Commercialized the gaytastic
one suggestion to spread awareness is to follow the way how business sells ideas, good or bad.
we need the "qcuoeoelr" factor: just see how effective they are selling those cans of horrible body sprays (sorry if you have one).
it's an effective method with no moral burden when it's actually doing something good (condolences to the Marlboro Man: hey, you didn't know).
one starting point (or THE starting point) is to inundate the public with media loaded with subliminal ideas. In a school environment the most effective media channel will be non sequitur posters: not selling textbooks, not announcing events, no apparent meanings. They catch attentions without delivering messages in people's face.
What I am getting at is posters (probably need to be in colour for effectiveness) with subtle meanings. Like a iPod, or iMac, sleek but you cant really tell what's inside from the outside... but you want to touch it! (compare to my Acer laptop, which insists on telling me how wonderful it is with 5 different stickers)
Now for an example: imagine a plump nude baby sitting in a baby blue background, just being cute, and with LGBTQ? in light pink unobtrusively on the bottom right.
there.
So... no actual message to
So... no actual message to the posters?
If you want the posters to be attention-grabbing but not have any actual message, that's cool, but perhaps the baby doesn't convey that quite so well. The crazy homophobes will see the baby poster and think "the gays are after our children!" The saner people might think it's a "maybe she's born with it" sort of thing and evoke those stupid nature vs. nurture discussions.
Then again, whatever is on the posters, people will read whatever they want into it :)
David Leaman
Operations Co-ordinator
LGBTQ?@UTSC
:eof
yes, there will actually be
yes, there will actually be a message, just not typed right out. An idea exists through the association of the image with LGBTQ? (and what meanings the viewers relate with the image and LGBTQ). In a way the purpose is to exactly provoke (even taunt) the viewers to come up with their own conclusions (or questions).
It's more an "engaging media", compare to the force-fed variety (ex. most TV commercials). With the constant bombardments of modern information, most people are well trained at sidestepping predetermined ideas (again, ex. commercials). A question mark grabs more attention to a thinking mind, which is the kind that's more worthwhile to communicate with.
The good thing (and potentially dangerous, of course) about this ambiguity is it right away allows the viewers an opportunity to think of the multitude aspects of an issue at the same time (this part depends on the university's education on open mindedness and development of an inquiring mind), since we didn't explicitly confirm one (even though our standpoint can be inferred).
So, what's a baby have to do with LGBTQ?
(which is pretty well explained in your reply)
(in a way it's possible to come about as irresponsible or cowardice of the author to not make a clear statement, so to avoid responsibility)
This is partially a social experiment, since it does requires a certain social mindset to work, namely a mindset which one is encouraged thinks, not just blindly submit to beliefs. We just need to have faith for the university not to fail the society on cultivating exactly that.
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This leads to the next idea of a series of posters. Say having 5 or more portraits of people from obvious and different settings (military, academic, business, political?, public service, etc.), with the LGBTQ logo on the 6th, unobtrusively. All placed in a row for effectiveness.
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