Procter & Gamble, which consistently earns praise with a 100 rating in the Human Rights Campaign Equality Index, is being blamed for a trans and intersex-phobic Youtube commercial for their Always feminine pads. But according to an Always representative, P & G has nothing to do with it.
The commercial features several drag artists looking overly distraught and crying to the standard, “Cry Me a River.” The text reads:
“There are some people who’d just love to have a period. Let alone a happy one. Have a happy period. Always.”
Firstly, the “commercial” seems to have confused drag performers with Male-to-Female (MTF) transgender people. Trans women are not men in dresses.
Secondly, mocking the infertility of trans women should not be used as a marketing gimmick by one of the world’s largest corporations.
I spoke with Velvet Gogol Bennet who is the Feminine Care External Relations representative and she was quite adamant that P & G had absolutely nothing to do with this ad. She does not know where it came from, but insists that Always and Procter & Gamble were no part of it.
“This video was made without our knowledge, consent, or permission. Always is a brand that believes in and stands for women. It is against Always’ deepest principles to denigrate anyone and we would not endorse this kind of advertising”
When walking through Shubert Alley in Times Square, one gets to see the wall-sized posters for several Broadway shows – some have been running for years and some have yet to open. While walking through last week, I couldn’t help but notice this new ad for the upcoming Priscilla: Queen of the Desert musical.
The picture (also featured on their website and their first major mailer), features three “divas” as they’re called.
Of course, being the responsible self-respecting gay musical theatre lover I am, I immediately got pissed off. Why? Well – unless you missed the hit 90s film from Australia that this show is based on – you’d recall that PQD is a story of three of the most fabulous drag queens ever to grace the silver screen. Why the hell are there three pretty girls advertising a musical about boys in dresses? Michael Musto took to his blog to point out the same thing. And the die-hard Broadway fans at BroadwayWorld.com are having a lengthy discussion about it. Is a Broadway show afraid to show drag queens in their ads? Does someone think Broadway or NYC can’t handle a guy in a dress? So, I talked myself into a frenzy of being offended and then thought…hmmm there must be something else in play here. Surely a Broadway show was not sweeping the LGBT community under the carpet.
The ad campaigns from the other locations where PQD has played have all proven to be extraordinarily campy – including a giant stiletto over the marquis in some cases:
So, whereas TAE friend, Nick Adams is one of the stars of the upcoming musical, I dropped him a line to see what was up. Without saying very much and considering the actors rarely have little (if anything) to do with the marketing of a show, he referred me to one of the publicists for the show, Nick Pramik at Spotco (also an old friend).
Nick P denied that there was any attempt to hide the drag queens and explained that the posters we’d seen were merely the first part of a roll-out of a much larger campaign. Nick went on to explain that the team behind the marketing is the same team behind that for La Cage aux Folles, which clearly has no problem whatsoever with dragging out the queens to promote the show.
He then assured me that the LGBT community was going to be very happy with this show after some future announcements were made – including some kind of partnership with a major LGBT organization. He was biting his tongue the whole time and is clearly very excited about the promotional plan for the show.
So for now, keep your skirts on and let’s see what Priscilla holds for New York City!
I sure hope to see a whole lot of Will Swenson, Tony Sheldon and Nick Adams strutting their stuff all over the place to get people to see this very pro-LGBT musical.
In the meantime, enjoy a couple of the photos and a little video from the upcoming sure-to-be hit!
Procter & Gamble, which consistently earns praise with a 100 rating in the Human Rights Campaign Equality Index, is being blamed for a trans and intersex-phobic Youtube commercial for their Always feminine pads. But according to an Always representative, P & G has nothing to do with it.
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