Mya Hankes
Literary Theory
Professor Frank
November 1st 2022
Application #4
For this application, I will be examining Commodity Lesbianism by Danae Clark and how female consumerism leaves out lesbians due to the heternormative nature of advertising itself. Clark presents the argument that consumer culture is based upon and feeds into heterosexual norms. This then prevents homosexual representation in media unless it through subliminal and ambiguous advertising. Clark supports her claims by taking us through a historical analysis of why lesbians are not known as an indenfiable group, ways that they have been advertised to subliminally, and in what areas lesbians are a part of consumer culture.
Clark begins her supporting claims by stating the key identifiers of a target group in marketing, those being, “ (1) identifiable, (2) accessible, (3) measurable, (4) profitable” (Clark 485). This presents the issue for lesbians as Clark states that they “exist across race, income, and age” (Clark 485). Through the perspective of an advertiser, it extends to the mark that lesbians are an unattracrive group to advertise to. They “disguise” themselves in ambiguous style and self representation that disallows advertisers to identify them. This makes it so lesbians are not idenfiable, measurable, and accessible as consumers and therefore cannot be a represented group. Not only this but advertisers also fear the association of their products with homosexuality because it could possibly turn heterosexual consumers away. These points made by Clark give a background to the historical view of homosexuality in cosummerism and marketing.
Continuing on, Clark explains how this historical view began to shift with the releasing of a New York Times article on how in 1983, top advertisers began to look into the market of advertising to young, gay men. Furthermore, that advertisers wanted to appeal to both heteronormative culture and homosexual appeal in ads. The method of doing this is by “code behavior”, which is a way to “indicate to the other person, but not to anybody else, that you, too were gay” (Clark 486). Clark then applies this concept of code behavior to a Calvin Klein ad that pictured young shirtless men in positions of desire. This brought the ad into question of whether it was appealing to a gay audience, and the company responded stating, “we did not try not to appeal to gays. We try to appeal, period” (Clark 486).
As code behavior became a method of advertisement to homosexual individuals, it created the marketing strategy called “gay window advertising”. This meant that marketers were attempting to create ads to serve the dual purpose of appealing to both heterosexuals and homosexuals. It is achieved by not displaying overt examples of heteronormativity and the inclusion of only sex-sexed individuals in the advertisement. The individuals themselves would display an androgynous style and abuiguity to disguse sexual preference. By doing this, lesbian and gay individuals will be able to sublimanily be advertised to and understood across the market.
Moving to a response of Clarks argument, I found this most connected to the Adweek advertisements we looked at in class and for homework. As I was reading Clarks analysis of gay window advertising I was reminded of the Volkswagon ad that displayed two males picking up furniture. This advertisement had left multiple things to question: their relationship with one another, where the furniture was going, and if they were roommates. All this subtly unmentioned aspects of the advertisement can linked back to the concept of gay window advertising. If a heterosexual person was watching this ad, it could be perceived as two male roommates just picking up a piece of furniture on the side of the road. To a homosexual viewer, this can be perceived as a gay couple picking up furniture to bring home to their shared apartment. The strategy created by marketers overall creates multiple contexts for the viewer to perceive.
If I were to extend Clarks argument further, I would look at television and film media and look at how homosexuality is discreetly displayed. It was recently stated how Velma from Scooby-Doo is a lesbian character, but is displayed as heterosexual character in many ways. This ranges from her relationship with Shaggy to depicting her desire for other male characters. It begs the question of how do we identify homosexual individuals in overtly heterosexual environments such as TV and film? This would require an examination of the history of homosexuality in film and how it has developed over time. I would find a study such as this profoundly interesting because I cannot recall any homosexual representation in the media I watched as a child.
