LGBT Advertising

For class this past week, we read an interesting article by Katherine Sender entitled "Sex Sells: Sex, Class and Taste in Commercial Gay and Lesbian Media." The article alleged that magazines with a focus on gay issues were less likely to use sexual appeal in their advertising than comparable "straight" magazines. While straight-audience magazines like Esquire and GQ rely heavily on scantily-clad beautiful people, publications like Advocate, perhaps ironically, were more conservative in their advertising. This isn't evidence of prudishness on the part of the gay magazine editors; rather, it shows how careful these magazines have to be to maintain the respect of the publishing world.

Many editors of traditionally gay magazines keep sex-related advertising out of their publications in numerous capacities and for numerous reasons. There are essentially two level of sex-based advertising that editors may try to keep out: sex-appeal advertising like Calvin Klein ads, and sex advertising like 900 numbers and escort services. The motivation to ban the former is primarily an audience-based choice, since a gay audience would be less interested in straight-targeted sex appeal advertising, and because lesbians would not be receptive to advertising targeted toward gay men, and vice versa. The latter is of graver concern.

Permitting advertisers representing sex line and escort service companies to advertise in non-pornographic gay magazines presents three major problems. First, as an aesthetic choice, any classy vibe given off by a magazine is erased once that kind of advertising is permitted. Second, that kind of advertising reinforces inaccurate stereotypes about the gay community as a sex-crazed clutch of degenerates who get their kicks from phone sex and prostitutes. Third, sex advertising limits the number of venues that editors can put their magazines; it certainly rules out sending copies of their magazine to schools for educational purposes. Considering all that, it would be senseless for editors of non-pornographic gay magazines to permit sex advertising.

Unfortunately, classy gay magazines don't operate on a level playing field, and their straight counterparts can get away with a lot more, both in advertising and in content. Gay magazines are constantly under harsh scrutiny, and they have to do everything right to maintain the respect of the journalism community. Considering the inherently unfair double standard that gay magazines are faced with, their editors do a generally excellent job of keeping their status as respectable publications, and a big part of that is the selectivity they exercise when selling ads.

The Women-Led Newsroom

We spent the better part of our third week in J375 discussing the dynamics of a women-led newsroom and how those create a different culture than the traditional, masculine newsrooms of yesteryear. A fairly recent study involving a handful of American newspapers with masculine and feminine newsrooms was conducted to find the differences between the two, and the results were pretty much as one would imagine. The masculine newsrooms were found to be more cutthroat and competitive, and the female newsrooms were found to be more nurturing and teamwork-oriented.

The results seemed to almost be stereotypes, but there was data to back them up. However, it seems that the years since the study have done something to correct this. We had Bob Zaltsberg, editor of the Bloomington Herald-Times, speak to our class on Wednesday. His newspaper was one of the ones involved in the study, and it was considered to be one of the "feminine" newsrooms. When it was suggested that the "feminine" culture in his newsroom was based on the presence of females in leadership positions, he didn't disagree, but he wasn't quick to accept it, either. In fact, calling it a "feminine" culture wasn't his preferred term. He appreciates the welcoming, teamwork-based culture that the Herald-Times' leadership has fostered, but he thinks it transcends gender and is more about creating a welcoming environment for everyone who works for him.

I'm inclined to agree. While I understand that the reactions in the study were based on observational data, it's nearly impossible to quantify something like culture and atmosphere in a newsroom. I found some of the conclusions offensive, and if I were a strong, motivated woman, I probably would have been offended by some of the conclusions about my apparent "nurturing" nature as well. I think the so-called feminine newsroom is a desirable environment for a publication, but I don't think it should be linked to gender. Instead, it should be judged on a person-to-person basis, and the genderized terminology should be dropped altogether.

Defending Racism in "All in the Family"

In class on Wednesday, we watched a clip from the popular 1970s sitcom All in the Family in which bumbling patriarch Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) has Sammy Davis, Jr. over to his house. He's impressed – even starstruck – by Mr. Davis, but that doesn't stop him from using racial slurs and making insensitive, off-color comments. It seems to escape Archie's grasp that he's being offensive, but it doesn't go over the heads of Sammy Davis, Jr. – or Mr. Bunker's son-in-law, Mike (Rob Reiner). They combat Archie's racism with logic and quips of their own, but the biggest laughs come from Archie's use of words like "colored" and insistence that he isn't prejudiced right before he says something extremely prejudiced.

All in the Family's producers defended the show's racially insensitive content by arguing that Mike's logic prevails over Archie's prejudice. But that didn't change the fact that Archie was the show's most popular character, or that Mike was known better by the nickname that Archie bestowed upon him – "Meathead." It's not as if listening to speeches by a guy called Meathead made audiences feel guilty for laughing at Archie making a joke about a Jew and a bank. It's as though the show thought it could get away with anything as long as there was a postscript explaining that what they just said was wrong.

This isn't the only instance of such a phenomenon. In Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, his character calls Asians "zipperheads" and blacks "spooks," earning plenty of laughs along the way, but eventually ends up saving the life of a young Hmong boy from his neighborhood. Since he does this, the ninety minutes of racism that precede it are suddenly much more defensible. There's countless other examples, and all of them apologize for racism that was funny and acceptable just moments before.

I don't know whether this is fair or not. I love Gran Torino, and I think All in the Family is easily the best TV show from the '70s. I just think it's interesting that racism becomes easier to stomach when it's presented in a humorous way, and when there's an implied apology for it. Perhaps if I weren't white, I wouldn't be as comfortable with such entertainment.