#you are indirectly shaming a group of people who already have to deal with prejudice outside of your 'jokes')

[mint-mumbles]

Gonna use this image any time someone says something low key sexist about Sable (ie "she's showing too much skin" regarding a fucking bathing suit 😭🤦)

I don't hear you complaining about Spirit 😭

[ibisfarrow]

How More Progressive Advertisements Have Contributed to a More Progressive Society

(Essay from my 2018 sexuality and gender studies class)

Historically advertisements and television have been used to reinforce traditional ideas of gender and sexuality, ignoring the changing times, in order to promote ideas that they believe will bring them the most support. The true effect of media and its ability to sway the masses was not utilised, instead it may have done harm by further promoting conservative ideas and isolating those who didn’t fit quite their standards, making them feel even more like a minority. Huang & Hutchinson assert that ‘persuasive communication’ is a key component of advertisement, so historical ads have not only used this method to persuade the public to buy certain products, but also strengthen any traditional ideas presented (2008, p.98). Would feminism still be considered such a dirty word if there wasn’t consistent ‘hostility from sections of the media,’ such as the various anti-feminist postcards available in the early 20th century attacking the suffragist movement (Curthoys 1994, p.16)? And would people still be insisting that ‘there were no homosexuals in the Australian armed forces’ if it weren’t for the large number of hypermasculine, heteronormative enlistment posters (Willet, G. & Smaal, Y. 2013)? Recently there has been a change in the way media and advertisers view controversial and taboo topics such as gender and sexuality, many having realised how beneficial supporting progressive ideas can be for their business through the attention it can bring. This essay will be addressing three different ways business have used progressive ideas in marketing and the effects it has had both on the business itself and the related cause/group, and along with this it will give a brief history of Gay representation in television, it’s critical reception, and how this influenced the directions of future TV shows.

During and prior to the 2017 marriage equality postal-survey many businesses put posters in their windows announcing that they were voting ‘yes’. This served two purposes, firstly, it was a show of solidarity towards the LGBT+ community; and secondly, it was a marketing ploy. Not only did it aim to make the businesses appear more welcoming to queer customers, and therefore be chosen over their competitors, but it also drew media attention to many of the companies, such as the various businesses mentioned in a Broadsheet article, which included big name corporations like Amazon, eBay, Testra, and Wordpress, as well as a plethora of small cafes and restaurants. An entire article on Techly was devoted to a Melbourne Subway store after it started printing pro-marriage equality messages on its receipts, which increased sales exponentially. Of course, I am by no means saying these acts of support were bad or selfish, even if they led to financial gain, because they likely had a hand in the postal survey’s positive results. The constant presence of the ‘vote yes’ posters may have caused what is known as the socialisation effect, a form of herd behaviour which is described by Teraji (2003, p.162) as when we are ‘influenced in our decision making by what others around us are doing’ and is a common way that humans deal with ‘environmental uncertainty’, meaning that those who were undecided on which way to vote may have chosen to vote ‘yes’ because the advertisements made it appear like the most popular option. This demonstrates how advertising’s recent indulgence of more controversial issues can both benefit the company and make society more progressive.

The first openly gay character on primetime television was the one-time character Steve (Philip Carey) on All in the Family. Steve appeared in the episode ‘Judging books by covers’, which received extreme backlash, with at-the-time president Nixon even stating in a 1971 interview that he ‘had to turn the goddamn thing off’ because homosexuality should not be glorified ‘anymore that you glorify whores’ (RICHARD NIXON TAPES: Archie Bunker & Homosexuality 2008). Despite the outrage, the episodes high rating, historical significants and praise from the gay community – which was still fairly new in the public eye – broke the ice, in a sense, and in 1972 The Corner Bar introduced the first ever recurring gay character in a primetime television show, Peter Panama (Vincent Schiavelli). Peter was largely criticised by the gay community, who saw him as little more than an offensive caricature, but that didn’t change the fact that producer Allen King was trying something that no one had had the courage to try before.

In 1994 Ikea began running the first ever television commercial to feature a gay couple, which showed the pair discussing how they met and their differing tastes in furniture while picking out a dining room table. Despite it’s late night runtime (beginning at 10pm), the ad still saw quite a bit of backlash, particularly from religious groups, with Reverend Donald Wildmon calling for an Ikea boycott and one New York store facing a bomb threat. According to an LA Times article, the Ikea headquarters were flooded with ‘hundreds of phone calls and letters’, mostly complaints but also some commending the company for its open-mindedness (1994). This wasn’t the first advertisement to feature openly gay individuals, however it was the first TV commercial to do so. It broke the ice, in a sense, and opened the door for more ads starring gay individuals. A European study on the impact of alcohol advertisements on teen drinking habits found that ‘exposure to televised alcohol advertising was found to be a significant predictor of drinking behavior’, meaning that, according to their research, teenagers who were exposed to alcohol advertisements were more likely to consume alcohol. Multiple other studies have made this same connection between tobacco advertisements and cigarette smoking in youths. While there have been no studies done on the effects of gay couples in commercials, it can be assumed that this advertising exposure effect can be applied to pretty much everything that is advertised. While gay people in ads cannot turn people gay, like so many religious organisations fear, it does normalise it and may, in the same way alcohol ads promote drinking, promote acceptance of LGBT+ individuals. Along with the increase in support for the LGBT+ community, these ads have also put pressure on other companies to create more inclusive advertisements – or at the very least remain quiet about their prejudices. A bakery that refused to serve a lesbian couple in 2o13 was forced to close its storefront and move online soon after the controversy, then close completely in 2016 due to continued backlash and poor sales brought on by their discrimination. It’s unlikely their actions would have prompted such outrage if it weren’t for other companies promoting the acceptance of the LGBT+ community. Up until 1994 the only times homosexuality had been mentioned in television advertisements were in fear-inducing Public Service Announcements about HIV/AIDS that directly or indirectly blamed the disease on ‘the depraved activities of homosexuals’ (Sendziuk, P. 2003, p11), such as the way the 1987 Australian AIDS PSA (Grim Reaper Bowling) specifies that ‘at first only gays and IV users were being killed by AIDS’, an unnecessary distinction considering the ad itself is about how anyone can contract it (Grim Reaper [1987] 2006). The ways LGBT+ rights are treated on television has a direct impact on how the public sees the matter, and so advertisements that normalise the LGBT+ community help to foster an accepting society.

Disney Channel’s live-action series ‘Good Luck Charlie’ went down in history as the first kid’s show to depict a gay couple, with the 2014 episode ‘Down a Tree’ showing the protagonist’s parents entertain a lesbian couple while their toddlers have a play-date. This episode aired near the end of what was already confirmed to be the show’s final season, so the writers did not have anything to lose from this decision. Reception for the episode was mixed, but ultimately the positive outweighed the negative and other series have followed Disney’s example. Since 2014 three non-Disney series have featured LGBT+ characters and relationships, and Disney has made history a second time with Andi Mack, a live-action show that features a gay main character. Each of these series has received media attention and polarising receptions, leading more people to discover the shows and increase their ratings, while also making queer children feel more comfortable with themselves by finally having characters to relate to.

In 2015 Target made what some considered to be a bold move by removing gender labels on their toy aisles, an act that elicited outrage from many conservative parents who didn’t seem to trust their own children to pick gender-appropriate toys without this signage. These complaints changed nothing, and soon Kmart and Toys ‘R’ Us followed Target’s example. While these stores still pack all of the traditional boys and girls toys in separate aisles, there are no labels, and so nothing to cause shame in children who wander down what some might consider the wrong aisle. This change coincided with a societal shift that brought gender politics into the spotlight, with both Caitlyn Jenner coming out and the transgender bathroom debate reached the US courts that year. This demonstrates the company’s understanding of social issues and willingness to take risks in order to appeal to a more evolved, modern audience then their previous store set-up. This became even more apparent in 2017 when Target released an ad showing an adolescent boy with their nail polish, subverting gender norms in a way that no other mainstream company has done on Australian TV since. This change reflects how society itself is becoming more open-minded, and instead of playing it safe and pandering to conservative views, companies are realising how diverse their consumers are and altering their advertisements to be more relatable.  

To summarise, the ways companies advertise has moved from promoting safe and traditional values to more controversial, yet modern subject matters. This has not only benefitted the businesses by giving them an edge their competitors don’t have, but has also helped to normalise the different identities and lifestyles being featured in these advertisements, which in turn assisted in creating a more inclusive society. Changes in representation in television programmes has had a similar effect, reflecting our current society more accurately now than ever before, and therefore to normalising certain identities and more accurately representing society than ever before.

 Sources:

Willet, G. & Smaal, Y. 2013, ''A homosexual institution': Same-sex desire in the army during World War II', Australian Army Journal, vol. 10, no. 3, p.25

Curthoys, A. 1994, 'Australian Feminism since 1970', Australian women: contemporary feminist thought, p.16

Sendziuk, P. 2003, 'Anally injected death sentence: the ‘homosexual lifestyle’ and the origins of Aids', Learning to trust: Australian responses to AIDS, p.11

Huang, Y. & Hutchinson, JW. 2008, 'Counting Every Thought: Implicit Measures of Cognitive Responses to Advertising', Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 35, no. 1, p.98

Teraji, S. 2003, 'Herd behavior and the quality of opinions', The Journal of Socio-Economics, vol. 32, no. 6, p.162

Bruijin, A., Engels, R., Anderson, P., Bujalski, M., Gosselt, J., Schreckenberg, D., Wohtge, J. & Leeuw, R. 2016, 'Exposure to Online Alcohol Marketing and Adolescents' Drinking: A Cross-sectional Study in Four European Countries', Alcohol & Alcoholism. Supplement, vol. 51, no. 5, p.620

Pineros B. 2017, An Aussie Subway store is taking it upon themselves to fight for marriage equality, retrieved 19 September 2018, https://www.techly.com.au/2017/09/08/aussie-subway-fight-for-marriage-equality/

McDermott C. 2017, Australia’s Institutions and Businesses Are Backing Marriage Equality at Every Level, retrieved 19 September 2018, https://www.broadsheet.com.au/national/city-file/article/australias-institutions-and-businesses-are-backing-marriage-equality-every-level

McMains A. 2014, 20 Years Before It Was Cool to Cast Gay Couples, Ikea Made This Pioneering Ad, retrieved 21 September 2018, https://www.adweek.com/creativity/20-years-it-was-cool-cast-gay-couples-ikea-made-pioneering-ad-161054/

Horovitz B. 1994, TV Commercial Featuring Gay Couple Creates a Madison Avenue Uproar, retrieved 21 September 2018, http://articles.latimes.com/1994-04-05/business/fi-42403_1_madison-avenue

Tharrett M. 2016, Homophobic “Sweet Cakes” Bakery Finally Closes, Three Years After Enforcing “No Gays” Policy, retrieved 21 September 2018, http://www.newnownext.com/sweet-cakes-bakery-melissa-aaron-klein-closed/10/2016/

Grim Reaper [1987] 2006, streaming video, Paul Kidd, 22 November, retrieved 24 September 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U219eUIZ7Qo&t=2s

RICHARD NIXON TAPES: Archie Bunker & Homosexuality 2008, streaming video, rmm413c, 24 December, retrieved 28 September 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TivVcfSBVSM

Mitchell B. 2017, Who was the first openly gay character on TV?, retrieved 28 September 2018, https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/07/28/first-gay-lgbt-character-tv-show/

Poul Webb 2015, 'World War 2 Propaganda Posters – part 8', Art & Artists, weblog post, 1 June, retrieved 18 September 2018, http://poulwebb.blogspot.com/2015/06/world-war-2-propaganda-posters-part-8.html

Hobson, C. & Hobson, P. 1910, Postcard, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa