Saturday, October 22, 2005

Gay expo advertising campaign controversy




This weekend there is the 3rd Paris Gay expo. Prior to the event, the organizers conducted a promotion through a poster campaign, just like for any similar event. However, these advertisements show same sex couples kissing. The Paris Metro found them too offensive to run, and thus refused the campaign. You can imagine that the gay associations vehemently reacted. In addition, the Halde or Anti-discrimination authority, also spoke up to support the ad campaign, while other groups continued to support the Metro. Finally, the Metro authorities decided to reverse their decision and the ads finally ran.

The ads have mostly survived, however, one can find examples of them being defaced in certain stations. And, by the wat, sorry for the bad quality of the pictures.

8 comments:

  1. Désolé de commenter en français, mon anglais est en vacances...
    Ces pubs ne me choquent pas, elles restent plutôt "softs", je trouve. Et, de toutes façons, vouloir interdire ça sous prétexte que ça risque de "perturber" les gens ou je ne sais plus quoi, ça me fait rire.
    Surtout quand on voit qu'une pub comme celle d'Eurostar joue sur le côté "le week-end à Londres, c'est tellement pas cher que j'abandonne mes enfants pour y aller, ah ah" ne provoque pour sa part aucune réaction de ces mêmes bien-pensants. Pour ma part, je pense que c'est là où est le problème. Mais c'est vrai que je ne suis pas un bigot... (qui, quand il téléphone, est évidemment un bigot-phone, ouarf...)

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  2. Glad to hear that the ads ran. I had read about this controversy elsewhere and was rather amazed that a ban on such innocuous ads could happen in France! Thanks for your update on this, Eric.

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  3. Hi Eric,
    It would be interresting to know who destroyed the ads, the zealous religious or the homophobics! Maybe one is the subset of the other...

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  4. Hehe...... I like the girls .... (/pervert off) ;)

    ==Alaska

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  5. Oh, yeah, I read about that campaign somewhere, too.

    Many of my US friends were a little worried about the "conservative" attitude; we expect better from Paris!

    (Isido, vous etes en pleine forme aujourd'hui - bigot-phone - !!!) C'est la photo des mecs ou des filles qui vous mets de bonne humeur? ;-)

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  6. >> Tomate : thanx ! But neither of those pics ! I'm not gay, but I can't understand why being gay can put some people so anger. Nobody ask them to do so if they don't want. Then, where is the problem ? If two guys (or two girls) are in love with each other, perfect ! Be happy.
    As far as I can see, people against publicism about homosexuality (and "different" way of loving by extension) are also, not all of them but a lot, the ones who are pro-war in Irak : make war, not love. What a strange world we are living in...

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  7. Isido: I was joking. Neither am I, by the way, but now that I live in San Francisco, I've gotten used to seeing same-sex couples, and it seems completely normal. It's like the ad says, "Who is it hurting?" Nobody, really. Just my opinion, of course.

    (Je plaisantais. Moi non plus, au fait, mais maintenant que je vis a San Fancisco j'ai pris l'habitude de voir des couples homos et cela me semble tout a fait normal. C'est comme dit la pub: ca fait de mal a personne, non? Mon opinion, bien sur.)

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