One thing I think I’m changing my mind about is the idea of having big, splashy corporate sponsors for Pride parades. I say I “think” I’m changing my mind because.. well.. I’m just not sure yet. I’m surprising myself a little bit, because I definitely see this differently than I did even just three or four years ago. But I’m going to try to lay it all out here and see what makes sense.
Pride parades are an odd beast. In the span of what feels like 5 minutes, they’ve morphed from edgy, angry protest marches, >> to shock-value over the top bacchanalia, >> to neighborhood feel-good, happy Diversity Awareness Day >> to whatever sort of reactionary posture they have now where like, it’s still the happy neighborhood vibe for some, but others are angry that it feels too mainstream, and others are angry at the first group of angry people and want it to be more sanitized. All of which leaves any reasonable person left asking the question: what is this parade about, again?
I have no idea how to answer that question. To some extent, it doesn’t matter, either. Parades are fun, so have whatever kind of Pride Parade you want. But somewhere along that lightning fast evolution, it became normal to have Target and TDBank and Hilton and American Airlines and Wells Fargo jump on the literal bandwagon with big, rainbowy parade floats, Gaga music blasting, employees waving pride flags and bouncing around in short shorts and fun corporate branded t-shirts. Obviously, this had everything to do with the enormous successes of the marriage equality movement in the 2010s. Obama was president, the gays in the military ban was lifted, the Supreme Court issued decisions in Windsor and Obergefell, and every corporation in the world rushed in and wanted to be a part of the action and proclaim their enlightened thinking.1
Which, like.. fine? I had always thought this was fine. Maybe it was kinda gross. It was definitely unseemly to have Hilton and Merrill Lynch and Sotheby’s so transparently pandering to a demographic of affluent city dwellers with a healthy amount of disposable income. But it’s a parade, and what harm is it really doing? Parades are fun, and everyone wants to be outside in June, and we’re all just celebrating Diversity and Acceptance and Being Your Authentic Self, so how is that a bad thing? Sure, Pride parades were more fun when they were full of leather kinksters dancing in assless chaps2 and there were no kids to be seen anywhere, but that’s the way it goes. Shit goes from edgy and cool to bland and broadly-accepted. All of life works this way.
I’m not sure I feel that way anymore. I still think it’s a good thing that Pride is more popular now than it used to be. I’m glad that lots of people want to celebrate it, and Pride should (if we’re doing it right), look from the outside like it’s a lot of fun and more people should adopt the ethos of Pride and come join the party. That’s all great! But I don’t think the corporate sponsorships actually contribute toward that positive growth. Corporate sponsorships inject money into the parade, yes. And more money = bigger, splashier parade, more people in the parade, more money for the Pride groups that organize Pride stuff. But corporate sponsors aren’t at the parade because they’re an integral part of the community. Rather, they’re there because they see it as in their interest to be seen at the parade.
Honestly, the thing that’s most helped to change my thinking on this of late has been the latest controversy over Disney and the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” law. I could write a whole week of posts about that topic (and believe me, I’m not about to do that). But it really has underscored how much Disney is a corporate actor — regardless of what its corporate “values” might be, it needs to remain popular among the power brokers in Florida politics. That’s just the reality that Disney operates in. It’s a huge company that employs many thousands of people and has a ton of money invested in Florida. It can’t exactly pick up and move Disney World to a blue state. So it’s going to hedge and try to play all sides of this issue. If Florida had different politicians and a different political climate, Disney would adjust accordingly. This is because Disney acts in Disney’s own financial interests, not out of some altruistic view about diversity and equality. Disney does not vote! It simply exists, and it exists to make money for its shareholders.
So too with the corporate Pride sponsors. Here in Chicago, I think there’s an excellent case to be made that Sidetrack, and CRAM, and Grab Magazine, and Center on Halsted, and whatever other big gay thing you care to mention are all members of a diverse, vibrant Chicago LGBT community. They’re at the parade because they belong there. Same with politicians who want to march in the parade, even — they are part of the community and are elected by that community. Target and Hilton, however, are only in attendance at the parade in order to be seen as being there. Target has gay employees, and Target supports and values those gay employees, and I’m very happy for them. But the moment Target has to comply with some toxic anti-LGBT legislation or curry favor with some right-wing nutjob in order to get what it needs, Target will do so. It has to. Target is accountable to its shareholders, not to some vague fuzzy notion of equality that’s espoused by parade attendees.
My point is not to throw in with the anti-capitalist hard lefties who think Corporations Are Evil (personally, I think corporate structures that insulate us from personal legal liability in our business affairs are a good thing!). And I’m not personally offended by Target pandering to the gays by selling a bunch of schlocky gay merchandise every June (my god, it is SO tacky, tho). I’m just making the much more modest point that Pride parades are at their best when they are an organic outgrowth of the community where they happen — and big, national corporations aren’t really a part of that community. Their interests are different. And it’s ok to have a parade without them. Would the parade be smaller? With less money? Sure, probably. But that’s ok. Better, even.
The worst example of this that I can remember was in the 2014-2016 era in DC, when — amidst the United States’ continued escalation of the war in Afghanistan — Raytheon and Northrop Grumman would sponsor Pride marchers. It was a frankly kinda f’cked up display of American military power and war profiteering through the military industrial complex, but like, in a gay way.
All chaps are assless. This is a redundant misnomer. And yet, it’s what people say whenever they describe gays wearing chaps.
Footnote #1 has an official term. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkwashing_(LGBT)