Tastefully Gay - increase in 'gay vague' advertising - Brief Article

The Gay '90s are so over. Welcome to the Vaguely Gay 2000s.

A recent New York Times House and Home article, "When Intentions Fall Between the Lines," deconstructed several cutting-edge ads typifying the new ad coinage "gay vague." An ad for a swivel-top trash can that says "Swings Both Ways" is cited as a bold example of the genre. Waterford Wedgwood swings both ways with a generic image of two men and a woman strolling with champagne flutes. In gay publications, the version runs with the line, "It's time your crystal came out of the closet as well," superimposed over the picture. Another ad features two white, fit, smug men sitting on a white sofa with a cherub on a child-size chair between them. Straight audiences are meant to be confused but intrigued about the triangulation, while gay consumers are meant to rise up as one, go out, and buy the sofa and child.

Gay vague ads target young gay bucks with big bucks who don't want to label themselves. The agencies call that label-less state "genderation inspecific." Even that is vague. It is really "orientation unspecific." (In Google-researching this article, I was unable to substantiate my hunch that bisexuals would be cheering the new gay vague.)

Vague as the ads are, they still can set some straight people off. Young conservative pundit Amy Holmes got quite steamed about a Subaru ad that reads: "It's not a choice. It's the way we're built." She opined that the ads make straight people out to be dolts. She felt the ad for the Lesbaru was not just a blatant pitch to the gay niche but was also selling the notion that the straight, urban world is an enemy of liberation. Hey, we're not the ones buying the Humvees.

For me, "gay vague" is more of an explanation of the unsettling feeling I've been having about my dear old gay movement. June used to be called Gay Liberation Month. After marathon, knock-down, drag-out committee fights, the words "Lesbian," "Bisexual," and "Transgender" were added. Then, because all those words took up too much space, it was abbreviated to GLBT, which made us sound like a sandwich. In the last two Junes, all those hard-won words and letters have been dropped in favor of the bland "Pride" brand, and "Liberation" has fallen by the wayside. Gay Liberation marches have become Pride Street fairs or trade shows that sound like a line of home-care products.

Now rainbow decals and equal signs are wink, wink, nudge, nudge brands meant to signify a gay identity. Attending WNBA games (the new women's music festival), entering gay chat rooms (the new closet), going on gay cruises ("The only straits you'll see are Gibraltar!") all pass as political work. Consumerism as activism? I'm not buying it.

Ellen DeGeneres is back. HBO, home of Sex in the City, has given Ellen a new one-hour special. Her coming out, though tasteful, was vague enough, and it shorted out a lot of people, you'll remember. Ellen has not lost her ability to be wicked funny, but I wanted to hear that same smart humor turned on the details of her coming to coming out and its aftermath. Her hilarious, though wordless, dance at the beginning of her show represented that whole historical moment, and I was left like Tony Bennett, feeling somehow sadly gay. But I have faith that she will get down to the details in her new series.

The Log Cabin Syrup Republicans announced that anti-ERA, anti-choice, pro-Mandela-in-prison Dick Cheney is a moderate because he has a lesbian daughter (don't tell his wife, Lon). They grant him points for not disowning her or having her committed to an ex-gay rehab. They give themselves goosebumps thinking that Dick did not can his Pentagon press secretary Pete Williams when he was outed. Cheney's got gravitas, they tell us.

When they have to resort to Latin, I get afraid.

Kate "She's got grava lox!" Clinton is a humorist. This column is supported by a grant from the Purple Moon Foundation.

COPYRIGHT 2000 The Progressive, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group