Companies Don't Necesarrily Want GLBT people, Just Their Money

Once again, a company tries to court the gay dollar to help their fledgling business.  To Amtrak, I say, kiss my ass!  Where has Amtrak been on other important issues for GLBT people?  As far as I am concerned, epic fail.  Not to mention that for most gay people, the only way they travel by train is the subway system. 

White Washed Broadway

In the interest of full disclosure, I work in marketing and public relations and fully understand niche marketing.  That, however, in no way means that I like the concept or that I think it's valuable from a consumer/user perspective.    

The consumer me sees niche marketing as a ploy by companies to get me to spend my money and most of the time I tend to reject that sort of marketing/outright ploy.  The primary reason I do so, is that it rarely means that the company supports your "community" but rather that there is market research that shows you and your "community" are an "untapped market" or is a growing consumer segment.

Fame Monster

Before I even start this post, I have to go on record saying that I am not a fan of Lady Gaga (or Lady Caca as many in the media call her).  I don't find her music particularly interesting or innovative.  What is innovative and interesting in many ways is the way in which she has creating the Gaga brand.  Let's not forget that before she created Lady Gaga, she was just a singer/songwriter toiling away trying to make it big (like thousands of people before and since her rise to fame). 



With a few crazy costumes and a danceable beat, she has become a worldwide phenomenon sparking college courses and treatises on her persona and female empowerment.  Now she's has even been banned from the Yankees' clubhouse and was accused of upstaging her sister's graduation while "attempting" to not upstage her.

On one hand, one could argue that Lady Gaga is in some ways eschewing the idea of a culture industry, developed by Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer which says that pop culture is an industry that produces standardized good for mass consumption, but that would only be true if she really pushed music forward and I don't believe she does that.  Perhaps she is pushing boundaries with her elaborate costumes, but one could argue that Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City accomplishes that as well with her often ridiculous outfits. What I think is really at work is that, to borrow her own words and use them against her, she's become a fame monster.

It seems that she just can't stay out of the spotlight. It seems the antics she tries to pull off as "just being Gaga" feel calculated for maximum publicity value.  What makes it grating for her and somewhat endearing for someone like Kathy Griffin is that at least Griffin will admit what she's doing.  Certainly, we (collectively speaking) are not without fault.  If we cease to buy magazines that print stories about Lady Gaga (and other celebrities) or watch the endless parade of newsertainment programs that report every detail of a celebrity's life, maybe it'd all just go away.           

American Caterwauling

"This... is American Caterwauling" should be the way Ryan Seacrest introduces American Idol.

What's become clear to me is that I watch American Idol for vastly different reasons than the producers of the show intend (in a nod to Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding). I like the show and watch, but it's not because I am looking for the next great artist, but because it is so ingrained in our pop culture sensibility that to not watch is to cut yourself off from the "water cooler sessions" the following morning. With the exception of Kelly Clarkson, Fantasia Barrino (which I bought and promptly sold at a used music store), Jennifer Hudson and Allison Iraheta, I've not purchased music from any other American Idol winner/finalist. The singers I like (and whose CDs I have purchased) all have one thing in common: they are belters.

I'll tackle the last point first. I like a good belter as much as the next gay, but American Idol has suffered from the desire to applaud singers who employ what I call vocal pyrotechnics. (I know, the argument could be made that Jennifer Hudson was given the boot relatively early, but Fantasia, another belter, went on to win the competition in one of the most mismatched American Idol finals in history). When a singer can hit a "glory note" that is reason for us to applaud him or her -- foregoing any sense of nuance related to singing. When someone sits and sings a slow song, it's deemed "sleepy" by the judges. But when someone like Season 9 contestant Siobhan Magnus hits notes, we stand up, cheer and take notice.

siobhan 12 @ Yahoo! Video

I admit, Siobhan delivered a WTF moment for me last night and we collectively forgot about most of the contestants who came before (or after) her because we have been trained to focus on things like, "wow, did you hear that note?" "he has a great falsetto," etc. rather than that was a really solid vocal. It seems that we want/expect "good singing" to be loud and long. In other words, can you hit a note and then make it last until we think you are within seconds of passing out from air deprivation? The thing most of us remember from Mariah Carey's early career is her ability to hit the "dog whistle" note, not that she is really a great singer and interpreter of music.

Tiger Woods: Celebrity Endorsement Counterpoint

According to Chris Rojek, one of the reasons that the concept of celebrity has increased recently is because of the commodification of everyday life. And Tiger Woods, in addition to his status as a world class golfer, has also become a world class commodity -- that is, until it was revealed that he has had a number of extramarital affairs. According to some of his sponsors including Accenture, Gatorade and AT&T, this "lapse of judgment," "violation of his marriage," "battle with sex addiction," or whatever one wants to call it, has tarnished his once pristine, monogamously married image as a marketing gimmick. And as such, they have chosen to sever ties with him as a celebrity endorser.

Maybe I am among the minority of people who don't buy a product simply based on a celebrity endorsement, but marketing expert Robert Grede believes that it is still a great way to attract attention, create excitement for products, and build awareness among prospects and customers. So, perhaps those companies who have dropped Tiger Woods are not necessarily damning him and his actions per se as much as positioning [insert company name here] as a company that stands up for "traditional family values" and "the institution of marriage."

But while some, like Laura Kipnis assert that marriage is an equal-opportunity oppressor, trapping men and women in a life of drudgery, emotional anesthesia, and a tug-of-war struggle to balance vastly different needs, others believe marriage is an institution that needs to be preserved and protected (especially from the gays). These opposing positions largely support a Western ideology. Watch maker, Tag Heuer is continuing its use of Tiger Woods in its advertising, particularly in China, where the number of mistresses one has increases street cred.

But what really should be the test is whether anyone was less likely to drink Gatorade (or prohibit their children from doing so) simply because Tiger Woods, adulterer extraordinaire, endorses the product. Did it really come down to the fact that these companies were not seeing the return on investment from the Tiger Woods endorsement deal and this scandal provided an easy way out? After all, our culture is all about consumption and businesses are all about making money.

Framing Phobias

Whether we will admit it or not, media, at its core, works to frame events for us. Most often, news media works to frame blackness as a symbol of deviance, destruction and generally all things horrible. And as sociologist Herman Gray notes in his fantastic book Watching Race, "... the demonization of blackness -- welfare queens, the aggressive black female, the menacing black criminal -- in the public sphere of media spectacle... enables[s] the mobilization of counterimage of blackness -- the figure of individuality, competence, exceptionalism -- as difference." (See Harry Reid's comment about President Obama for more on how educated blacks are framed as different than "others."

In addition to this framing of blackness as menacing, the news media also work to frame phobias for us. Erica Chito Childs, in her book Fade to Black and White, asserts that the media frame fear of interracial relationships for us and that whenever these unions occur three things happen:

1) The relationship is often doomed from a long-term perspective;
2) The white person in the relationship is shown to be somehow deviant; and
3) The opposition to the interracial relationship is centered on black opposition rather than white opposition.

It's this third point that is most important for the purposes of this post. This framing can also be used as a way to look at homophobia. There is, without a doubt, homophobia that exists among white people. We see it nearly everyday in evangelicals and conservatives using scripture to denounce gay rights or by using "slippery slope" arguments about how gay rights will create a social Apocalypse. And one can either agree or disagree on their position by saying they are right or wrong -- and it is largely determined on where you stand on social issues. But it's the framing of black opposition that is sometimes the most telling.

While the video embedded below does not feature blacks, it's important to know that most people (particularly Americans) make no distinction for black skin and blacks are thereby implicated by the video. In addition, while homophobia among whites is framed as being either a religious issue or one related to income or education level, all blacks are often stereotyped as being homophobic. Despite efforts like the ad campaign launched last week on Long Island, there is still a long way to go to get the media to stop framing events so that we can stop relying on stereotypes to label people.

Quality as a Brand Attribute

For decades, American consumers have haughtily disavowed American auto makers as being less well built/crafted than their foreign counterparts. Toyota was one of the beneficiaries of that sentiment. I even considered purchasing a Toyota, but opted for a Ford because two of my sisters, a brother-in-law and two ex-brother-in -laws all work for Ford and my father and my uncle retired from Ford. I bought my Ford Focus not necessarily because I wanted it, but because it gets great gas mileage and I could get a great discount through my father. But, it turns out that Toyota, like most of its counterparts is having issues with quality. Yes, American cars have suffered from quality issues for quite some time, but maybe now we'll start looking again at American made cars, like the Ford Focus which is made by an American company and is actually made in the United States. In the short term, American auto makers really have a prime opportunity to take back some of the market share from Toyota in the long term. The fact is, Toyota is -- and will remain -- a leader in the auto industry, but American automakers have been give a gift in a bit of leveling of the playing field. It's now up to them to take advantage of that opportunity.