By now most people have heard of Coca-Cola’s “America is beautiful” commercial because of the controversy behind it.  If you have not, it is a commercial that aired during the Super Bowl where a few young girls of different cultural backgrounds sing the patriotic song “America the beautiful” in their different languages. This commercial has had a wide range of reactions. Some say it is a beautiful commercial, others argue that the people represented in the commercial are not American, and some are offended that their ethnicity was not represented in the commercial. The rest of Americans have not seen the commercial or do not care about it. After all, it is just a commercial.

I am one of the people who thought the ad was beautiful, but I do not think there should be such hype behind this commercial. Coca-Cola posted the ad on YouTube with the description, “The only thing more beautiful than this country are the people who live here.” What is the big deal? It was just a group of young girls singing. Why can’t we as the diverse culture we are just watch the commercial and enjoy it?  America is a big melting pot; there are people here from all over the world who speak languages other than English. I accept the diversity around me, so I enjoyed the commercial.

There are many bilingual people here in America, so it was clever of Coca-Cola to have this nationalistic song sung in languages other than English, including Spanish, Hebrew, Mandarin and a few others. Myself  being bilingual may be one of the reasons I find the commercial more entertaining than others. There is no official language in the United States, so the argument “speak English, this is America” is not at all a valid argument. Coca-Cola tried to incorporate many different types of Americans into their commercial, and I am certain that they were successful.

People criticize this ad by calling it un-American. I think the commercial was a good representation of America. The people who live here are Americans, no matter what languages they speak or how they vary in appearance. There is no way Coca-Cola could have represented all the ethnicities in America, because, realistically, commercials are fairly short. There is no way anyone could possibly represent all the diversity in America in just one 60-second commercial.

There is too much unnecessary attention being paid do behind this commercial. It portrayed America as it is: a mix of ethnicities and languages, and I liked that. There shouldn’t be any negativity directed at this commercial for showing the truth.  People need to take a look around. America is full of diversity. So get over it. It was just a commercial.