A light-hearted Macy's television Christmas ad that has Donald Trump pulling Santa's beard in a spoof of the classic film "Miracle on 34th Street" has been flagged by his critics for political incorrectness. They and about 500,000 others are signing an online petition to dump him from the ad, despite the fact it is promoting donations to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Titled "Another Miracle on 34th Street," the ad shows a superimposed black-and-white Chis Kringle, played by the late actor Edmund Gwenn, running through Macy's flagship store in Manhattan and encountering various celebrities whose products are featured at the department store.
In addition to billionaire developer and reality TV star Trump, who has a line of men's formal wear at Macys, other celebrities featured in the 30-second spot include Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Martha Stewart, Tommy Hilfiger, and Carlos Santana.
Trump's cameo did not go unnoticed by his detractors, particularly a man named Angelo Carusone, who began an online petition to have Macy's remove him from the ad because of his political positions.
The SignOn.org petition, which according to some reports has garnered more than half a million signatures so far, charges that Trump:
- Uses his public platform to deny the reality of climate change. Following Hurricane Sandy, Trump publicly declared: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
- Perpetuated the racially charged birther conspiracy, repeatedly arguing that President Barack Obama has been lying and was not born in the United States.
"This is about taking away the system of perverse incentives that rewards Donald Trump for continued outbursts of sexism, bigotry and just plain meanness," Carusone said about the petition.
The effort to remove Trump from the commercial received gained momentum when Cher, after signing the petition, tweeted, "I’ll never go to Macy’s again! I didn’t know they sold Donald Trump’s line! If they don’t care that they sell products from a loudmouth racist cretin, who’d lie like ‘his rug’ to get some cheap press! I can’t believe Macy’s thinks he’s the right ‘man’ 2 (sic) represent their name!"
Macy's hasn't commented on the dump-Trump effort.
The department store says in the ad that it will donate $1 to Make-A-Wish for every letter to Santa it receives via its department stores, up to $1 million.