Beautiful voices harmoniously singing “America the Beautiful” in all the different languages of the United States sounds wonderful right? Pure marketing genius. Especially for a company that is a worldwide product, whose symbol is known on a global level.
Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl commercial shows snippets of the lives of families across America, all different races and ethnicities and cultures are shown, as an age old song that is true to America is sang by young American girls of different ethnicities. These girls sing their hearts out, and if you listen without bias, it is a truly heart-warming thing.
After this commercial aired on game day, social media sites blew up with statements of people boycotting Coca-Cola. So called Americans across our beautiful country are claiming that Coca-Cola has sided with terrorism, that Coca-Cola has stated that it is ok to speak whatever language you want here in America, and that they have ruined our national anthem.
But hang on, I’m getting something…Last time I checked, our national anthem wasn’t “America the Beautiful” Maybe those haters should have paid attention to the beginning of the game where Renee Fleming sang “The Star Spangled Banner” which, weirdly enough, actually is our national anthem.
The pure stupidity of these outspoken people simply amazes me. What happened to Americans being the educated ones? Isn’t our country all about being the land of opportunity for all? A land of happiness and freedom where everyone is accepted. You can live how you want, love who you want, praise who or what you want, and knowing more than one language is encouraged. America is really a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, and Coca-Cola brought that to light in a beautiful and touching manner.
I personally have more respect for the girls that sang that American song in many languages, yet still as one song. To the people who stated that it was sung in a terrorist’s language doesn’t know anything about… well… anything. If you watch the behind the scenes videos of that commercial, you will see that those girls know more about what it means to be American than anyone on twitter that day.
Leilani, an American girl, sang the Tagalog part of the song. “I think people will feel really good in themselves to know that America is there and to hear it in many other languages spoken” I wonder how she feels when her fellow Americans call her a terrorist. If only adults could be as smart and beautiful as she and the other singers are.
We are all so caught up with this non-matter, that most missed the snippet of the montage that included two gay men roller-skating with their daughter. This was a history making moment for GLAAD, as it was the first Super Bowl ad to feature a gay family. And most of the country was too worried about the terrorism of it all.
Hearing “America the Beautiful” sung in a flowing way from English, to more than eight languages, and then back to English, shows how diverse and beautiful our country is in a 60 second montage that shows the true beauty of our country. From the different families, and people, all happy to be in America. So why do we bash it? Why can’t we embrace the melting pot that we are, the happiness that we spread and seek throughout our stories and dreams?
We can all take a hint from this commercial and those girls, and embrace who we are as Americans, as America, all ethnicities and languages included.
