Valentine’s Day Google Doodle Is Heartwarming, Controversial

Today’s animated Google Doodle is simple, heartwarming, and slightly controversial?

Let’s start with the un-controversial part, which is basically 99% of the Doodle. A young lad sees the love of his young life playfully jumping rope, completely oblivious to his existence. Of course, he thinks – what about searching Google for tips on how to woo her? He tried flowers, chocolates, stuffed animals – to no avail. I won’t ruin the end, because it’s pretty cute.

I personally like Google’s message that even their search engine can’t really help navigate the maze that is a woman’s heart. Oh, and the Tony Bennett song “Cold, Cold heart” is also a nice touch. Check it out below:

Now, the “controversial” part (and I’m really emphasizing those quotation marks) involves an image that appears for about a second and a half near the end of the Doodle. After our young lad has won over his Valentine and they begin jumping rope together, Google flashes six squares that show other couples. You have and astronaut and an alien, a cat and a dog, cookies and milk, and what appears to be two depictions of same-sex couple on the bottom row.

The middle image of two men in suits, appearing to be at a wedding, is unmistakable. The image on the bottom left could be looked at as two women, although it’s not as clear cut as the male-male image.

People on Twitter have caught it:

On one hand, good for Google for expressing their feelings on equality. But one thing felt a little off about the ending collage of couples. It most likely wasn’t intentional, but the collage itself seems to undermine Google’s assumed message. Placing the same sex couple(s) next to a princess-frog couple and an alien-astronaut couple is an odd choice. Is the same sex couple to be thought of in the same way as fictional couples that don’t really exist? Twitter users also picked up on this:

Today’s Google Doodle: Part adorable, part controversial. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.