Every year Spring Pride Week is a huge event at the University of Minnesota. We host nationally-recognized speakers, show films, and host a widely popular drag show with a big dance afterward.
This year, however, something is amiss.
This year's Spring Pride advertising theme is "recruitment." The advertisements say, "We want YOU to be gay for a day." And I understand there are many interpretations of the slogan--for example, wanting straight people to put themselves in the shoes of a gay person for a day and try and imagine what that might be like. That's a great idea, but I still find the advertisements troubling.
For decades opponents of the GLBT community have lobbed charges that GLBT people "recruit" straight people to be gay. (Please--as if we wanted your beer swilling, plaid-wearing, buck-toothed sons and daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Conservative Alabama.)
There's so much baggage around the term "recruiting" that I'm not sure we should be using it to advertise our Spring Pride Week. Perhaps the advertising team thought they would try to reclaim the term "recruiting" and diffuse the negative connotations of the term with the campaign, but I don't think it worked.
What do you think of the advertising? Is it problematic?
