Is TyC Sports Russia 2018 spot homophobic?
In the face of the Russia 2018 World Cup, TyC Sports sought to launch an advertising spot that ended up generating a lot of controversy. It takes as its main argument the homophobic character of the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the initial goal of the spot did not turn out well.
The sports channel TyC Sports canceled the controversial spot of the Russian World Cup 2018, which referred to the punishments that exist against homosexuals in the country presided over by Vladimir Putin. The controversial publicity aroused all kinds of criticism, including Fundacion Huesped, which works for the right to sexual and reproductive health with the focus on HIV / AIDS, so the authorities decided to end publicity.
The propaganda explained situations encouraged by the "passion of football" that would not be well regarded by the Russian president as "seeing a guy crouching in front of another", "tattooing a tit", "wallowing in the grass" and "walking with the genitals in the neck." "Mr. Putin: if you think love between men is an illness, we are very sick. And you know what? It's contagious," the voice-over said on the spot. Minutes after it was published, social networks erupted in criticism to consider that it is a homophobic spot. In fact, activists from the LGBT community asked to remove it it from the programming. "They took too slightly the very serious situation of the LGBT population in Russia and reproduce stereotypes that stigmatize this population," Fundacion Huesped criticized.
Ezequiel Testantini, player of the Argentine gay soccer team, referred to the controversial World Cup spot launched by the TyC Sports channel and said that the whole team considers it as "retrograde" since it "poses homosexuality as a contagious disease". In dialogue with the radio program Crónica Anunciada, by FM La Patriada, Testantini said: "We got the propaganda of TyC Sports to the WhatsApp group and at first it did not cause us anything, then we understood the message it leaves." "We totally repudiate the propaganda of TyC Sports", he added.
Most of the messages were furious at the tweet and the spot: “Let TyC Sports make a publicity laugh at the civil war in Syria, saying that here we kill each other for the love of the shirt”, read one message in Twitter, while other added: “According to the TyC Sports spot for the World Cup, is love between men only possible through football? Is not there some homophobia, what they would just try to attack? Strange message, unclear and unfortunate.” However, there were other users in social networks who saw nothing wrong and condemn feminism and progress as the spot did not mean harm but to fight Russia’s ruling on the matter.