Gay kisses featured in two of the most complained-about adverts of last year
There's still a long way to go.
Two of the UK’s ten most complained about adverts included same-sex kisses, it has been revealed.
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) released their list of the top ten most complained about adverts on TV last week, and it made depressing reading for LGBT people.
An advert from phone provider O2 about free screen replacements sat at number eight on the list, with 125 complaints. It featured a passionate kiss between two men, which causes one’s phone screen to crack after he’s pressed against a table.
The ad sparked furious complaints that it was too “sexually explicit”, aired at time when children would be watching and that it was “offensive to religious beliefs”.
Upon investigating the ad, ASA said it didn’t contain “any graphic or overly sexual imagery” and that a gay couple “would not cause serious of widespread offence” to viewers.
Meanwhile, a Match.com ad received almost 300 complaints for featuring a kiss between two women. Complaints suggested that the ad was too “sexually explicit for children to see” but the ASA ruled that it “did not cross the line”.
ASA also noted that it had also appeared at number three on their most complained about ad of 2016 receiving almost 1,200 complaints altogether.
The most complained about ad in 2017 was from KFC, which featured a chicken dancing to rap music. The short ad was slammed for being “disrespectful to chickens and distressing for vegetarians, vegans and children”.
Other ads in the top 10 included a McDonald’s clip featuring a boy and his mother talking about his dead father, and a Maltesers ad featuring a woman in a wheelchair who describes having a spasm during a romantic encounter with her boyfriend.