“A Day In Gay America”? More Like A Day In Boring America

The Advocate‘s “A Day In Gay America” tells their version of what it means to be gay in America, and it’s pretty gay! There is an interview with Adam Lambert, and then there a bunch of pictures of white, rich people attending gay weddings, going to the gym, lounging by pools, and holding their babies. What is the deal with gays and babies? Isn’t the point of being gay not having to deal with annoying babies? Also, there are two lesbians kissing a chicken. Who are these people?

To be fair, thumbing through this issue of The Advocate isn’t any different than thumbing through any other magazine that’s supposed to be depicting any given group of people, gay or straight. I’ve never seen myself in any “average” person in any magazine pictorial, not because I think I’m above average (if anything, I’m below average), but because I instinctively recoil at the notion that I’m supposed to see some version of myself in someone else’s staged representation of what someone is supposed to be. Yet this is of course what magazines have always done–try and sell you on what you’re supposed to be, what you could be, and what you’re supposed to buy.

The other thing that magazines have always done is make me want things I could never afford or be good enough for. For example, the hot intern featured in the Advocate staff’s “Day In Gay America,” Jeffrey Hartinger! Helllloooo cutie.

[Jeffrey Hartinger: Generation (WH)Y]

[Advocate]