Chips Ahoy! posted a video of a famous drag queen to promote their cookies to all the “drag mamas” on Mother’s Day.
A contestant from RuPaul’s “Drag Race” named Jose Cancel, whose stage name is Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, promoted the company’s cookies using the phrase “Get those cookies,” which is apparently a catchphrase of the drag queen’s, according to LGBTQNation.
“Y’all know what we celebratin’ today? Mother’s Day. And I’m so thankful to have a mother like mines [sic] who supports me through all my craziness and loves on me and buys me Chips Ahoy! cookies — chewy, the original, everything under the sun. My mama knows I love my cookies, so get those cookies,” Cancel says in the video.
“And what’s a sweet gesture for you to do to your mama? Your real mama, your ‘drag mama’, whichever mama, somebody, whoever take care of you, whoever you feel or consider your mama — it’s their day today. Get them a cookie, or two, a pack, buy them all the Chips Ahoy! in the world. I don’t know,” Cancel continues.
“Get those cookies! It’s Mother’s Day, it’s time to celebrate, love, all that. Cookies: get ‘em. And if ya don’t, how you gonna celebrate Mother’s Day? It’s the new chocolates,” the drag queen closes the video.
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The cookie company followed-up: “Miss [Vanessa Vanjie] said call your moms and #GetTheseCookies! Period. Happy Mother’s Day!”
When Chips Ahoy! was met with pushback over the ad, the company’s Twitter account mocked the critics.
“They’re big mad,” posted the account in response to not-so-warm reactions.
In another tweet, the company suggested those offering criticism “didnt [sic] even watch the video.”
The account for Chips Ahoy! has previously praised the featured drag queen in non-cookie-related tweets. On May 10, for example, a tweet from the company said, “[I]’m in love with [mama Vanjie]” and praised the drag queen as the “highlight from the whole season.”
Much of the criticism over the ad argues being a “drag mama” — a man dressed as a woman — is not at all comparable to the experience of being a biological, adoptive, or mother figure to a child, and to suggest so is insulting.
One critic noted that Cancel’s drag persona has a history of saying less-than-wholesome things.
As reported by The Daily Wire, another company came under fire for their Mother’s Day ad on Sunday — but for very different reasons than Chips Ahoy! did. The International House of Pancakes, commonly known as IHOP, took a beating for sharing an image of a sonogram, except in place of a baby was a stack of pancakes.
“If you have pancakes in your tum tum, does that make you a pancake mum mum? Happy Mother’s Day to ALL the moms out there!” the restaurant chain tweeted.
“Even though the IHOP tweet was obviously meant as a joke, some people were not laughing, with many users accusing the chain of being stupid at best or pernicious at worst,” The Daily Wire’s Paul Bois noted.
