On The Gay Recluse aka Merciless Killer of Giants
In which The Gay Recluse mercilessly slays giants.
Hey, remember that stupid Nike ad we complained about last week? Guess what? According to a Reuters report, Nike is taking it down.
From Reuters:
The Oregonian’s report published on Saturday quoted a Nike spokesman, Bob Applegate, saying three separate poster and billboard ads would be taken down in Portland, Oregon “as expeditiously as possible.” The ads also appeared in New York City streets and subway tunnels, the paper said.
Ha ha — we at The Gay Recluse are mericiless giant killers! Seriously, we applaud Nike for doing the right thing. But check this out:
Concerns were first raised by the weblog, http://www.gawker.com, the Oregonian said. The blog post can be seen heresketball.
Wtf, Oregonian! Thanks for not giving credit where credit is due! And hats off to Reuters for the same! And we have no idea what the weird “sketball” typo is about. Srsly, is this what passes for reporting these days?
But whatevs, we’re happy that the ads are coming down, which means homophobia is forever banished from our country and we can all live happily ever after, the end.
Filed under: Capitalism, Gay, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse | 9 Comments
Tags: Bad Reporting, Giant Killers, Homophobia, Nike, Old Media, Reuters, The Oregonian, Triumphs
The Gay Recluse 
This further proves that you seek credit, rather than change in people’s views. This sort of attention-seeking is really visible in the gay-subculture.
I know quite a few homosexual men who are tired being looked at as a super-duper-queer and overly proud group parading all the time and showing everyone how gay they are, and I think this way of overstating one’s sexuality just leads to bigger gaps between gay and straight people. I don’t need a parade to show I’m heterosexual, I find it very natural, just as some people find homosexuality.
I’m begging you, G.R. Please do not take time out of your day for this one.
Don’t worry, C — this whole Nike thing only took a few seconds, and the traffic totally made it worthwhile!
GR:s last posts proves my argument even further, it’s all about ATTENTION, AH THE SWEET ATTENTION! Is it worth hurting other “normal” gay men and women by spreading out the overly proud super-queer stereotype for the 15 minutes of fame you get?
Alex, friend! Lolz — I’m happy to admit I’m a traffic whore, but seriously, how am I “hurting” you or anyone else? And please, tell me what I”m doing to “spread” the super-queer stereotype? Details, please.
Oy.
(Who these days is taking responsibility for spreading the hurtful “super-dense” stereotype?)
As a former politician, one of my mottos was (and still is), “There is no end to the amount of good one can do…if you are willing to let other people take the credit.”
Wow, that other thread became a total dumbass magnet. It must have gotten a link from some sports blogs. It seems that because sports were involved those cretins are the ones who were being hyper-sensitive, not you. Good for you for what you did. The ads were clearly homophobic. The thing I worry about, though, is that we are beginning to see advertisers playing to the issue of homosexuality, CLEARLY knowing that it will start controversies. They cannot possibly be as stupid as they would have us believe they are. They know they can do this because it’s one of the last safe refuges of controversy…they know most people will just think “oops, Nike was a little insensitive, but we can go on buying their product and feeling good about ourselves.” Imagine if Nike’s advert had shown a white man dunking over a black man, with the words “Makin’ him yo slave”, or even a bigger black man dunking on a smaller black man, with the words “uncle tom, sellin’ ya down the river”. Yeah, I think we know what the outcome of that would have been! So the question is, by “taking the bait” are we doing the right thing? But it’s even a more complex question, maybe not “right” but maybe “opportune.” Definitely, response is needed in some cases but I think the gay community needs to choose its battles carefully. There is a danger in seeming like too much of an ambulance chaser. I think in this case, calling them out on it was right thing to do.
I think there’s also a bigger issue, which I’m only to to slightly go into because it’s so complex, about the question of how the discourses of culture and advertising actually interact. The ad was irresponsible and dangerous, particularly in a community where the problem of AIDS is a growing one because of men on the DL. But I think one has to be careful about thinking homophobic _advertising_ always results in significant societal homophobia. I don’t know the details of that, I’m not a sociologist, but I do know that what my white, wealthy, conservative parents said about African Americans influenced my view of African Americans much more than the fact that Aunt Jemina was on the syrup bottle every Saturday morning for pancakes. That’s a trite example, but I think an illustrative one. Advertising is always inherently slimy, inherently lowest-common denominator. That’s the nature of the beast. I think what politicians and preachers and role models and parents are saying is always at least 10X as influential as any poster can be.
Thanks again, Inchoative, and you raise some interesting points. I agree that the ad (like most) is much more reflective of homophobia than responsible for it, and there are much bigger homophobic fish to fry, especially in nabes like Wahi and Harlem. Oh and by the way, the ad is still up in Harlem.