Deborah Lipp

I don’t actually see many commercials, what with the TiVo and the Netflix and all, but the other day I saw a Dunkin Donuts commercial that made my eyeballs bleed from the sheer offensiveness of it all.

The commercial shows unhappy looking people ordering latte and cappucino and other specialty coffees. They complain

My mouth can’t form these words. My mind can’t find these words. Is it French or is it Italian? Perhaps Fritalian.

At this point, my eyeballs hurt from the pain but do not yet bleed. Making fun of foreign “unpronounceable” words is nasty. But then they offer you Dunkin Donuts, a place where you can order your latte without resorting to foreign words.

Read that again. Latte. Without foreign words. Feel the blood dripping from eyeballs? Yes you do.

So is this some sort of irony? Is DD saying their customers are SO FUCKING STUPID that they don’t know “latte” is a foreign word? Does this oh so clever irony thereby justify and excuse making fun of nasty-sounding ferriners? (No.)

And I’m bothered because if you know me, you know I loves me some plebian. And therefore, the fact that I actually prefer plain ol’ Dunkin to a fancy Starbucks coffee delights me. And this commercial is clearly designed to establish plebian cred. Clearly designed with the assumption that plebian=ignorant xenophobic slob. Which is more than disturbing.

And p.s., while I was googling for a link to the video, I found I am not the only blogger offended by this bit of nasty.