CASHING IN ON QUEERS:

FROM LIBERATION TO COMMODIFICATION

Nadia Guidotto

York University, Toronto, Canada

Visibility is a trap (Foucault, 1977, p. 200).

Once upon a time, political scientists used the term homo economicus to refer to the rational, calculating, utility-maximizing agent of Rational Choice Theory  (Hollis, 2002).  That homo did not have a sexual orientation—at least in theory.  Today, the concept conjures images of gay men toting GAP bags, wearing Prada shoes and redecorating some hopelessly unfashionable straight guy’s apartment while giving him a personal makeover—and you can watch it all unfold weekly on the boob tube (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy).  Plus, you can shop where the queer[1] guys shop and buy the stuff the queer guys buy since all the corporate logos are prominently displayed and promoted on the show.  Talk about flaunting it.  The gay, white, youthful male has become (or arguably has always been, he is just more visible now) the frontline gay representative.   He is ushering in the next phase of gay liberation, complete with increased media attention, corporate sponsorship and the adoration of “faghags”[2] everywhere (Cho, 2001, p. 37).  I call it the McQueer phase.  And I am not blaming the gay, white male for the commodification and misrepresentation of gay identity.  Indeed, that poor chap is getting the short end of the stick as well.  Rather, I am concerned that what many are toting as “liberation” is nothing short of being sold (out) in a Styrofoam container with a side of fries.  People will buy queer images and eat them super-sized, but they are not getting all the ingredients listed up front.  Moreover, they are not giving anything back to the cash cows that they are devouring. 

Metaphors aside, the gay marketing moment that seems to be sweeping North America has some serious drawbacks (Gluckman and Reed, 1997).  In this paper, I will argue that queers must proceed with caution when digesting this increased visibility in the media and consumer culture.  Whether it is recognition in market research, the commodification of gay identity, or finally, recognition as a consumer category—all of this attention requires careful consideration in terms of the social and political impact it has (or does not have) on the lived experience of being queer in North America.

 

The Gay Niche and Market

Economists differ widely in explanations of how the capitalist economy affects minority rights.  One of the central arguments proffered by liberal, laissez-faire economists is the capitalist economy is the best system to protect minority rights because it allows individuals, regardless of social position, the freedom to exercise their will with every purchase. In a socialist economy, by contrast, individual consumptive patterns are restricted by the state and are subject to political judgment (Pioré, 1997).  However, I would argue that the capitalist economy actually stifles diversity and minority interests.  First of all, while a capitalist economy, at least in theory, is not supposed to pay attention to social issues like racism, homophobia, and classism, the institutions that buttress the economy are often imbued with such power imbalances.  Second, capitalist economies operate on mass production.  Profit is achieved through a high productivity rate.  High productivity is achieved through the production of large batches of standardized goods (Pioré, 1997).  As such, a basic level of conformity emerges, creating less space for heterogeneity.  Third, pressures from monopolies and large corporations can curtail the individual’s ability to make a free choice.  Choosing between one fast food restaurant and another does not equate to freedom, especially where minorities are concerned, since mass-produced goods tend to reflect the cultural ideology of the majority.  Finally, while niche markets seem to remedy the problem of mass-production (Pioré, 1997),  I remain skeptical that specialized markets have created more diversity with regards to ideology since profit is the goal, not liberation. Once the niche is deemed profitable, then smaller, specialized enterprises—which are often more willing to combine economic with social and political interests—are driven out of the market by large corporations. In addition, even a niche market requires a basic level of mass production or else it ceases to be profitable. As a result, uniformity and centralization occur even within the niche, or as Michael Pioré argues, gays and lesbians gain acceptance at the expense of “chopping off [their] own ‘fringe’ elements” (Pioré, 1997).  Furthermore, niche markets, when they do serve gay and lesbian interests, do not necessarily promote acceptance or “cross fertilization” in terms of product sharing between queer and non-queer communities since niches are, by definition, a subgroup of the mainstream.  As such, queer specialty items are contained in the gay niche. 

While it is important to look at how a niche market may be problematic in theory, an analysis of how the “gay niche” is actually quantified and targeted provides another useful perspective.  In 1999, an American study was conducted to survey the household income of queer couples. This study revealed that the annual value of the gay and lesbian market is $513 billion (U.S.).  Gay household incomes are 41% above the national average, while lesbian household incomes are 26% above the national average (GLINN Media Corp., 2000).  These statistics sound impressive; however, market research into the queer demographic is inevitably flawed.  When one attempts to quantify this portion of the population, how do we account for people who are bisexual?  Do transgender and transsexual people fit into the equation at all?  What about people who sleep with members of the same-sex but do not identify as gay?  It all boils down to the fact that there is not one definition of what constitutes this subject position.  Commonly, a gay person is defined by his or her homosexual attraction.  Others say the definition relies on emotional bonds (Faderman, 1981). Some even identify as gay as a political posture (Bunch, 1986).  Thus, how do we know that there is a unified gay subject to be counted?  Yet even if there was an operational definition for survey purposes, homosexuality is still highly stigmatized and even outlawed in various jurisdictions, so there is no guarantee that people are responding to surveys honestly.  Compounding this problem is the fact that queer respondents are more likely to be out or willing to answer such surveys if they are economically secure (Fejes, 2000).  Without this security, it is unlikely that people would disclose their sexual orientation for fear that they might lose their job or other sources of income. 

Further issues arise when one looks at how the surveys are conducted in the first place.  Initial studies were circulated primarily by gay newspapers and magazines (Badgett, 1997).  Thus, only those people who either had subscriptions, or could afford specialized periodicals, were surveyed.  In addition, Steven Strub notes that people who are added to gay lists and subsequently targeted for studies are those who attend gay events (Badgett, 1997).  This group would also have to have disposable income or else they would not be able to partake in the festivities given the costs of admission, transportation, food, and accommodation.  When one considers these factors, it becomes apparent that such studies are highly biased and even dishonest. 

In recognition of this bias, the Yankelovich Monitor did a random sample of self-identified gay people and found that there was no real difference between gay and straight household incomes (Badgett, 1997).  In fact, further analysis of the data collected by the General Social Survey from the University of Chicago reveals that gay and bisexual people actually earned less than straight people (Badgett, 1997).  This makes sense when one considers that homophobia may place people at a disadvantage in the workforce.  Employers may be prejudiced against gay applicants and not hire or promote them.  Gay employees may experience harassment and quit their jobs.  Moreover, queer youth drop out of school at disproportionately higher rates than non-queer youth due to such factors as alienation and bullying (Richter, 2000).   Furthermore, in the case lesbians, women still earn less money on average, so a household that has two mommies will earn less than a household with a mommy and daddy (UNECE, 2003).   All of these factors invariably affect the earning potential of queers.  

My final point of concern is the fact that niche marketing targets gay people as gays.  The point being that the category is consolidated rather than destabilized.  Historically, a gay identity did not always exist.  Rather, throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, medical practitioners and sexologists set out to distinguish different types of human species and coined the term “homosexual” (Sullivan, 2003).  As Michel Foucault argues in The History of Sexuality (Foucault, 1978), this type of quantification and categorization was the bourgeoisie’s way of demarcating the deviant and other unsavory classes, thereby securing their own dominance. Before that, during the Middle Ages for example, only homosexual acts existed rather than an embodied homosexual person.  The act did not reveal some truth about the personality of the participant.   It was only through medical discourse that the category and personality type was constructed. 

Coupled with this Foucauldian analysis, many materialists employ an economic lens to refute the essentialist view of identity.  According to John D’Emilio, a gay identity did not exist until the emergence of capitalism in North America (D’Emilio, 1996).    In pre-capitalist societies, there was “little opportunity for divergence from kinship codes” (Adam, 1985).  The family was the central unit of production and reproduction.  Heterosexuality was functional because families required offspring to work on the farm or in the home.  Thus, sex was reserved for procreation.  However, when capitalism swept North America, people found themselves liberated from the core family unit since they could get wage labour and work independently in the city. Moreover, the procreative impetus for sexual relations weakened because children were no longer needed as farm hands.  Meanwhile, this shift towards urban centres “provided regular opportunities for previously unacquainted men to make contact and thus begin to constitute a gay world” (Badgett, 1997).  These interactions, coupled with increasing capital availability, helped foster queer-friendly environments and relationships, and subsequently, identities. 

Steve Valocchi furthers this materialist analysis, but adds that gay identity did not evolve uniformly.  While sexologists and medical practitioners defined the homosexual in the first half of the twentieth century, during the following era, issues of class served to subdivide and define the queer population.  Labels were imposed—and sometimes self-adopted—depending on one’s placement in the social world.  Working-class homosexual men, for example, were known as “fairies” and “pansies,” but not “gay.”  Middle-class homosexual men sought to distance themselves from this inferior group and preferred to call themselves “queer” (Valocchi, 1999).  During the subsequent McCarthy period, definitions of gay identity began to transcend class boundaries since the lines between masculine and feminine, gay and straight, became more pronounced and policed in the name of national patriotism and traditional family values (Badgett, 1997). 

But why go to the trouble of examining medical and economic constructions of gay identity when we are talking about contemporary market research?  For starters, such analyses tell us that gay identity is not only difficult to define, but there is actually no essential gay subject to delineate in the first place.  Thus, when market researchers quantify and operationalize the gay demographic, they contribute to the discursive construction of the identity.  In other words, current trends in niche marketing do nothing to challenge the essentialist position; they merely reinforce the “us” versus “them” binary while ignoring the ways in which identity categories are socially and discursively produced. 

 

Queer Commodities:  The Perfect Homo

In spite of such flaws in gay market studies, it seems that many queer people are grateful for all the media attention they have received in recent years.  After all, the image of the upstanding, professional and affluent homosexual is far more positive than the degenerate, freakish and pedophilic stereotype that prevailed throughout much of media history.  Unfortunately, even the more positive image that has been gaining popularity has the potential to be misleading, if not harmful, to queer communities.  On the one hand, the image is not representative. When the gay male figure dominates media depictions, the experiences of lesbian, bisexual and trans-identified people tend to be ignored.  The same holds true for issues related to race, gender, class, ability, and so on.  In addition, the current depiction of the “perfect homo” (Strub 1997 p. 517) can also cause distress for people who are struggling with the prospect of coming out.  First, such individuals are alienated from the heterosexual majority; then, they are doubly alienated by the “as advertised” queer community because they are not white, male, rich, able-bodied, and professional.  This is particularly dangerous because the queer community no longer exists as a place for refuge or solidarity.  Instead, it becomes an elite club where the entrance sign reads:  PERFECT HOMOS ONLY.

A case in point is the Queer Card, which is a credit card aimed at “rich, professional gays” (Madslien, 2001).  Proponents of this card suggest that it enables people to make a personal statement with each transaction, and it helps consumers avoid “intrusive lifestyle questions” since the queer logo is quite visible.  Moreover, this card is supposed to show retailers that queer individuals have substantial spending power.  However, while this card recognizes the power of the “pink dollar,”[3] it offers only a small picture of queer identity.  Advertisers paint a false portrait of the queer community as one of general affluence and professionalism.  The implications are twofold.  First, the name Queer Card implies that lesbians, bisexuals and trans-identified people are included; however, it is clear that gay men are the target group.  Second, such depictions offer a narrow view of queer culture, which can lead to stereotypes and generalizations.  The introductory image of the gay man wearing Prada shoes and carrying GAP bags is an example. 

And what of that chic gay man who has become such a hot commodity these days?  Anyone who has seen the television shows Will & Grace or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy knows him well.  Straight women everywhere want a gay boy of their very own to go shopping with.  Straight men want a gay boy to teach them how to dress and style their hair.  However, how many straight women aspire to have gay children?  How many straight men are comfortable when a gay man expresses his affection?  There are clear boundaries between what the straight consumer values and what is deemed unacceptable.  There is a very clear template that gay men must follow if they want visibility and (limited) acceptance.  However, the ideal that the media sets up is just that, an ideal.  It does not actually exist, so in some ways, gay men are under just as much pressure to fit the mold as lesbians, bisexuals and trans-identified people. While on the surface gay men seem to be profiting the most from niche marketing, there are clear limits to these supposed gains.   

It is important to note that the presence of a new television show, The L Word (Chaiken, 2003) may challenge this critique. The L Word makes lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism visible.  In addition, the cast is more racially diverse than other queer-themed shows.  These interventions are definitely steps in the right direction; however, The L Word still relies on the elite, wealthy image of queerness.  The show is set in the trendy gay district of West Hollywood.  The character Bette is an art executive who wears expensive suits and drives a sleek sports car.  Dana is a successful pro tennis player.  Helena is an extravagantly wealthy philanthropist.  Setting up such glamorous lifestyles, the writers establish a socio-economic standard to which queers and non-queers alike can aspire.  Given the historically disadvantaged position of queers in society, this vision of wealth and prosperity acts as an enticing alternative.  By normalizing the capitalist/consumptive framework, queer subjects are presented with a model for how they can achieve full subjectivity.  So while The L Word counters some discourses that negatively construct the homosexual subject, it does so only within capitalist framework.   

            As Karl Marx (1978, p. 319) wrote “A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood.  Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing.”  This quotation has much significance in the relationship between contemporary capitalism and homosexual identity.  Despite the obvious irony about commodities being “a very queer thing”—and I am sure many gays and lesbians have read that phrase with a smile—a more in-depth exploration of the quotation is required.   Rosemary Hennessy (2000) undertakes such an exploration in her book Profit and Pleasure:  Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism.  “At first sight,” implies that there is a disjunction between appearance and reality, and one must keep this in mind when digesting images of queer life in the media.  Increased visibility of a particular culture can make it more accessible to the general population; however, one must be critical about who is sending those images and which interests are being represented.  Hennessy (1997, p. 112) notes that “money, not liberation, is the bottom line.” In other words, corporations target the queer market in hopes of increasing profit, not acceptance.  For example, the president of the gay entertainment media company called GSociety, states:  “You’ll be seeing many more large corporations ‘coming out’ as friendly to gays, once they see what a positive image in the gay community can do for sales” (GLINN Media Corp., 2000).  There is nothing altruistic about this concession.  The only reason companies would change their policies and marketing strategies is the fact that the queer population has sales potential.  Furthermore, in terms of queer commodities, companies are willing to produce them as long as people are buying them.  However, once they cease to turn a profit, such specialty items will disappear. 

            Sarah Schulman (2001) makes a similar argument about the desirability of queer commodities.  She argues that the exchange of commodities between queers and non-queers is an “all import, no export” relationship.  In her opinion, gay people are being targeted for mainstream products.  For example, beer and other alcoholic beverages are heavily promoted in queer communities, especially during Pride events and around bar and club scenes. However, straight people are not reciprocating and buying queer cultural products.  For example, Schulman notes that the mainstream is not readily buying novels with lesbian protagonists.  Such items are contained in the queer market.  As such, she argues that while queer consumers are pumping their dollars into the mainstream economy, mainstream consumers are not investing any of their money into queer communities.  For the most part, I agree with her analysis.  However, it would seem that, in recent years, there are queer commodities that are making their way into the mainstream.  Box sets of the queer-themed television show Will & Grace are readily available in stores across North America.  Unfortunately though, this television series and others like it represent only a tiny portion of the queer demographic, one that is easily digestible by the mainstream.  The main gay characters on Will & Grace, for example, are both white, one is a lawyer (wealthy) and the other is in theatre (gay stereotype).  Furthermore, there is rarely any homoerotic touching, kissing or anything that is explicitly sexual.  Thus, Schulman’s original point still seems to hold weight when one considers that more representative cultural products remain invisible in the mainstream.  Indeed, her point is further strengthened when one considers that many queer commodities are not actually fashioned after the queer experience at all, but rather on a heteronormative, desexualized stereotype that corporations and marketing strategists think will sell their product. 

 

The Queer Consumer

Given these drawbacks, I often wonder what impels a queer consumer to spend, spend, spend.  I am the first to admit that I compulsively buy up any video or DVD that promises queerness somewhere in the plot—even if the film got the worst possible review.  I own comic books, key chains, even decorative tins—purchased simply because there was something covertly Sapphic about the motif.    Why am I, like many other queers, such an easy target?  Part of the answer has to be that sheer invisibility has made us salivate for any scrap of bread that is tossed out to us.  An emotional appeal lures queer consumers to queer products and images even when those particular things are unrepresentative and even harmful to political and social advancement.  But, when one’s identity has been ignored or demonized throughout much of history, popular culture’s acknowledgement of queer identity, albeit a false one, feels like a big deal.  Marketers recognize this and exploit it for all it is worth.  They know that a historically disadvantaged group will be an easy target.  Just throw in some cultural references, make them feel like they are desirable consumers, then sit back and watch the cash roll in. 

However, while marketers realize the potential of emotional appeal, they do not want to push away their heterosexual consumers either.  Direct cultural references might be appropriate for queer media (i.e. “Remember Stonewall” slogans), but for mainstream marketing efforts, a more clandestine approach is preferred.  What Danae Clark (1993, p.188) describes as “gay window advertising,” corporations call “getting the best of both worlds.”  In this approach, gay themes are inserted into advertisements so that they remain hidden to the heterosexual consumer, but are recognized by the queer consumer.  Less overt cultural references such as particular haircuts, body adornment and fashion styles, coupled with strategic model placement—all alert people who are “in the know” of the queer subtext, while “outsiders” gloss the ad none-the-wiser.   For example, American clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch ran an ad in Vanity Fair depicting a middle-aged man and younger man aboard a ship, sometimes embracing, sometimes kissing each other on the cheek (Commercial Closet Association, 2001-2004). Some might read these two men as a gay couple.  However, the text on the top left corner of the ad reveals that the couple is actually a father and son.  On a positive note, this type of marketing affirms the existence of the homosexual consumer; however, it does so in a codified way so as not to “threaten” the heterosexual majority or promote tolerance in society at large.  Moreover, the homosexual is only recognized insofar as he or she is a potential sale.  Advertisers are “having their cake and eating it too” because they tap both markets without alienating one group from the other; earning maximum profit from both sectors.   

So just how do corporations tap into the “gay theme”?  Danae Clark (1993) attempts to answer this in her analysis of how marketers appropriate lesbian style.  In several ads, marketers incorporate androgynous or butch-looking women in their ads.  For example, many people may be familiar with the now-famous magazine cover on which Cindy Crawford shaves k.d. lang’s face (Vanity Fair, 1993).  The positive effect of such an image is that queer women see representations of themselves reflected in mainstream culture.  Visibility is crucial in identity formation, whether it be for an individual or the queer community at large.  Furthermore, such images show recognition of queer culture, which can be a refreshing alternative to the history of invisibility and marginalization.  However, there are several drawbacks to this type of marketing.  First, going back to the example, most consumers know that Cindy Crawford is not a lesbian.  Thus, the authenticity of the ad is brought into question.  Moreover, when lesbian style is adopted by popular culture, some critics suggest that this appropriation erases the political struggle many lesbians had to face historically (Clark, 1993).

            In the same vein, many queer people feel that unless being valued by marketers is accompanied by political gains, being desirable consumers is nothing but superficial recognition.  For years, gay and lesbian business owners operated queer-positive spaces that provided vital “social and cultural bases for gay lives and organizing” (Badgett, 1997, p.473).  However, in recent trends, mega-corporations invade these spaces to promote beer, credit cards, and other fast-paced lifestyle products that are stereotypically attached to gay life.  In addition, such corporations are a far cry from the traditional, mom and mom or pop and pop organizations that advanced political agendas or simply displayed their rainbow stickers prominently in the shop windows to show community solidarity.  To illustrate this point, one can look at queer film festivals.  In the beginning, queer film festivals were committed to having a strong community base, characterized by “an explicit commitment to represent the interests of their community rather than the private or professional interests of their founders” (Gamson, 1996, p. 238).  Unfortunately, in order to keep festivals running in cities like New York, some groups have felt forced to appeal to corporate sponsorship, moving away from activism and towards a more consumer category (Gamson, 1996, p. 258). This causes one to question the motivations behind such events, and whether or not the interests of corporations are gradually dominating those of the queer community. 

            Some have argued, however, that corporations are not always out to exploit the queer demographic.  Instead, modern corporations are making alterations to their internal operating policies to make them more equitable for their queer employees.  For example, Coors, an American brewing company, extended health benefits to partners of gay and lesbian employees in 1995 (GLINN Media Corp., 2000).  Levi-Strauss has also granted health benefits to unmarried domestic partners of their employees and has a Lesbian and Gay Employees Association (Hennessy, 1994).  However, while these developments are definitely steps in the right direction, they remain problematic.  As Rosemary Hennessy (1994, p. 68) points out, the “Levi’s workers in the sweatshops of Saipan who live in cramped and crowded barracks and earn as little as $2.15 an hour remain largely invisible…Displaying the gay-friendly politics of ‘progressive’ U.S. corporations often deflects attention from the exploitative international division of labor.”  In this analysis, the problem is two-fold. On the one hand, there are third world workers who are not seeing any of the benefits that both queer and non-queer workers receive in North America.  On the other hand, corporations are using their gay-friendly policies to put up a front of social consciousness and justice in order to conceal their exploits in other parts of the world.  It boils down to profit.  A company can afford to dish out a few extra dollars to fund a Gay and Lesbian Association at head office, but paying fair wages to third world workers would simply cost too much.  

 

Queer Consumption:  Sex and Capitalism

After analyzing queer markets, commodities and consumers, some interesting correlations between the processes of capitalism and sexuality come to the fore.  First, as Reimut Reiche (1971, p. 106) writes, “Sexuality becomes radically similar to the capitalist form of consumption, in which goods have no intrinsic worth outside the value attributed to them by advertising and the rising scale on which they are consumed.”  The bottom line is that only the aspects of queer life that are marketable are deemed to be valuable.  Any product or any lifestyle that does not satisfy the market’s palette is ignored.  Based on this principle, it is easy to see how only a narrow glimpse of the queer experience is tapped by advertisers.  Straight women do not generally seek fashion advice from poor, queer, street kids who were kicked out of their homes and then forced into a dangerous life marked by violence and drug abuse.  Who sympathizes with the black drag queen in Harlem who gets murdered on the subway?  She is just another “dead faggot” to most people, that is, if she even gets eulogized at all.   For all her glamour, that “dead faggot” never joined the lucrative ranks of the now-famous drag queen RuPaul and her MAC cosmetic endorsements.  But then again, cosmetic endorsements are a natural fit for drag queens since it is assumed that gay men have a natural affinity for good style and aesthetics.[4]  Furthermore, MAC hosts several AIDS fundraising events, and AIDS is considered by many to be a gay disease.[5]  In that particular context, it is appropriate to have drag queen spokes-models.   I have never seen a drag queen endorse a Mercedes Benz.  I have, however, seen naked, nubile, young, apparently gay, men selling alcohol, cigarettes, credit cards and sex—all aspects of a fast-paced, hyper-sexualized and highly consumptive (read: successful) lifestyle.  

For those who cannot afford these luxuries, their life becomes characterized by the sense of lack.  The desire for a sexual object implies a lack of sexual fulfillment.  Commodities are framed much in the same way, since products are packaged and promoted to appeal to the consumer’s sense of lack.  The consumer desires the object, and in an attempt to fulfill that desire, they must acquire the product.  In the case of queer commodities, one need only open a copy of Canadian gay and lesbian newspaper Xtra! to see how sex is packaged.  The ads not only use sex appeal to sell the product, but the product itself is often sex.  For example, there are ads for personal masseurs, gay cruise ships and hot night clubs—all of which are framed by nude, muscular (usually white) men who are positioned in such a way so as to insinuate the promise of sex (XTRA!, 2004).  Moreover, ads that rely on the reader’s lack and subsequent desire for sexual companionship also alert the reader of his or her own physical inadequacies—which can be remedied, of course, by purchasing the service or product.  The end result is that the ad effectively targets both aspects of desire:  the desire to be like the young and muscular models, and if that cannot be achieved, the models’ bodies can be consumed through sex. 

Further correlations can be drawn by examining the particular meanings assigned to sexual desire and capitalist desire.  Depending on the context, the concept of desire hosts a variety of meanings and implications.  For example, according to some religious ideologies, desire is something that should be suppressed in the name of God.  Self-sacrifice is seen as the ultimate gesture of devotion, and as such, temptation should be avoided at all cost.   Some Enlightenment thinkers also saw desire as a sort of primitive passion, but instead of being controlled by religious doctrine, they believed that desire was and should be controlled by reason.[6]  However, if we look at how desire is conceived in the context of capitalism as well as in queer culture, we see a very different spin on the term.  As discussed previously, the gay media uses sex quite liberally to sell products and services.  Apart from promoting safer sex practices for health reasons, desire in queer media is not particularly constrained by religious or moral prescriptions.  Similarly, desire in the capitalist system appears to go unchecked by such constraints.  People are urged to consume as much as possible in order to achieve what is believed to be the good life.  Indeed, the very notion that people are fundamentally driven by self-serving desire is a key element of capitalist ideology.  In fact, Rosemary Hennessy (2000, p. 196) argues that “knowing desire as freely mobile, indiscriminate micro-energies is itself an effect of late capitalism.”  On the one hand, I disagree that the relationship is causal when it comes to queer culture and the pro-sex mentality.  The “freely mobile” desire that seems to be particular to queer communities comes from a history of subverting and challenging mainstream conservatism around issues of sexual expression.   However, in Hennessy’s defense, late capitalism has made it a lot easier to live a lifestyle in which desire is conceived of as indiscriminate and mobile, since, as I have argued, capitalist ideology is also permeated with individualistic and pleasure-seeking imperatives.  Combined, both ideologies create fertile ground for the commodification and consumption of queer desire.

 

Conclusion

One of the main problems I see with this limited exposure is that these commodified images become the main points of contact between queer and non-queer communities.  Since the media is one of the most influential ways of disseminating information, its portrayals of queer life can have a huge impact on what is known about gay life and what is deemed “essential” about that experience. So, if the media presents a superficial or narrow image of queerness in North America, that particular image will comprise a lot of what is known about “gay people” since it seems that a large number of North Americans, if they are not gay themselves, do not particularly take an interest in queer issues. Or, if they do take an interest, the motivation may be to further homophobic agendas.

Furthermore, the media also plays a significant role in determining what gay people aspire to become.  For young queers coming of age, the images produced by both mainstream media, as well as the images produced by gay media, all serve to promote a narrowly defined lifestyle.  In the absence of education or resources, that sort of visibility might be the only thing that a young queer has at his or her disposable in terms of fashioning a self.  I am not saying that today’s youth are ignorant and incapable of making up their minds; however, sometimes alternative opinions of gay life are not readily available.  Witness the current rise of Christian fundamentalism in the United States and the effect that it has had on the availability of information.  In the school system alone, all matters related to sex outside of heterosexual marriage are banned from the curriculum and sexual education (Brian, 2004).  The problem is not the child’s ignorance, but rather, a result of the wider social system.

Yet while Americans are banning discussions of homosexuality in classrooms, they are nevertheless still allowing queer-themed television shows to be aired and some queer products to be sold. The media and the market become the only acceptable outlets for mainstream expressions of queerness.  Of course, political activism is effective and necessary, but many people (both queer and non-queer) are isolated from such efforts, or pass them off as reactionary or even immoral.  Television shows and popular fashion styles, on the other hand, are much more appealing to the average North American.  Thus, it is crucial that we closely examine which images fill the screen or magazine pages and which products are put onto the market, whose interests they serve and whose experiences are rendered invisible.    

As consumers of those products and images, we have to become all the more cautious of what we buy and the reasons behind the purchase.  Gregory Woods (1995, p. 147) quite astutely points out that “any company which can influence how we perceive ourselves, and how we want ourselves to be perceived, is guaranteed influence on how we spend our money.”  In this way, the process can be seen as cyclical.  The media not only influences how identities are constructed, and what types of knowledges are produced about a particular identity, but simultaneously, that constructed “market niche” becomes the consumer of those products.   So while advertisers sell the image of gay men wearing Prada and driving Mercedes Benzes, the underlying message reads that only gay men who wear Prada and drive Mercedes Benzes will be accepted by society at large.  Conversely, those who fall outside of that image are “fair game” for marginalization and other forms of homophobia.  Faced with this threat, gay men may often feel immense pressure to become financially wealthy, and then buy the products that will make them visible and respected in both mainstream and queer cultures.  Other people who identify as lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, or transgendered are alienated from this image altogether.

As Canadians, we readily lament the political situation south of the border as we revel in our recent political triumphs (i.e. Gay marriage); however, we have to be aware that homophobia is still present, as well as racism, classism, sexism, transphobia, biphobia, among other forms of prejudice—even within our own queer communities.   While market recognition and flashy images might seem like useful ways to get a rainbow-coloured foot in the door, they are not enough to push open the door to acceptance and diversity.  After all, profit, not progress, is the ultimate goal in a capitalist system and commodification does not necessarily equal liberation.

References

Adam, B. D. (1985). Structural foundations of the gay world. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 27, 658-671.

Anon. (1993, Aug.). Vanity fair.

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