Fruit is your Friend

Ben and Jerry’s have produced a heart-warming piece of advertising in time for the Christmas season, tackling the highly relevant theme of racial tolerance.

After recent events, everyone seems to be in need of a little cheering up and John Lewis did a nice job yesterday by launching Buster the Boxer onto our screens. Now it’s Ben and Jerry’s’ turn, this time with the help of some adorable animated fruit.

In typical Ben and Jerry’s fashion, they have created a light-hearted yet deeply meaningful spot, which shows the racial (or ‘fruitial’) hatred that the lemons offload onto an innocent cherry as well as any other fruits that are different from themselves in an animated world seemingly similar to ours (I’m sure that the seeming similarity between the head lemon and Donald Trump is a coincidence). We are presented with multiple scenes of intolerant lemons at rallies, in newspapers and carrying out hateful acts on the streets, all of which leave the poor cherry feeling immensely secluded and ostracised by its society.

However, a moving moment occurs on a bench, when a lemon offers an earphone to the cherry to share in his enjoyment of the music it is listening to. This is quickly followed by various visual moments of solidarity between lemons and other fruits as they all push towards the goal of happy coexistence.

It is a lovely ad, and one that it is intensely significant given recent events. Ben and Jerry’s have nailed it, have a watch here and don’t hate on the lemons, what have they ever done to you?