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This Is Why We Need More Gay Couples in TV Ads

Hallmark/Lesbian Couple Commercial

The first time I saw a lesbian couple in a TV commercial was an IKEA ad a couple of years ago. I remember it took me a while to understand the existing love connection between the girls because they made them look like roommates at first glance. However, after watching the commercial several times, I realized that a romantic relationship was definitely implied.

Catching a lesbian couple in a commercial, or an ad, is like buying a new car. Before you buy it, you don’t really notice how many of them are already circulating on the streets. But once you own it, you see them everywhere. Just kidding, it’s nothing like that.

Whenever I see a lesbian or a gay couple on a TV commercial, I think: “Yay! Equality! Finally.” Unfortunately, most major brands tend to include gay couples when they think they could benefit the most from it. For example: Valentine’s Day or Pride.

A few weeks ago, Lexus decided to air a commercial featuring a gay couple throughout ABC’s transmission of When We Rise. The ad opens on a handsome, successful man rowing as the sun comes up. He later suits up to go to work, but before heading out, he says goodbye to his beautiful husband.

Now, placing a commercial geared towards the LGBT community during a TV show that tells the story of Gay and Civil rights is no coincidence, and while I applaud Lexus for being “ahead of the curve,” I can’t help but ask, why don’t they do this more often? Instead, the company has chosen to air the straight version of the same ad nationwide.

However, there are other big companies that are definitely stepping up, like Campbell’s. Earlier this year, the canned soup mogul published a commercial featuring a lesbian couple that we are all too familiar with: Jill Sloane Goldstein and Nikki Weiss (The Real L Word).

The 25-second clip, hashtaged “RealRealLife,” aims to describe the campaign’s primary slogan: “Campbell’s. Made for real, real life.” The ad opens with Nikki saying, “Babe, I’m making soup. Do you want any?” Jill replies, “No, thanks. I have a salad.” Fast-forward to the two of them eating their meals sitting on the couch in front of the TV, where Jill inevitably steals some of Nikki’s delicious chicken noodle soup. Just like real life, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V39_Q6UqGc

As a married lesbian woman, I can certainly identify with Nikki and Jill’s “real life moment.”

Unfortunately, there are those who can’t.

“LGBT are all birth-defects caused by jacked-up sex hormones. Homofascists have been trying to force everyone to think that LGBT is normal,” David Williams commented on Campbell’s Soup YouTube channel. “LGBT is not normal, and never will be, no mater how many heterosexual women pretend to be lesbian in a commercial because real lesbians would look butchy, because a commercial will not cure a birth-defect.”

LGBT supporters immediately came to the rescue.

L. Ingersoll: Man, look at the hateful idiots all going to get different soup because they need their safe space. Hint: the queers are everywhere, no soup is safe.

Alejandromolinac: Yeah. I am queer and this is beyond pandering…It’s insulting.

L. Ingersoll: Going by that, every single commercial ever with a straight couple is pandering.

Alejandromolinac: I know right…Cause couples is the only way to advertise…Besides I only notice men anyways.

The conversation between these YouTube users leads me to the following questions: Is it O.K. for LGBT people to accept straight couples as “normal” but not O.K for straight people to accept LGBT couples as “normal”? Would it not be “normal” to redefine the concept of “normal” as societies around the world change and evolve? Have straight people forgotten that LGBT people are also everyday-consumers?

“Gay millennials tend to have the view that most companies are at minimum neutral toward and at best strongly embrace their identities,” Matthew Wagner, Account Supervisor at Target 10 told Bustle back in 2014. “The bar for LGBT marketing has been raised higher than ever…campaigns need to be truly impactful through a combination of insights, messaging, tonality, and knowledge.”

Another big company that seems to be embracing all the colors of the rainbow is Coca-Cola. Earlier this month, the soft-drink giant released its latest spot, “Pool Boy,” as part of the brand’s #TasteTheFeeling campaign. In the commercial, a young woman is seen ogling her family’s pool cleaner — dressed in open button-up shirt exposing his chest — through the window of her home. The young woman’s brother, meanwhile, is admiring the very same pool boy from his upstairs bedroom.

At the same moment, both brother and sister get the idea to run outside and offer the sweaty man a Coke. But the admiration for the attractive handyman is multi-generational. Their mother ends up beating both siblings to the punch.

https://youtu.be/wWBQP-bxfX0?list=PLCIVZWq1FAwfhS-NHEJmysEEwe3NDdQ-t

“It’s a human story, and Coca-Cola is at the center,” Coca-Cola’s global Vice President of Creative and Connections, Rodolfo Echeverria, told Adweek.

Echeverria makes an excellent point: “it’s a human story.” No matter if you are straight, gay, lesbian, transgender, pansexual, or other, we are all humans, and we are all worthy of representation. Gay, lesbian, and transgender families are a reality, and the world might as well embrace it because we are not going anywhere.

I personally believe that the inclusion of LGBT topics in American TV shows, movies, music, and the media in general, has contributed to the acceptance of our community in the U.S. Therefore, adding more gay, lesbian, and transgender couples to TV commercials and ads across the country, as well as other countries, is a no-brainer to me.

Up until now, the LGBT community has embraced the “straight family structure.” But most of us would be lying if we said it wouldn’t be nice to see more families like ours up on the screen.

Others, such as AE reader Shasta Hagar Goff, may disagree: “I don’t need the media or much less a person like Miley Cyrus to tell me how should I feel or live my sexuality (I really disagree with her). I was raised in a Catholic family and I’m very happy and blessed for it.”

She continued, “I don’t need anything but the love of my family, friends and God, which I have plenty of them, and the most important to loving yourself. Life is not what we see on TV or movies, so we have to figure it out how to be happy with the one we are living in.”

Although I agree with Shasta when it comes to loving yourself and not letting anyone tell you how to live and feel your sexuality, as a mom-to-be, I have to admit that I would love nothing more than for my daughter to grow up thinking that her family is “normal,” and not “the new normal.” And whether we like it or not, the media does play a big role in all of this.

 

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