictly maintained.
If old or otherwise men choose to work out their personal redemption and opinion transmission using international brands product positioning, well, what can one do but cooperate?
Ruckus
@Alison:
@Joseph Nobles:
I don’t live in the best part of town. The stores are old and relatively small. They restock many items when they run out, not when the shelves start to look empty. I have shopped at Ralph’s in more ritzy parts of town and yes they stock many brands. And yes it almost has the feel of a corner bodega. But the staff is friendly, knows me and calls off the security guard when I walk in with my backpack. Life is what it is and what you make of it.
Look at it another way. How many of the products you buy are the companies run by assholes, or bigots? I’ll bet a lot. But you don’t know that unless one of them speaks out.
So, what brands of pasta/whatever should we buy? I buy tp from a non kochsucker company, don’t eat at shit-a-fil or mcdonalds, what else am I missing? If I know a company is run by assholes or has a crappy product or is outright bigoted, I shop elsewhere. I’m just afraid I’ll run completely out of choices.
Villago Delenda Est
It really was unnecessary for him to comment the way he did. Best answer would have been “We have no plans at present to alter our advertising campaigns, but who is to say we won’t develop new plans down the road?”
That’s an answer that is neutral and has the virtue of being straightforward and honest. Sidesteps the rake that the interviewer planted in front of him, hoping for some Sideshow Bob rake action.
pliuege
@Yatsuno: everything is not always about money. Not eating already paid for pasta is about not being personally associated anymore with a product put out by a bigot – its something called principle. Continuing to eat Barilla products bought without knowledge of their bigotry after becoming aware would be like eating a meal in a restaurant after you ordered but then find out they got a poor health inspection rating. You’d still have to pay, but you’d be a fool if you eat what they served.
Montarvillois
Bye, bye Barilla from me. P.S. Is Giada De Laurentiis still product-placing Barilla on her shows?
Suffern ACE
The reason I don’t support a boycott in this case is that the guy gave us gays and lesbians the reasonable solution of not buying his pasta based on whether or not we like to eat it. The straights on the other hand will be forced to buy this stuff I guess through emotional appeals to family even if they actually don’t like the product. I feel liberated. It’s the straights who ought to be concerned by this company’s fascist mind control scheme.
raven
I don’t eat no semolina pasta!
Patricia Kayden
I guess American rightwingers have just discovered that they love Barilla. Waiting for the National Organization for Marriage to come out with a promo defending Guido.
Schlemizel
Living out here on the frozen tundra I have never bought their noodles, had not even seen them in stores until very recently. We grow a lot of wheat out here, including the Durham variety which is necessary for the semolina needed for good pasta – BTW something like 80% of that wheat that goes through that guys plant comes from out here on the frozen tundra!. There are local brands we buy. So its nice to know I was boycotting his crap before it was cool.
p.a.
Didn’t America’s Test Kitchen find Prince the best traditional pasta, and DeCecco the best wheat? Nothing’s better than boycotting an inferior product. Of course, the owners of other brands may be worse people who just keep their mouths shut.
GregB
Eff this Barilla clown.
We are a Prince Spaghetti family.
c u n d gulag
John,
By “threw out,” I hope you meant ‘donated them to my nearest food bank.’
People who need assistance with food, don’t care about the politics of the CEO in the food that’s distributed to them.
All they care about, is that it’s edible.
I love you, but if you literally threw food out because of the CEO’s repugnant view on not using gays to advertise his product, then you should be ashamed of yourself!
Please folks, before you throw out food to make some political statement, consider giving it to those who desperately need it!
Note: Some months, my Mom and I go to a food bank. We only go, when we’re completely out of money.
There are individuals and families in far, far, worse shape than we’re in.
But sometimes…
cleek
@PurpleGirl:
yeah, same here. their sauces are really strange.
Botsplainer
@Yatsuno:
Yeah, wife made a display of throwing out pasta I already paid for. I didn’t approve, but the deed was already done by the time I got home.
Jay C
John’s right, I think: this is an own-goal/unforced error/oral-footplant on Guido Barilla’s part: whatever his own feelings about gays, or SSM are, he has come right out and said, basically, that while gays are good enough to pay for his product, they’re not good enough to feature in his ads. What I don’t think he’s realized is that a LOT of folks – gay and straight – are going to take his advice, and start buying their pasta elsewhere. I’m not sure, myself, how effective boycotts/negative publicity on “offensive” products really are, but it would be interesting to see how Barilla’s sales go after this…
MattF
What I see here is ‘Italian blowhard,’ pardon my prejudice. In any event, my neighborhood is replete with pasta choices, so avoiding Barilla would be a very minor switch.
Paul in KY
@Suffern ACE: Interesting analysis.
Shortstop
@Jay C: I don’t know what’s the most entertaining part: that this relatively young man is so out of it that he didn’t realize he’d also lose a huge number of straight customers, that his walkback about just wanting to highlight the “central role of the woman in the family” fails to notice that not all same-sex couples are men, or that after the company offered a panicked apology on Facebook last night, hordes of illiterate Americans sporting confederate flag profile photos became this Italian pasta company’s chief defenders. Somehow I don’t think that’s the new customer base Barilla was looking for.
TomG
@pliuege:
This is just OVER dramatic pearl clutching. I’m in agreement with the folks who say it makes more sense to donate the pasta to a food bank or make use of it in some other charitable way.
For those of us in the USA, throwing out perfectly good pasta sounds like giving a loud raspberry to the less fortunate in your town, and giving them the finger at the same time. Good to know your principles and your ability to easily buy more pasta trump your potential ability to make better use of something you no longer want but which is still usable.
TomG
@c u n d gulag:
THIS, a thousand times over.
Ash Can
@Montarvillois: Given the nature of the business — taping shows well in advance and re-running old shows — Barilla products are likely to be turning up on her programs for quite some time to come, regardless of whether she kicks Barilla to the curb now.
gogol's wife
Okay, back to Di Cecco. Too bad, I liked their pasta best.
beltane
Throwing good food in the trash, as opposed to donating it to a food pantry, in order to make a statement is one of the few things thank rank as sinful in my mind, and only something a person who’s never experienced food insecurity would even contemplate. I have to feed a large family on a very tight budget and find this type of “activism” to be rather appalling.
I’m an Italian-American from New York who grew up with Ronzoni, which I have always found to be superior to Barilla anyway, but maybe it’s no available outside the Northeast. In any case, the few boxes of Barilla pasta I do have in my pantry are going into my kids’ stomachs and not into the trash.
Keith P.
@c u n d gulag: Activism – damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Tractarian
Yeah, gonna have to say this is an overreaction on your part, Cole. Considering the guy is probably a 90-year-old Italian great-grandpa, his views are probably more liberal than we could hope to expect.
beltane
@TomG: It would have been wonderful if this type of outrage accompanied the gutting of the SNAP program.
cunning linguist
@scarshapedstar: Seriously. Why the libelous shot at Neko Case? Her new album is terrific BTW.
ThresherK
@p.a.: I think ATK really didn’t care for Barilla, but lauded DeCicco.
Karma: Now nobody has the quandry of giving up the “great taste of Barilla”.
Flanders
@scarshapedstar: +1
noone
@raven:
Anti-semolinaite!
Gex
The guy pays for advertising execs and a PR department. He really ought to have referenced the advertising department as the people who will decide what ads they place (even if he gives them a “no gays” guideline, he doesn’t have to say so.)
The PR department probably did not appreciate his damage control. “Hey, guys it’s okay. I’m not a homophobe. I’m just sexist.”
One own goal is bad enough. But women are a bigger demo than gays, and they were just told they belong in the kitchen cooking his shitty pasta.
Citizen_X
You’ll take my Neko Case CDs when you pry them out of my cold dead hands, Cole.
Citizen_X
@Citizen_X: Speaking of which, what is the answer when gun nuts decide they’re going to use your stores for their explosive-codpiece displays? How do you gently tell armed gangs (essentially) that they need to take their weaponry elsewhere? Like the guy said, you don’t want your minimum-wage service workers confronting Michael Douglas with the Uzi there.
Xecky Gilchrist
Throwing out the pasta is wasteful, you should donate it to – what?
HOW many?
Sorry, I didn’t read the comments before mine and neither did a bunch of other people.
Steeplejack
@Tractarian:
It says he’s 55 right in the snippet quoted above.
That’s younger than half the readers of this blog.TomG
@Citizen_X:
This ought to be (hahah) a clear case of the right of private property owners (the stores) to determine who gets to enter their store. That trumps the supposed “right” of a gun nut to enter any property other than his own with a gun, concealed or otherwise.
So anyone as nutty as Rand Paul who thinks that stores ought to have the right to not sell to people they don’t want to, better stand up and support the store owner’s right to refuse entry to gun owners if that is what the store owner wants, REGARDLESS of the gun owner’s ideology.
tl;dr: gun owner rights shouldn’t EVER supercede private property rights (store owner, churches, your private residence)
Ruckus
@pliuege:
It’s all well and good to protest against idiots, morons and assholes.
Problem is throwing out food you’ve already bought doesn’t do any of that. Other than people who you tell you threw it out don’t know or care. And this guy? You already paid for it, he loses nothing. Now knowing you won’t purchase more by writing him a letter, and following through, that actually might be useful.
You ate his pasta before you knew about him, did it kill you? It may disgust you to eat it now but that’s an ethics problem, one that throwing out the food doesn’t solve. At least give it away, if you can afford it. I’ll bet money, something I don’t have much of, that the hungry person doesn’t give a shit about this guy and his personal views.
nougatmachine
Lumping Neko Case in with Norah Jones? I just…I don’t even.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Yatsuno:
I don’t eat pasta, but I’m pretty sure our local grocer has eleventy billion brands of pasta, or so.
Yuck.
cvstoner
Note to Barilla: your pasta is a commodity. Plenty of people will indeed find another brand, and dine on it just as happily.
kc
@TomG:
Oh for Christ’s sake. It was probably a few boxes, not a farkin’ truckload.
smintheus
@Yatsuno: Yep. Instead, we decided to destroy their crops by throwing them in boiling water last night.
In the future, we’ll go back to making our own pasta, which is a helluva lot better anyway.
Ruckus
@kc:
Considering the placement of the product in question, if even a small percentage of customers threw away their pasta it could be several truckloads.
The number of hungry people in this country is astounding, the number of people in the world who go to sleep hungry is overwhelming. We throw away tons of food in this country every day and now you want to encourage more for a symbolic gesture that no one will hear?
The Other Chuck
De Cecco is superior pasta anyway, nice texture from using bronze dies or something. Though I’ve found the Whole Foods store brand is pretty much just as good, and much cheaper (yes, I actually used Whole Foods and cheaper in the same sentence). Really, after a certain minimum level, pasta is pasta, at least the dried stuff.
The Other Chuck
Guy really scored a two-fer didn’t he? Remind me again which gender does most of the family grocery shopping?
kc
@Ruckus:
I’m not encouraging people to throw food away. I’m encouraging you to loosen your grip on those pearls.
beergoggles
If everyone threw out their pasta it would go a long way in solving their obesity problems. I hate that I get cravings for mac n cheese and noodle soup every once in a while.
Ruckus
@kc:
That would be nice if we aren’t talking about food.
But we are.
Stupid, symbolic gestures that accomplish nothing and waste resources is pearl clutching. Actually suggesting something better is not.
Fred
The wife has been workin’ on me to get the organic store brand but Barilla has more variety of sizes (capalini, spagetti, multi color pene,…) so I’ve been on the fence. Guess I’ll fall off that fence and make my sweety happy. Organic is good, no?
But first I’m gonna use up my in house stock because, what am I crazy? Pasta with spinach tonight it is.
Gian
He did say he supports gay marriage. He could be teachable unlike the chic fil a guy
shortstop
@Fred: Organic is good. 100 percent whole wheat is even better. “Whole grain” or “multi-grain” pastas that aren’t 100 percent (check the label) are basically brown-colored white pastas. They make you feel good for buying them, but they’re not doing much for you nutritionally.
@The Other Chuck: I like the WF store brands, too. They’re cheaper than Barilla, Ronzoni, DeCecco and even Prince, and they have tons more shapes in 100 percent whole wheat than anyone else does. I have a hate-love (I put hate first for obvious reasons) relationship with Whole Foods, but on some of their store brands they really do rock in both price and quality.
shortstop
@Gian: Let his shareholders teach him, then. We’ll check back in a couple of years to see if he’s learned anything.
Long Tooth
I would have thought that by now every current CEO on the planet had taken the saga of Anita Bryant & Florida orange juice to heart.
Apparently not.
“There’s always one poor SOB that doesn’t get the word”…. a variation of an ancient military truism.
patroclus
I just checked and I have DeCecco and Safeway Kitchen pasta in my pantry – I also buy Whole Foods whole wheat when I shop there, but I haven’t been in awhile and obviously eat that up more quickly when I do. I’d never heard of Borilla until this thread, but I guess I’ll join the boycott and use my gay dollars elsewhere.
Lavocat
Yeah, throw out your otherwise perfectly useful and palatable Barilla items which you have already purchased because “WAAAAH!”
THAT’LL TEACH ‘EM!
Are you fucking retarded? Christ on a fucking popsicle stick.
Ripley
What will you hide the airplane-sized vodka bottles behind now?
Yastreblyansky
Guido Barilla is Berlusconi’s preferred candidate to take over Forza Italia party Not an old Catholic but a youthfully middle-aged bunga-bunga.
Howard Beale IV
@Yatsuno: +1.
It’s Ronzoni for me…. And Barilla’s PLUS pasta is funky-and not in a good way.
Heck, now that I got my fancy KitchenAid stand mixer, meebe I otta dole out the cash to get their pasta-making widgets and roll my own-at least they’re amurrican-made….
Full Metal Wingnut
@pliuege: I see it as them getting something for nothing. If I throw it away it’s just a donation to them. Just like alton brown’s a bigot but I already paid for his books. I’d rather get something from it than enrich him for nothing.