Do Outrageous Pride Costumes Hurt the LGBT Cause?

Every Pride I have the same discussion with a straight ally of my acquaintance. After noting the motorcycle dykes leading the Pride parade, and the drag-queen and disco-boy floats, she says something like, “Don’t they realize they’re not helping their cause by dressing like that?”

“Like what?” I prompt her, knowing what she will say.

“So different. So outrageous,” she says. “And that’s all the media ever shows,” she adds, knowing that I will counter that there are also LGBT accountants, bankers, carpenters, and stroller-pushing parents in most parades, as well as LGBT and allied school groups, church organizations, and politicians.

“Isn’t the point of it all to show that difference is okay?” I counter.

Thus we reach an impasse.

I see her point, however. If Pride were just about presenting a polished image in order to convince people that “gay is okay,” then yes, we should all go to Pride in our polos and khakis like it’s business-casual Friday.

Pride is about more than that, though. Pride is a celebration of who we are and about all the facets of LGBT culture and history. Besides, would the media even be interested in covering a parade of people who look like they just stepped out of Parents magazine, LGBT or no? It is the drag queens and the motorcycles that catch people’s attention. And I’ve even seen kids riding in motorcycle sidecars — just try to parse that one out. Yes, there are motorcycle-riding lesbian soccer moms, and drag queen accountants — and why not? We don’t all fall into single-subject categories.

The problem, as my friend says, is when the media focuses exclusively on the more outrageous components of the parade, and does not show the full diversity of the community. I agree, but I also think things are getting a bit better in that regard: in addition to Pride coverage, most major papers, and many minor ones, include profiles of lesbian or gay parents in their coverage of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, for example.

Such coverage often goes too far in the other direction, however. The parents are almost inevitably white, upper-middle class, and “ordinary” looking — no wild piercings or tattoos. Between them and the glitter-clad Pride marchers lies the diverse truth of the LGBT community.

The problem is that there is still comparatively little coverage of LGBT issues in the media or representation of LGBT people in television and film. We cringe at each representation because it does not, in fact, represent us all, or it makes a personal characteristic seem like a group one.

The Real L Word, which premiered last night on Showtime, is a case in point. The glitzy LA lifestyles portrayed there are not at all representative of lesbians as a whole, as I wrote before. Nor is the obsession with sex that several of the characters display, nor one character’s expectation that her girlfriend will have dinner waiting on the table when she gets home from work. (I thought that sort of thing went out with Donna Reed.)

Likewise, the upper-middle class New York life of the gay dads in CNN’s upcoming Gary & Tony Have a Baby is hardly representative, as Bil Browning points out at Bilerico. (I have not yet seen the show myself, so I cannot yet speak to his other impressions of it.) CNN has said the show is just one of several planned to look at the gay community, so we’ll see if they widen their scope in the future.

In the meantime, spend this last part of Pride Month not only celebrating the slowly increasing acceptance of LGBT people as employees, parents, and “ordinary Americans,” but also celebrating our role in upholding — and accepting — difference and diversity. There’s a worthwhile lesson there for people of all orientations and identities.

Photo credit: jerekeys