Newsgroups: bit.listserv.gaynet
Date:         Wed, 19 Aug 1992 04:17:03 -0400
From:         gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Subject:      GayNet Digest Volume 5 Issue 638

In this issue:
                           Banana Republic Ad
                  contact info for Overlooked Opinions
                           finding a balance
                           Queer advertising

Please send messages for the entire list to gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU,
requests to be added or deleted to gaynet-request@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, and
personal replies directly to the other person, not the entire list.
Postings to GayNet are public communications.  If you must keep your
privacy, send your messages to gaynet-anonymous@ATHENA.MIT.EDU.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 16:12 EST
From: RIVENBERG@PFC.MIT.EDU
Subject: Banana Republic Ad

Perhaps someone else has already mentionned this, but I noticed yesterday
in the latest Vanity Fair (with Geena Davis on the cover) a number
of Banana Republic Ads scattered throughout the magazine.  All ads were
in black and white, featured the words "free souls" (as I recall) and
showed couples.  One ad showed a male couple, sitting, with a cityscape
in the background.  They were holding and touching each other in a
sensuous and open way.  It's quite wonderful.  I haven't heard anything
on the net or in the press about their latest decision to market directly
to gay men.  I didn't notice any female couples in their ads, however.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 13:09:48 -0700
From: Jessea N. R. Greenman <jnrg@ocf.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: contact info for Overlooked Opinions

Stephanie Smith asked for this info.  I don't know whether they
have a "mailing list" per se, but contact them to find out more.
Overlooked Opinions, Inc., 3712 N. Broadway, Suite 277,
Chicago IL 60613; phone=312-929-3405.
The paper I was referring to did not list a fax number.

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 92 16:11:47 MST
From: Gabriel Lampert <G9348712%NMSUVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject:      finding a balance

First of all: I have now sent out copies of my story to everyone who asked
(either on the net or personally), including Graham and Gervais again.  If
you haven't gotten it, let me know.  And get those responses back to me!
(please 8-)

Now:  Kevin, unless you are the Messiah (and you'd probably know by now if
you were), you are not capable of doing everything.  I'm sorry.  Furthermore,
if the world is going to hell in a handbasket, you will not be able single-
handedly to prevent that.  So:  Once you recognize these major limitations
(and I mean really recognize it, in your heart), it becomes slightly easier
to let go.  Especially as you discover that if you continue *attempting* to
do the impossible, you get nastier and nastier and more and more frustrated,
which in turn does little if any good to the causes you want to advance.
Keep checking yourself:  What about my life?  What am I doing to keep my own
self satisfied and sufficiently charged up to keep putting out energy for
others?  (I, for example, write stories; it seems to work.)

In any case, Kev, by this point you must have gotten the idea that this
problem is not new and you are not its only victim.  This again is liberating
when you recognize your funny place in the divine comedy.  Sometimes the
thing to do is to shrug your shoulders and sigh very loudly.

See, isn't that simple?  (not!)
Gabriel (in New Mexico)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 20:42:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David M. Pahnos" <dp0q+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Queer advertising

> The ads feature many many *HOT* male
>models, in direct contrast to, say, Bugle Boys' blatantly
>heterosexist advertising.

Am I the only one who is catching the gay themes in the Bugle Boy ads?
I thought they were definitely aimed at us *in addition* (why else show
those total gods like that at the end?).  Think about it:  they have
these words across the bottom of the screen that you have to read (and
you cant see the women if you are reading, and i have yet to notice
them) and then when they quit the words, they show hunks, with no words.
 Total attention.  I love them.  There is an in-joke in there for us as
well.

Now Banana Republic (owned by Gap) is showing two guys hanging all over
each other in one of their ads (in usa today tuesday page two of the
money section-cut that picture out!).

michael j pastor iii
guest on davids account

------------------------------

End of GayNet Digest
********************
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU