Subliminal and straightforward messages about sexuality are brought to us by tv advertisements every day (even if you don't watch tv - if it's controversial, the world wide web will let you know). Remember the slightly strange French McDonalds earlier this year? I just flew home for a week and German tv is airing a new IKEA ad that caught my eye. As was to be expected, I prefer IKEA to McDonalds. The slogan roughly translates to 'Because Florian needs to store away bigger things sometimes' and 'IKEA cupboards are even big enough for Florian's small secrets'. Because I have faith in the Swedes, I'm decidedly not offended by the young lady being labelled a 'thing'. I'm positively surprised by the campaign because usually, when ads have a punchline about someone's sexuality, it's about a gay man (I get the impression women's active sexuality doesn't feature much, understandably, as they are probably kept busy with cosmetics and probiotic yoghurt, in the name of being desirable). But here, it's about bisexuality. I don't think I've seen that before. It's a bit bittersweet because as it remains unclear whether Florian's small secret is that he's cheating on his partner or whether it's actually his sexuality. But at least it's on tv. So in the name of visibility, thank you, IKEA.
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Hmm, not sure what to think. I'm a little concerned that it ties into cultural narratives about bisexual people as "the greedy cheating ones" (cf, for example, Captain Jack Harkness) or "the gay ones who aren't properly out".
ReplyDelete(BTW, would it be ok to get transcripts of videos in posts, for accessibility? I really like the videos you're posting here. Ta!)
--IP