Yesterday the New York Times published an interesting fluff piece in their Style section about “gay” cars. Titled “Gay by Design, or a Lifestyle Choice?” the article addresses such hard-hitting issues as whether some cars skew queer in their appearance and whether a gay-seeming car indicates an actually gay owner. Well, it wasn’t a scientific study, but the experts polled seem to agree that some cars just scream “I’m gay!” including: the VW Beetle, the Mini Cooper and the Subaru Outback. Then the article points out that Alice (Leisha Hailey) drove a Mini Cooper on The L Word:
But wait, there’s more! The article goes on to probe queer theorist Judith Halberstam about her thoughts on the matter:
“People presume you want to throw off a stereotype,” said Judith Halberstam, a lesbian who is a professor of gender studies at the University of Southern California. She drives a black Mazda 3 hatchback that she considers “butch.” But, she said, “If you are a masculine woman, you might not feel bad about it, so you might become excited about knowing how to fix your pickup, or driving a ’68 Mustang.”
Last but not least, the article mentions that Martina Navratilova was one of the first to endorse a car in Subaru’s 2000 campaign that declared “It’s not a choice. It’s the way we’re built.” Don’t forget: Dana (Erin Daniels) was also a Subaru spokesperson on The L Word. Remember the ad she did for them? “Get out. And stay out.”
(In a slightly related sidenote, I came across this article by skimming the New York Times‘ list of “Most Popular” articles, which was recently sent up hilariously in The Onion‘s article “‘Most E-Mailed’ List Tearing New York Times Newsroom Apart.” Ha!)
