This newsletter leads me some surprising places, friends. For instance: I did not expect to wind up reading a blog post written by and for people in the advertising industry, encouraging their peers to consider integrating bisexual visibility into their ads, the same way that other queer identities have been worked into ad campaigns in the past.
I would like to be generous towards this piece — written, as it is, by a bisexual in the ad industry — but I also am just… huh. Okay. Let me gather my thoughts.
It’s not that I don’t want bisexuality to make appearances in the landscape of advertising. I mean if someone was doing a big Pride Month campaign and conspicuously left bisexuality out of the conversation, that would absolutely feel bad (although maybe not as bad as that bisexual couch that Ikea made? Hard to say.). But the idea of someone doing a bisexual version of that famous lesbian Subaru ad? I just don’t know, guys.
Part of the problem here — which is the problem with a lot of bisexual media representation — is that an ad is such a short burst of content, such a small package in which to represent bisexual identity. I’m all for the Gucci Guilty threesome ad with A$AP Rocky, Elliot Page, and Julia Garner, but I also cringe at the idea of a bunch of advertisers tossing threesomes into their commercials as bisexual representation and calling it a day. I don’t want to be bombarded with ads that conflate bisexuality with bacchanalian orgies (not that I’m opposed to bacchanalian orgies), simply because I don’t want bisexuality to be flatted into one thing.
To be honest, the main way I could think of to “represent bisexuality” in a commercial would be to do one of those ads that shows a character throughout time, and just happen to have that character partnered with people of different genders over the course of the ad. An Up opening scene of bisexual representation, if you will. Or, I dunno, maybe it’s the lesbian Subaru ad and someone gets a call from an ex of a different gender and everyone’s chill about. Maybe that would work?
It’s just — as you can probably tell here, I go back and forth. I do want to be represented; it’s nice to see oneself in media. But I also just feel the weight of how it could all go wrong. And I’m also, honestly, naturally suspicious of the mission anyway — surely an advertiser who includes bisexuals in their campaigns is doing so primarily so that bisexuals will open their wallets. I think we are all aware that being advertised to is not the same thing as liberation.
But, you know, now that I have had the idea, I do think someone should make that Up opening scene ad but instead of a straight dude and his one true lady love it’s a bisexual who has several meaningful relationships that impact them in different ways. That could be cool, right? It just better be for a product I don’t hate.