After complaints were made, Nike pulled its ad for the new Nike HYPERDUNK shoe line. Nike previously defended the ads, but said it would withdraw them as quickly as possible “to underline our ongoing commitment to supporting diversity in sport and the workplace,” The Oregonian reported. Earlier, Nike had said the ads were “based purely upon a common insight from within the game of basketball — the athletic feat of dunking on the opposition, and is not intended to be offensive.”
Nike has some bona fides working with gays and has been “praised by gay-rights advocates for supporting a 2007 Oregon law banning discrimination against gays in work, housing and public places.”
I really don’t see what so homo-esque about the photos. It’s a matter of the art of the sport in which the ads portray. I could see if the company’s advertising department made an ad with the players playing grab ass but these are simply basketball action shots, not an insinuation of anything more. But it is fair to think that this is a square-minded world and the photos could be interpreted in any shape or form. Heck, these photos could have two kangaroos head budding and could be considered homosexual. The Hyperdunk series of gym shoes retails for as much as $3,000.
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Nike // August 3, 2008 at 1:48 am |
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.ThomasCarlyleThomas Carlyle, 1795-1881