Guido Barilla, Chairman of the excessively widespread Barilla industries, has volunteered the information that his pasta and cookie ads will never feature gay families. Of course, heterosexual, traditional families are still the norm in advertising, and gay groups hadn't contested his advertising, but he saw fit to bring out that at Barilla they would exclude representations of gay families. Not only that, but if gays didn't like this, they could go eat some other pasta. Is that a threat or a promise, Guido?
When this, not unpredictably, pissed off the Italian gay community, which has made massive strides in the last decade or so, Barilla apologized and said he only meant that he wished to emphasize the central role of women in the family, by which he evidently means married women with husband and children, with the wife serving up steaming bowls of pasta for lunch, and giving the kids Mulino Bianco snacks for merenda. At this point, he pissed me off as a heterosexual female. Preparing and offering food is one of the great pleasures of life, and is an expression of friendship and love. For everyone. Italy is taking a reactionary turn, it is involved in a backlash, that I really, really don't like.
I haven't eaten Barilla pasta in ages, and I now intend to boycott Barilla Group as a whole: "Barilla, Mulino Bianco, Voiello, Pavesi, Gran Cereale, Pan di Stelle, Wasa, Harry's (France and Russia), Accademia Barilla, Misko (Greece), Filiz (Turley), Yemina and Vesta (Mexico)." And to paraphrase that gay father of two, Sir Elton John, "it's no sacrifice, no sacrifice, no sacrifice, at all."
Qu'ils mangent de la brioche! Just not Barilla Group.
