Sunday, December 7, 2008

Inequality in Ads

In the gay world, we love Ads. It's what draws us to buy a shirt or try a new bar. But today it hit me that most of the Ads feature white men in many different roles.

However the Black and Latino men star in more Ads about AIDS and diseases than any other Ads. And there are barely, if any Ads with cute Asian men in them.

This observation is from mags like Frontiers, HX, Instinct, Out, and Odyssey. I'm not saying they never feature LGBT men of color, I'm saying it's not an equal amount of images. Yes, we can go to Black Inches or Latino Inches, but I expect some of our major publications to make the big step first.

Diversity is Sexy, y'all!

















3 comments:

J. Clarence said...

Diversity is sexy, but I think in the gay community we have an established food chain that favors White men at the top, and the other ethnic groups follow. Sadly it seems Asians at the bottom (or Native Americans, as I've never seen a Gay Native American porn).

But hey, it's changing bit by bit.

Wonder Man said...

I agree, where are the Native Americans? I've only seen one NA and that was in Big Eden, a very good gay love story

Anonymous said...

Start a black gay magazine. Anyone who can manage a blog can probably run a magazine. These are white gay magazines. Why shouldn't they feature mostly white gay men. Ebony magazine came about because blacks were not (and still aren't)represented in any significant degree in white magazines. Essence magazine came about because black women were not (and still aren't)represented in white women's magazines. What makes you think black gays are any different?

Regarding the ads about HIV/AIDS featuring black gay men, if 46% of black gay men are HIV-positive (and I'm one of them), how is this inappropriate?

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Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.