Here is a controversy we did not see coming…
During Super Bowl XLIX, Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman anchored a commercial for NASCAR, relying on his ultra masculine image to lament how the country has gone soft.
"When our idea of danger is eating gluten, there’s trouble afoot," the actor said at the outset of the spot.
No big deal, right? Sort of funny, no? Try telling that to some people with celiac disease.
Someone who refers to himself as "Gluten Dude" and who hails from Newtown, Pennsylvania first took offense to the commercial and then took to Change.org to start a petition.
"[The ad] implies that we’re soft," he writes. "We’re weak … we’re part of America’s problem. When all we’re trying to do is manage our disease."
As of this writing, 18,000 people have signed Gluten Dude’s petition to have the ad yanked.
Do you find it offensive?
Elsewhere in Super Bowl commercial news:
- The Nationwide Super Bowl commercial plunged America into a pit of despair.
- Lindsay Lohan mocked her terrible driving record.
- Budweiser, again, made us cry buckets of tears over a lost puppy.