Bigots write bad
As you probably already know, an ad campaign by the Christian group Core Issues Trust has been pulled from London buses by Boris Johnson. The copy read:
Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!
The strategy was to promote ‘therapy’ aimed at ‘curing’ gays.
Obviously, the sentiment of the campaign is utterly repugnant, and many other writers have already made that point. In this post, I’d like to look at the way the content was not only offensive and misguided, but rubbish on a technical level too.
Just to be clear, my argument is not that the work ‘should have been better’, in the sense that it might have been more persuasive or acceptable if these faults were addressed. Nor am I going to offer my own alternatives, as I normally do when critiquing stuff, because I have no interest in improving this ad. My point here is the way the lamentable motive of the campaign corrupted the creative process, resulting in truly abysmal work.
Reactive
The ad as a whole is a rework of a famous Stonewall campaign, which used this slogan:
Some people are gay. Get over it.
This was great writing. Using everyday, easy-to-remember words, it conveyed a whole range of overlapping relevant meanings: we are all people; some of us are gay (and they just are, they don’t choose to be); prejudice is an affliction to be ‘got over’; difference need not be a barrier. And because it was phrased so simply, it made it clear that this was a simple, self-evident truth.
In their pathetic anxiety to do their little dance and answer Stonewall back, CIT deliberately adopt the same form for their copy. But it merely makes them look crass, because they are reacting to a simple, positive, liberated statement with a twisted, negative one. That statement is ‘spoken’ by someone who defines themselves in purely oppositional terms – by what they’re not, or no longer are. The effect is to make the ad look like a pale imitation of Stonewall’s, rather than a powerful riposte to it.
Inelegant
Because the CIT ad tries to shoehorn its intolerant message into the same format as Stonewall’s (even aping its design), the result is crashingly awkward. Beginning the text with ‘Not’ wrong-foots the reader from the start, and the phrase ‘Not gay!’ doesn’t sound like something anyone would actually say – it’s just an arbitrary negation.
The second sentence is lame too – it posits itself as a ‘list of three’ device, but the first two items (‘Ex-gay’ and ‘post-gay’) are effectively identical, so it falls completely flat. Presumably these two contentious terms just had to be included somehow, even if the resulting sentence didn’t really make sense.
Why couldn’t they just say ‘straight’? Well, views will differ, but I think those three ‘gays’ in one line tell their own story. These people are, quite simply, obsessed with the idea that someone, somewhere, is doing something fun, harmless and completely private without their permission. Gayness consumes them; they just can’t leave it alone. Could they, perhaps, be just a little bit gay themselves?
Unconvincing
The word ‘proud’ is where the tone of voice, already deeply dodgy, really comes off the rails. If there are people who have undergone ‘treatment’ to reorient their sexuality, for whatever reason (and it seems there are some), I find it very hard to believe they would be remotely triumphalist about it. If anything, they’d surely be more likely to keep very quiet about their ‘ex-gay’ status. They might feel a sort of pride, but I very much doubt it would be a shouty, street-procession sort of thing, which is what’s implied by appropriating this most significant word from gay culture.
CIT’s tactic here is a classic one: the oppressor co-opting the language of the oppressed. But such a switch is non-viable because the two ‘prides’ are not equal. Gay pride is hard-won, defiant and determined in the face of overwhelming extant prejudice. It’s also an actual phenomenon that we can see in real people’s characters and actions. ‘Ex-gay pride’, if it exists at all, exults in the further humiliation and denigration of an already-downtrodden minority. This is the pride of the fascist in his shiny, polished jackboots.
Echoing the ‘get over it’ has a similarly hollow ring. Who’s being addressed here? Who needs to ‘get over’ the fact that some gay people have gone straight? Presumably, this is a dig at all those violent anti-hetero sentiments we’re always hearing from prejudiced gays. Again, this totally fails to convince because there is no converse of homophobia. Oppression works one way only, from the powerful majority to the dispossessed minority – unfortunately for reactionary groups who aspire to the mantle of victimhood.
Bad views, bad writing
As I said, I didn’t want to improve this ad. I’m glad it was pulled, and I’m also glad it was so bad, because its badness would have guaranteed its failure even if it had run. And if there’s anything positive to be drawn from this sorry episode, it’s the comfort that ugly prejudice can’t easily be translated into beautiful copy. Or, as @thebrainofchris put it on Twitter:
Comments (13)
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Brilliant post Tom, as always. I agree entirely with your critique, your sentiments, and your withering put-down of these bigoted, half-witted wankers.
Apologies for use of the word wankers.
And to compound their incompetence, it’s a really shit piece of typography.
Apologies for use of the word shit
Only to be expected from an organisation whose strap line is the somewhat impenetrable “God’s heart in sexual and relational brokenness…” (ellipsis theirs).
Actually, I think the poor copy succeeds in communicating their brand – they come across as the nut cases they clearly are.
Sadly in different ways for different people, Tom, there are those to whom this ad speaks to their desire in life. However infinitesimal the number may be, there are some few gay people who would rather not live what they have come to consider an unhealthful lifestyle, mentally and physically. Obviously the proof of this advert “pudding” is in the response; did anyone respond to the advert? It will not do for you to simply argue all the politically correct reasons why this advert’s message should not persuade, and then say that it doesn’t because of bad execution of the idea. Do you know for a fact that it has not done, to anyone out there? Obviously if nobody was persuaded, the advert failed; if, as a result, however ham-handed the ad is, someone actually did show up (even though you question why anyone should, or would want to, do so), CIT will view it as a win. You may not like what they stand for, and believe that they are inadequate sad little people, if not evil ones, but they have a perfect right to do what they do, since it is the right of every person to seek treatment for what they may feel is something that holds them back in life, whether you or I or anyone else agree or not. Thought experiment: “Not Tory/Labour! Ex-Tory/Labour etc” or “Not Man Utd! Ex-Man Utd!”– these things shape people’s self-image too, and in some ways may be unhealthful to some few people too– tell me why Gayness (as a lived lifestyle, not an attraction) should be any different.
therealguyfaux
If some folk are gay but uncomfortable with feeling that way, is a confusing, homophobic advertisement, with no guidance, emblazoned on the side of a bus really going to help?
It was not aimed at a minority who wish to change their sexual orientation but at all gay people. Very nasty.
therealguyfaux
And what do you mean by ‘show up’
Show up where?
therealguyfaux
‘tell me why Gayness (as a lived lifestyle, not an attraction) should be any different.’
That is hilarious! As if you need therapy for a gay ‘lifestyle’
Can’t believe I’m respoding to your bonkers post.
therealguyfaux
Decided your post is clearly a spoof.
Or maybe a poof?
I actually have difficulty reading this for its intent for a different reason. The problem is calling something ‘Post-Gay’. I read that like I read ‘Post-Feminist’ or ‘Post-Modern’. A ‘Post-Gay’ identity isn’t anything to do with being ‘no longer homosexual’, it would surely denote a kind of evolved homosexual identity with different values to identities that preceded it. I suspect that was the complete opposite of the intention.
@therealguyfaux
The ad hasn’t run, so its performance is a matter of speculation. However, it’s ludicrous to argue that it could be justified on the grounds that it might appeal to a certain number of people. An anti-semitic ad, or one criticising the disabled, might appeal to a certain number of people, but that wouldn’t justify it. If the proof of the advertising pudding was only in the eating, we would have an utter free-for-all, with all manner of prejudice, misinformation and spite appearing on the side of buses.
As a democracy, we allow people to do and say what they want on principle, and neither CIT’s ‘treatments’ nor its ad are technically illegal. However, as a society that tries to secure the greatest happiness for the greatest number, it’s completely right that we don’t allow commercial messages or political propaganda to make their case by denigrating certain groups within society. The word for this is not ‘political correctness’, but ‘civilisation’.
As I indicated in the post, there may be ways to communicate this ad’s message without mounting a direct assault on gay people. Indeed, most ad people would probably agree that this should have been the first step – to avoid the reactive, oppositional and negative tone of the actual ad and aim for a positive message. Had this been done successfully, the ad might have been more acceptable, although I personally would still find the organisation and the views behind it repulsive. That’s why, as stated, I’ve declined to propose any alternatives.
Your use of the word ‘treatment’ and your attempt to equate sexual orientation with political or sporting affiliation betrays your view of sexuality as either an illness or an intellectual choice. It’s neither.
However, even if it were, it still wouldn’t be anyone else’s business if people made the ‘choice’ to be gay or declined ‘treatment’ for their ‘condition’. A democracy supports people’s rights to be and do what they want within the law, regardless of the underlying reasons. That’s why so many people are uneasy about research into the ‘gay gene’ – it feels predicated on the idea of sexuality as a condition or mutation that ‘we’ might aspire to ‘cure’.
Finally, when I comment on issues like this, I use my real name.
I really can’t take anybody seriously that uses the phrase ‘Thought experiment’
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