Coca-Cola generally draws on cuddly polar bears and other heartwarming imagery for its Super Bowl commercials and this year was no exception — or was it?
Coke’s stirring “It’s Beautiful” spot featured Americans of all different backgrounds singing “America the Beautiful” in a variety of languages. Whether singing in English, Hindi, Arabic, or Tagalog, the ad’s singers proved that America’s diversity is one of its most important assets.
Sadly, many on Twitter appeared to differ, as social media was soon deluged messages of anger and ignorance directed at the commercial.
Still confused as to why they were singing about America in all those foreign languages in the Coke commercial. We speak English…
— Anna Langley (@annalangleyy) February 3, 2014
Hey #coke we speak English in America #AmericaIsBeautiful … Awful commercial
Coke having a commercial with an American song in other languages… not cool. Coke. GTFO with that.
— KYBlackoutTFM (@KYBlackout) February 3, 2014
@vonzion @KAFosterSowell @CocaCola I will never drink another Coke product as long as I live
— Jerry Stephens (@runlong01) February 3, 2014
Well.. I won’t be drinking #coke anymore. We speak English in the #USA. Get over it.
— Stephanie Weaver (@stphniwvr) February 3, 2014
— alexander c (@theAFAUSTshow) February 3, 2014
Anybody else hate that they just sang the song of America, half in Spanish and there were about 2 Americans in the commercial? #Coke
— Shelby Gould (@ItsShelbyGould) February 3, 2014
Of course, this resulted in a backlash of its own, as people across the Internet rallied to the commercial’s defense.
https://twitter.com/MerrickKat/statuses/430144588997603328
You know what? Our diverse country… #itsbeautiful. Thank you #coke, because they knew they'd get backlash from xenophobic jerks.
— aquarian hellion (@maganjinsunmiii) February 3, 2014
Best ad of the first half: #Coke celebrating the immigrant spirit of patriotism in #AmericaIsBeautiful
— Eric Liu (@ericpliu) February 3, 2014
That #Coke commercial is everything that's right with America
— Matt Millar (@MMillar93) February 3, 2014
