Page 8 - BEQ Magazine Iss 20 Fall 2021 WebRev09272021

WIDENING THE LENS
LGBTQ Marketing and Changing Times

By DAVID R. MORSE
In The Celluloid Closet, a film about the way gays and support the gay community like Procter & Gamble, Kraft,
lesbians have been portrayed in the movies, actress Shirley Walgreen, Johnson & Johnson, Orbitz, Avis, Motorola, All-
MacLaine recounts making The Children’s Hour, a 1961 film state, and Ford Motor Company.
in which she played a tortured, closeted lesbian in love with While there are still so many who wish us harm, times have
fellow schoolteacher Audrey Hepburn. In the end, her char- changed. Gay culture is mainstream. We have gay networks,
acter hangs herself. “We didn’t do the picture right,” says gay sitcoms, and gay Westerns. In the realm of corporate Amer-
MacLaine in the interview. “These days, she would fight for ica, companies compete for gay customers and face boycotts
her budding preference. We were unaware. We didn’t under- for not standing by the gay community. Today’s generation of
stand what we were doing.” LGBTQ people are forging a new consciousness that is based
Indeed, for a long time, so many people in media did not on having the ability to define one’s self on one’s own terms.
know what they were doing when the subject turned to things As writer Dan Levy noted, “No underground society today, gay
gay. Not that gays were unheard of on American television. life is being transformed by a generation that came of age after
Mike Wallace hosted CBS Reports: The Homosexuals in 1967, Stonewall, a progeny that proudly calls itself ‘queer.’ For this
the first network news special about homo- exuberant set, being gay is more than a struggle for acceptance
sexuality. All in the Family was the first sitcom and equal rights: It is a celebration of American pluralism.”
to tackle the subject when Archie Bunker dis- Then there is the future. According to a 2021 Gallup poll,
covered his drinking buddy was gay in a 1971 15% of Gen Z folks say they are LGBTQ+, which would make
episode. TV dramas from the 1970s featured an them, as one commentator put it, the “queerest generation
occasional episode that dealt with gay themes. ever.” A 2021 study by Bigeye found that 50 per cent of Gen Z
As time went on, there were even some recur- respondents believe that gender is a spectrum, as opposed to
ring gay characters. Billy Crystal played one on being a binary. If openness to gender diversity is any indicator
Soap in the late seventies. Steven Carrington – and I think it is – the future bodes well for LGBTQ marketing.
wrestled with his homosexuality on Dynasty in And yet, we have so far to go. According to the Human
the eighties. In the nineties, there were regular Rights Campaign (HRC), 2021 is poised to become the
gay characters on Northern Exposure, Melrose worst year in recent history in terms of the number of
Place, and Roseanne. anti-LGBTQ bills in states to be enacted into law. A recent
In April 1997, “Yep, I’m Gay” read the article in Forbes state cited that one in three LGBTQ youth
DAVID R.
MORSE, President cover of Time magazine. After months of experience discrimination in the workplace. An FBI report
and CEO, New hinting and an unprecedented publicity cam- in 2020 showed that hate crimes against LGBTQ people was
American paign, Ellen DeGeneres came out — on her on the increase.
Dimensions
show and in real life. Ellen became the first In my life, I’ve seen so many changes. Growing up in Man-
network television show with a gay person chester, New Hampshire, in the 1970s, being gay was about
in the leading role. In April 1998, a year after the coming the worst thing you could be. Today, I live with my husband
out episode, ABC announced that Ellen would be cancelled. and partner of 32 years and our two daughters, ages 9 and
Perhaps it was too much too fast — “too gay” as many said. 10. I proudly proclaim my LGBTQ identity. And despite the
Ellen told Entertainment Tonight, “I’m gay, the character’s obstacles remaining, it is a delight to see how far we’ve come
gay, that’s the problem everyone has with the show. It’s just in multicultural marketing. And as people. 
too controversial.”
So much has changed in media. And in multicultural David Morse is President and CEO of New American Dimensions, LLC and
marketing. When I started in this business, at the turn of the author of the book Multicultural Intelligence: Eight Make-Or-Break Rules for
millennium, companies faced the very real threat of a boy- Marketing to Race, Ethnicity and Sexual Orientation. An advocate for social
justice, he is a frequent speaker on race and ethnicity in the United States,
cott orchestrated by organizations like the staunchly antigay and is known for having worked with some of the most successful companies
American Family Association (AFA), which, regularly does in America in developing innovative and profitable multicultural marketing
battle against what it calls the “radical homosexual agenda” strategies. A historian on the topic of race, Morse is author of the 2020 book
and has been notorious for urging boycotts of companies that An American Legacy: Racism, Nativism, and White Supremacy.

8 FALL 2021 BUSINESSEQUALITYMAGAZINE.COM