Scottish ad industry blog The Drum is partnering with Chip Shop Awards and One Minute Briefs to challenge creatives to "show how Winter Olympics sponsors could promote the LGBT message in Russia."
One Minute Briefs is featuring hundreds of entries on Twitter. Some are mere sketches, and others are rife with gay stereotypes and crude sexual imagery. The ones I'm featuring here are among my favourites out of the 50 shortlisted by The Drum.
The ad above was shared by my favourite Sicilian-Canadian reader, Jackie Di Caro. It appears in the Toronto Star.
Looking for background, I found that the "lifestyle" section of TD's web site also features a video with two men on the page about "becoming a couple".
What's cool about this isn't the fact that a major brand is targeting gay consumers. With their stereotyped double-income-no-kids lifestyle, committed same-sex couples are a marketer's dream. But instead of running a niche campaign in "gay" media, TD is simply adding same-sex couples to the rotation of its depictions of families. And it's not even a recent development. TD has participated in, and sponsored, Pride parades for several years. The bank recently produced its own had-hitting It Gets Better video. And it walks the walk — it is recognized as one of "The Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality".
Via This Gay Relationship
What will all this gay-positiveness do to one of Canada's largest banks, and to society as a whole?
...if TD doesn't stop presenting all of these positive images in their newspaper ads, I might just get the idea being a gay male couple is as normal and natural in Canada in 2011 as has been the case for straight couples since the beginning of time (or at least since TD began advertising in big city newspapers). I'm not sure what would happen if the general population started to get that idea. Who knows where that could lead us.
This is all awesome, from a progressiveness point-of-view, but it is also a great example of how traditional organizations are adapting to a changing social climate. In 2012, TD reported it had $1.6 billion of net income in the fourth quarter, bringing the total for year ended Oct. 31 to $6.47 billion.
Nice, isn't it? A very Christian message of inclusivity and unconditional love. But it didn't sit well with the entire Christian community in Toledo, particularly with Rev. Tony Scott of the Church on Strayer. He was moved by some unknown force to respond with another billboard:
Rev. Scott has some very strong feelings about Biblical orthodoxy. He told the Toledo Blade:
"I love everyone. There's nothing on that billboard about hate. I'm getting hate mail from lesbian and gay people, but my point is that I love them too much to let someone believe a lie. I love this city too much to let a lie be sown." [...] "What the gay organizations have done is they have misused the biblical passages, according to the experts."
He then gives his own interpretation of the Genesis creation myth:
"God's definition of marriage is that he plumbed [Adam] and he plumbed [Eve] so that the two of them could procreate. Anything relationally between the sexes that does not have that potential, and that opportunity, does not come from God."
Jamaica has a problem with gay people. At least, that's what I've thought since Time Magazine called it "The Most Homophobic Place on Earth" in 2006 because of the shocking amount of violent hate crime committed against homosexual men and women there (and which, it claims, is often ignored by police).
Jamaica's popular culture has a strong tradition of music, particularly reggae and dancehall. As a consequence performers are high profile, either (depending on perspective) seen as influencing popular opinion or reflecting it. Artists such as Buju Banton, Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Vybz Kartel, Mavado, Elephant Man, Sizzla, Capleton, T.O.K., Anthony B and Shabba Ranks, write and perform songs that advocate attacking or killing gays and lesbians.
Apologists argue that these artists are simply championing Rastafarian values in contemporary reggae music by recording material which is concerned primarily with exploring Rastafarian themes, such as Babylon's corrupting influence, the disenfranchisement of ghetto youth, oppression of the black nation and their abiding faith in Jah and resistance against perceived agents of oppression. Homosexuality is enmeshed with these themes.
One of Beenie Man's songs contains the lyrics: "I'm a dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays." Lyrics from Sizzla's songs include: “Shot batty boy, my big gun boom” (Shoot queers, my big gun goes boom)."A Nuh Fi Wi Fault" by Elephant Man rants: "Battyman fi dead!/Please mark we word/Gimme tha tech-nine/Shoot dem like bird".
Wikipedia goes on to point out that The Canadian High Commission in Jamaica requires "performers who wish to tour in Canada to sign an Entertainer Declaration that states that they have read and fully understand excerpts from the Criminal Code of Canada, Charter of Rights and Human Rights Act and "will not engage in or advocate hatred against persons because of their... sexual orientation."
Yeah. It's that bad down there. And in that context, you will surely not be surprised that this ad by JFLAG, about acceptance, has been refused play on Jamaican television:
The Jamaica Observer reports (with the unfortunate headline "Blow to gay ad - TVJ rejects J-FLAG’s PSA"):
"The PSA, which features former Miss Jamaica World and Miss Jamaica Universe Christine Straw and her gay brother Matthew Straw encouraging Jamaicans to show love to their family members and friends who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, was launched last month. J-FLAG was hoping to have the PSA aired on national TV this month.
However, Television Jamaica (TVJ), one of the island's major television stations, says it will not be carrying the PSA at this time, citing concerns about the structure of the announcement, among other things."
Broadcasters cited complaints from church groups. Associate pastor of the Tower Hill Missionary Church in Kingston, Mark Dawes, gives a typical comment:
"As innocuous and as innocent as that public service announcement might appear, it is part of a wider plan by militant homosexuals to gradually desensitise Jamaicans to homosexuality, so that homosexual behaviour and practice can become mainstream in Jamaica."
Fortunately, the internet is less afraid of catching the ghey than Mr. Dawes...
