That's also racially suggestive - that one can't be normal/happy unless they become a member of the dominant culture, whether it's by masking your "otherness" or finding a partner with enough social power to transform your status (are they suggesting that inter-racial dating accomplishes this?).

I'm not sure about the heteronormativity and the interracial message. It seemed to me like it was pretty innocently about complementing each other's differences, and reminded me of Shel Silverstein's "The Missing Piece" (before the end).

I might have been more convinced if the "everyone" color was purple, and the circles that got together were blue and pink... I dunno, maybe it's a thin disguise and I'm just gullible.

ugh, I get so tired of this "ooooh you must have a sweetie to be happy" meme.

Did anybody else see the paint+the inflated lips as a creepy form of blackface?

I'm sure that blackface wasn't the intent, as all of the circles have the same lips.

It reminded me of "The Missing Piece" too.

They're meant for each other? Like the blue dot and the yellow dot in a world where they're not like anything else? Clearly the logic doesn't apply, chips can also be good with salsa. What it's saying that everyone's realizing is that it's an instuctional social message tacked on to a "buy our product message". That creeps me out. How is it more profitable for frito lay to try to change our additudes than it is to just simply convince us to buy stuff?

I don't think it is about changing our attitudes, but to be rememebered. They want people to remember them, so they make a cute ad that people will remember.

Nataly, I've been extremely hesitant to say it because I feel it reflects poorly on me that I see it. But I have seen exactly what you are talking about, since I first saw the commercial.

I have to agree with wastelandamerica.com. To pick it apart, the argument is flawed. Firstly, Frito Lay suggests that their chips and dip and inferior to other snackfoods when not bought together (at which point the double-purchase only yields a food now equal to other snack foods). My biggest problem is they are clearly made to parallel human lives in order to create, yes, a "bigger idea," and provide relatibility for humans to the "feelings" of their products. If you are going to provide some analogy like this, please do not suggest that two abnormal people make one whole person together, as they can stand together in the face of adversity. The minorities (be they gendered or race-related, though there is no mistaking that color sure does stress race) are represented as sad and miserable until conformity is reached.

maybe all the fritos and onion dip i ate at sleepovers growing up rotted my brain, but my usually hyperactive gender-stereotype/heteronormativity detector isn't bothered by this. chips alone, sad. dip alone, sad. chips and dip, great. i'm not sure it's really about conformity or about the need for a hetero partner, just food.

I don't really think so...
I mean if it implied heteronormativity one of the bubbles should have feminine characteristics, right?

What do you see here?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Rorschach_blot_01.jpg

It straightforwardly suggests that single people are inherently sad.
Being coupled up is presented as the norm and single people’s
pathetic-ness is visible for all to see, even if they try to hide it.
It’s also implicitly heteronormative...

The message is also straightforwardly biased against asexual people.

The last line of the song is that "you won't have to stay inside the lines." That seems to contradict the ad's storyline, though. The ad seems to be say that to be happy, you can't be different... you have to do whatever it takes to make yourself like everyone else.