Conservative media watchdog group One Million Moms is angry about Ellen DeGeneres' new Christmas ad for J.C. Penney, NBC's "Today Show" reports.
DeGeneres, a spokeswoman for the department store, is featured in a holiday ad in which she asks a group of Santa's elves to make more toys for a giveaway contest but winds up making a bunch of clumsy "small" jokes in the process.
The ad did not sit well with the group, who said the following about DeGeneres (via Boston.com):
Since April, JC Penney's has not aired Ellen DeGeneres in one of their commercials until now. A new JCP ad features Ellen and three elves. JCP has made their choice to offend a huge majority of their customers again. Christians must now vote with their wallets. We have contacted JC Penney's several times in the past with our concerns, and they will not listen. They have decided to ignore our complaints so we will avoid them at all costs.
Although One Million Moms is peeved about DeGeneres' ad, others don't quite understand the problem.
"THIS IS SO OFFENSIVE -- Said nobody with a brain ever," one viewer wrote, according to NBC. "There is nothing wrong with this. 'one million moms'... needs to relax, worry about raising their kids and not spending time & energy on hating a '30 second' holiday clip of elves and Ellen at a diner. Really?" wrote another.
In February, One Million Moms, founded by anti-gay, conservative Christian group American Family Association, first spoke out against DeGeneres being hired as a spokesperson for J.C. Penney.
"Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families," the organization wrote on its website. "By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years."
Apparently heeding no attention to anti-gay critics, however, J.C. Penny ran a Father's Day ad featuring two dads this summer.
At the time, AdWeek wrote:
Given the timeliness of the gay-marriage issue, it's not surprising to see brands take a stand, but when a classic American brand like JCPenney steps up, it's pretty clear where America is headed.
DeGeneres is not the only one to draw the the ire of One Million Moms. The group has protested Urban Outfitters (for showing two women kissing in their catalogue), Skittles (for bestiality themes) and NBC's "The New Normal" (for featuring gay couples).
Before You Go
