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The
remaining television commercials featuring lesbians are
less stereotypical, and include ads for restaurants, financial
services, fashion, retail, travel, and automotive companies. In
one advertisement
for John Hancock Financial Services, a lesbian couple is depicted
returning from adopting a baby in China—something that was
so progressive that the ad in its original form was never aired.
Possibly
the best-known lesbian-themed commercial features tennis player
Martina Navratilova along with several other women athletes questioning
“what do I know?” about the performance of Subaru
automobiles. Although this
commercial is not overtly lesbian, the fact that it features
Navratilova and an auto company that has also been featured in
The L Word marks it as lesbian-friendly.
Although
the alcohol commercials pander to straight male viewers, the other
commercials also position lesbians and bisexual women as more
feminine than most women, gay or straight. It is the commercials
that feature actual lesbians (such as Navratilova) that are the
most realistic, since they allow the women to look like themselves
(in other words, nobody put a bunch of lipstick on Martina).
However,
none of these commercials are particularly new, which
means that the recent press attention to the increase in gay-themed
advertising (including a spot in VH1’s Totally
Gayer) once again shows just how invisible lesbians and
bisexual women are. The only other celebrity lesbian endorsement
mentioned in the recent New York Times article is kd lang’s
spot in Audi’s “Never Follow” campaign—which
is about two years old.
The
only major new ad featuring lesbians is the Cartier ad in which
Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels hold hands, linked together
in $4,000 “handcuff bracelets,” while gazing at each
other adoringly. (Etheridge also appeared in an ad for PETA with
her then-partner Julie Cypher in 1995, so she is no stranger to
lesbian advertising.)
While
a print ad is less costly to produce than a television commercial
and therefore is less of an investment, the Melissa-and-Tammy
ad (which ran in Vanity Fair) is actually quite significant.
First,
it demonstrates that 150-year-old French jeweler Cartier, an institution
that is almost synonymous with upper-class wealth and sophistication,
believes that its customers are comfortable with lesbianism.
Second,
it shows an actual lesbian couple in an image celebrating, essentially,
gay marriage. The tag line to the ad reads “Cartier's Menotte
handcuff bracelets symbolize everlasting love and attachment.
Here, the elegant white gold pieces seal the bond between Melissa
Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels, who celebrated their love at
a commitment ceremony this summer.”
Finally,
the Melissa-and-Tammy ad gives lesbian and bisexual women an image
that they can look at and be proud of. There are no straight men
in the image leering at the two women, and these women are undeniably
successful, attractive, and can actually afford to buy these bracelets.
In fact, this image combats the two primary stereotypes of lesbians
as either eye candy for straight men or mullet-wearing, unsophisticated,
fashion-impaired women.
In
an interview with Television Week last September, Michael
Wilke, the executive director of The Commercial
Closet, noted that “Advertising, as part of media, has a
huge impact on society's views of minorities….So, the idea
here is that advertising can do more than affect our brand preferences.
It can also affect how we think about each other.”
Madison
Avenue has a long way to go to improve the images of lesbians
in advertising, and it could start by getting rid of those beer
commercials that so obviously reflect straight male fantasies,
and include more realistic lesbian couples.
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