ABSTRACT

A 1994 IKEA furniture commercial is credited as being the first American television commercial to include overt representations of gay men. The commercial, which featured two men shopping for a living room table together, received significant backlash from conservative groups, and one or more individuals made bomb threats to IKEA stores. Fast forward to present day, and we find more and more companies willing to defy conservative protests by including gay and lesbian representations and overtly supporting GLBTQ causes. For instance, on Gay Pride Day 2012, Kraft Foods’ Oreo took a stand in America’s culture wars by posting on its Facebook page a chocolate sandwich cookie with rainbow-colored filling. The photo was accompanied by the text, “Proudly support love!” Within two days, the posting generated more than 220,000 likes and over 36,000 comments. It also landed the rainbow-colored Oreo on the Colbert Report (2005-2014) as the subject of one of Stephen Colbert’s tongue-and-cheek commentaries that mocked the “homosnaxual” and its “consensual double stuffing.” That Kraft would transform its family-favorite cookie into a symbol of gay equality demonstrates the sea change in companies’ attitudes about targeting gay and lesbian audiences since that IKEA commercial less than two decades earlier. However, as we have learned, progress is an uneven process, with some people benefiting more than others. Sometimes, so-called progress also comes at a political price, as is the case in marketplace recognition of GLBTQ consumers.