Abomination?
(click poster for closer look)Subway poster at 181st Street, via Gay Men of African Descent. In case you can't read them, the lethal words are Faggot, Homo, Immoral, Abomination, Sissy, Promiscuous, and Disease Spreader. Even someone as utterly insensitive as me has nothing goofy to say here, because homophobia is still, in 2007, a very serious issue. But, I got to question the word selection. How did they come up with these particular expressions? Focus groups? Heard it on the street? Thesaurus? Because a couple of them are a bit, well, off target to be killer words.
previously in Gay Advertising:
1. Grab Your Poles!
2. GOD SAVES QUEENS.
3. HOMOMETROSEXUALS™.
4. SUBTEXT: (You Gay Sluts, You!)
5. Gay men do NOT buy leather at Daffy's.
posted by copyranter @ 8:45 AM
9 Comments:
And here I thought the bullet holes were supposed to represent "o"s. I couldn't figure out what "Hoomo" meant.
Forgive my ignorance, but are gay black men tagreted more than gay white men? I ask because racism feels like one thing, and homophobia another (and this ad does nothing to speak directly to black men, as opposed to gay men, except for the picture). This ad feels like it's mixing a lot of messages up.
So, is fag-got OK to say? It appears to be the only word that didn't hit its target. And what's with the spacing between 'Kill' and 'Too'?
And how can a word actually kill someone? Does the person get so embarrassed that they run away and get hit by a bus?
Speaking of abomination, I hope you and the archeress didn't book non-refundable travel for the Mets-Mariners world series.
I'm black and gay and those words hit home, most have been used on me... yet... I'm not dead so I deem this ad uselessly ill informed.
People don't kill people, transit posters do.
And I heard ‘disease spreader' tested well.
They forgot to include "same-sex liker" and "other man dater"!
I agree some of the phrases they chose were maybe not very realistic...but when I think about the horrible words I've heard people actually use...there's no way those would make it onto a publicly displayed poster like that. And if they did, they'd be so shocking, they'd overshadow any positive message you were trying to get across.
"Abomination" comes from Leviticus, i.e., the Bible, and indeed belongs on this poster because of the misguided rants of preachers in this very neighborhood. Some young gays have to hear this word quoted by their own church-going family members, so it is pretty relevant.
thanks anon. my knowledge of the Bible could fit in a thimble.
I think they were going for the right power idea, but, like commented before, they kind of missed the mark (ouch, pun) with "words kill too"--a little overboard. Though, I'm not a gay black man, so I really don't have the right perspective to be judging. Though I will say: I'm glad the ad is out there for awareness purposes and to try and make the issue a non-issue.
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