By

Patrick Kulp

When both of your parents are men, it’s only natural that there be the occasional bout of friendly fatherly competition.
That’s what happens in a new ad for a Star Wars-themed line of Campbell’s soups in which two dads each make the case to their toddler son that they can do a better Darth Vader impression than the other.
“Cooper, I am your father,” says one dad before his partner interjects: “No, no, no I am your father.”
Cooper doesn’t seem to care much one way or the other, and one of his two dads eventually settles for the role of wookiee sidekick.
It’s a clever conceit, and the soup giant’s “Made for Real, Real Life” tagline drives the spot home with the message that none of this should be considered at all out of the ordinary (except for perhaps even more “real”?).
Now that gay marriage is the law of the land and market research dispatches have declared that prized millennials generally like diversity, brands are eager to flaunt their tolerance, and the interplay of same-sex couples and their kids makes for lots of aww-inducing ways to do so.
Honeymaid, DirectTV, Cheerios, Esurance and plenty of other big corporations have all featured gay couples prominently in the past few years.
It seems advertisers have even become comfortable enough with the diversity of American families to begin mapping out the distinct foibles and gag opportunities inherent to everyday life in a same-sex households.
It’s a far cry from just two decades ago, when the first-ever U.S. TV spot depicting a gay couple — innocuously shopping at Ikea — attracted boycotts, crowds of protesters, hundreds of fuming letters and phone calls and even a false bomb threat at a Hicksville, New York store.
The new Campbell’s ad is naturally not without its share of ideological detractors, but, in a sign of progress, it seems that more people were offended by the terrible imitations of Darth Vader rather than seeing two gay dads, having a nice morning with their son.
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