During the 2014 Super Bowl, Coca-Cola released an ad featuring people from all over the world singing "America the Beautiful" in their native language. On the surface, the ad seemed innocent enough, perhaps meant to symbolize our nations all trying to get along. However, after the ad was aired, it quickly stirred up some controversy.
First of all, people complained about people singing "America the Beautiful" in languages that weren't English, saying that it felt like it made us, as Americans, not feel proud enough to just sing it in English, so we just get non English speaking people to sing it. Others felt like Coca-Cola was sending a mixed message. Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes commented "So was Coca-Cola saying America is beautiful because new immigrants don't learn to speak English?" Others felt the ad was trying to say America is superior to other nations by having people from those nations sing about it.
Another criticism of the ad revolved around the use of a gay couple in it. At the time, Coca-Cola-Cola was also a sponsor of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, a place where the government was strictly anti-LGBT. People felt that although the ad was supposed to show support for gay rights, if they ran it in Russia- and during the Olympics, no less, they would get in a lot of trouble.
Personally, I think everyone's criticisms about the ad were just unnecessary. It was apparent that Coca-Cola was just trying to show all our nations getting along and coming together as one. Sure, maybe "America the Beautiful" wasn't the best song choice for an ad like that, but at least it seemed to fit the tone of the ad. Also, I have nothing against gay people, and if Coca-Cola wanted to show them in the ad, then they have every right to, even if they were sponsoring the Olympics is a place that was against it. It seems like the people complaining about the ad took it too seriously and seem to think we can't get along, which of course was the opposite of what the ad was trying to show. If they can't react that well to people in other countries being in a commercial where they sing an American song, then who knows how they'd react if they saw it happen in real life?
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-coca-cola-super-bowl-ad-stirs-controversy-20140203-story.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/coca-cola-super-bowl-ad-angers-conservatives-article-1.1600849
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