Homophobia: Coming Soon to a Billboard Near You

Over the last two weeks Snickers and Nike have produced ads that are provoking some discussion about whether or not the ads are homophobic. In the Snickers ad, a male race walker is blown away by Mr T. (That’s right; remember him from a TV show about 30 years ago?) He uses a Gatling gun to shoot candy at the race walker for being a disgrace to the “man race” because of the hip swiveling characteristic of race walking. Mr. T shouts, “Get some nuts,” as he shoots Snickers (which, of course, contain nuts) at the race walker.


The Nike ad, targeting urban young black male basketball players, is for their new Hyperdunks shoe. The ad features several pictures of basketball players getting dunked on. The most “in your face” (so to speak) picture is of the dunker going so high that the defender gets a face full of the dunker’s crotch. The caption reads, “That Ain’t Right.”

Snickers, Nike and the ad companies who created these ads claim surprise that either of the ads is being interpreted as homophobic. What a crock! They are clearly targeting young men in these ads, young black men in the Nike ad. The least they could do is be honest about their obvious intention to play on the homophobia many young men, especially young black men, feel they must express to be seen as “manly” and straight. In the homophobic world of men’s basketball, what better way to humiliate and demean your opponent than to give his face an up close and personal encounter with your genitals? In the Snickers ad, “gunning down” the sissy with nut filled candy will certainly teach him to man up. In these ads the veiled gay inferences are meant to be synonymous with weak and swishy or getting dominated and humiliated on the basketball court. And this sells candy and athletic shoes?

I think you have to be pretty darned oblivious not to see the homophobic double entendres in these ads. You also have to have pretty big smirk on your face when you claim that there was no homophobic intent in either ad. Bull twang! As my friend from Texas used to say.

Ok, here’s the part where I get to be accused of not having a sense of humor. Let’s just set aside for a moment the fact that these kind of “gay is funny” ads targeting adolescent males or men who act like adolescent males are pathetically hackneyed and reflect a mind-numbing lack of creativity on the part of these multi-million dollar ad agencies and Nike and Snickers.

Instead, let’s ponder this week’s cover story in Newsweek about schools, anti- gay bullying and the murder of a gay middle school student by one of his classmates a few months ago. The apparent motivation for the murder was a sense of outrage and humiliation experienced by the murderer because the very openly gay student thought the murderer was cute and told him so (this story is way more complicated than this, but these are the basic facts).

I am not trying to blame Snickers and Nike for violence against gay people, but do they bear any social responsibility at all for how they try to sell their product? Do they ever wonder how it might feel to be a closeted young gay man seeing these ads with friends or teammates who are yukking it up over the “gay” humor in the ads. I guarantee you that they get the anti-gay overtones. The least Nike and Snickers could do is own up to their craven use of homophobia to sell their products rather than sniggering up their sleeves as they profess amazement that anyone saw any hint of anti-gay intent in these ads.

I’ve never been a big Snickers fan anyway and I don’t buy Nike shoes because of the sweat shop issue, but I will write them a letter. If you agree with me on this, I encourage you to do the same.

Listen to Out Professionals Panel on LGBT People in Sport

The podcast of the June LGBT Sports panel sponsored by Out Professionals in New York is now available for listening on the internet or at iTunes. You can listen by going to the Out Professionals web site and following the link to the podcast there.

The panel was entitled, “25 Years of LGBT Sports.” The panel discussion is one hour long followed by about 30 minutes of questions from the audience. The panel took place in NYC on June 18. The panel moderator was author, Eric Marcus. The panelists were:

Sue Wicks, Former WNBA player for the New York Liberty and now a basketball coach at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, NY

Bill Konigsberg, AP sports writer and author of Out of the Pocket

Mark Larson, Mr. International Gay Rodeo Assn. (2002)

Amy Scheer, VP of Marketing & Communications, Madison Square Garden

Cyd Ziegler, Co-Founder of outsports.com

Donna Lopiano, Former CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation and Softball Hall of Famer

Pat Griffin, Director of It Takes A Team! and author of Strong Women, Deep Closets

Honoring Jackie Walker

Jackie Walker was a two-time All-American football star at the University of Tennessee in the early 70’s. He was also captain of the team. He was the first Black SEC All-American. Why, you may ask, with this outstanding record of accomplishment, has it taken 40 years for Jackie Walker to be inducted in the Greater Knoxville Hall of Fame?

Could it be because Jackie Walker was also a gay man? Though Hall of Fame officials deny that his sexual orientation had any part in their failure to honor this outstanding athlete since he became eligible for induction in 1976, it is difficult to imagine a heterosexual athlete with similar credentials being overlooked in the way Jackie Walker has been.

On Thursday night he will finally receive the long overdue recognition to which he is entitled. Unfortunately, Jackie Walker died of AIDS in 2002 and will not be there to accept the honor.

Read this wonderful column in the Knoxville News Sentinel about Jackie Walker and his induction into the Hall of Fame.

Though times are changing for gay and lesbian athletes and many are more are open with their teammates and coaches about their sexual orientation, Jackie Walker’s story reminds us of how deserving athletes can be discriminated against despite their accomplishments. Jackie Walker was a Black man who broke racial barriers in Tennessee sports. He was an outstanding athlete who broke records on the field. By all accounts he was also a man of great character, but because he was gay, his accomplishments were ignored. Being gay and dying of AIDS were enough to cancel out everything else about his exemplary life.

Being a Black football player in the 1970’s in the Tennessee must have been a challenge. Being a Black gay football player must have been a very lonely life indeed. Jackie Walker had to contend with both racism and heterosexism and this makes his accomplishments on and off the football field even more honorable.

I suppose his posthumous induction, 40 years after he became eligible, is a good sign; a sign that times are changing. I can’t help feel sadness though, thinking about the loneliness and outrage that Jackie Walkers might have felt. A Black gay football player who proved he was tougher and more talented than his heterosexual teammates watching them be honored over those many years while he was passed over again and again. Sometimes things just can’t be completely set right.

The Dangers of Auto-Replace

I know this is a week old now, but I just have to comment on the hilarious story I read while I was away last week about the American Family Association (AFA) and their embarrassing mistake with using the auto-replace function on their computer. The AFA is a Christian anti-gay organization famous for several unsuccessful boycotts efforts to try to force corporate America and media to stop acknowledging that gay Americans are consumers who deserve equal treatment.

It seems that the AFA refuses to use the word “gay” on their news web site. Instead they prefer the quaint “homosexual” when referring to non-heterosexual folks. To save time, they apparently use the auto-replace function to change the word “gay” to “homosexual” in all of the news stories posted on their web site, One News Now. I guess this was working fine for them until they decided to cover the Olympic track and field trials last week.

The problem was that one of the top sprinters for the U.S. is named Tyson Gay. The AFA auto-replace did its job and here are some excerpts from their coverage of the trials:

"Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has. His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials Sunday doesn't count as a world record, because it was run with the help of a too-strong tailwind."

"Here's what does matter: Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he's certainly someone to watch in Beijing."

"It means a lot to me," the 25-year-old Homosexual said. "I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me."

The AFA quickly took the embarrassing post down, but not soon enough to avoid becoming the laughing stock of bloggers and other media everywhere. It isn’t often when I think these narrow-minded folks are funny, but please add my name to list of folks who got a chuckle out of their little blunder.

On The Road Yet Again!

I’m off to VA, DC and MD tomorrow and will not be blogging again until next week. I’m the keynote speaker for the National Education Association LGBT Caucus dinner in DC on Saturday evening. They have confirmed 700 tickets sold for the dinner and dance to follow. I wish I could claim that these 700 people bought their tickets to hear what I have to say, but, alas, no. The main attraction is the dinner and dancing. I play a small part in the evening.

My goal, however, is to be as entertaining as I can be in about 15-20 minutes as I provide them with some information about homophobia in school sports, the fab resources we have at www.ItTakesATeam.org and the roles they can play to make athletics a safe and respectful place for LGBT students in their school.

I’ll talk to you next week. In the meantime, I hope your July 4th is safe and fun.

Dreams of A Techno-Challenged Homophobia in Sport Educator

A Sociology of Gender class at Penn State University has posted several public service announcements on YouTube that are very interesting. I found one about homophobia in sport featuring several male athletes at Penn State talking about their reactions to having a gay teammate.





Short clips like this with actual athletes talking about their attitudes are great educational tools. I’ve been thinking of doing something like this myself but am held back by my marginal technical skills. I am working on this and hope to be able to create and post similar clips on YouTube and the It Takes A Team web site soon. It would be a great way to spark conversations with coaches and athletes about LGBT issues in sport as well as a great way to educate the public. I’d like to feature men and women, gay and straight, athletes and coaches talking about specific issues within the broad topic of homophobia in sport: relationships on teams, Christian athletes and lesbian and gay athletes on teams, anti-gay name-calling, stereotypes of lesbian and gay athletes, negative recruiting, inclusion of trans athletes, issues LGBT athletes of color face…the list of ideas is endless.

I see a summer project developing…You, dear blog reader, can help me out. What kind of topics would you like to see addressed in a series of PSAs on LGBT issues in sport?

On The Road Again

I’m on the road this week and probably won’t post anything until next week. I was in Boston this weekend attending the Center for the Study of Sport and Society’s Power of Sport Summit. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet with other activists, educators and scholars from around the USA who are committed to social justice in sport. I got home yesterday just in time to pack some fresh clothes and I’m off to New York for a meeting at the Women’s Sports Foundation today and then participate in a panel sponsored by the Out Professionals on Celebrating 25 years of LGBT Sports History on Wednesday. Have a great week.