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The image above has a smattering of aimless queers all hot and bothered, and not in a good way. It seems at last week's Marriage Equality Community Forum, a forum to help get Prop 8 overturned, a few angry souls suggested calling the manager of Pottery Barn to complain about how their Castro window-display promotes heterosexual coupling.
Huh? Exactly.
Also, do gays living west of I-5 even shop at Pottery Barn? It seems unlikely.
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While I'm not sure that PB Marketing would enjoy tailoring their sweatshop graphics departments to every community standard that surrounds each of their stores, I have no problem with people raising a stink about this. It doesn't affect me, it doesn't affect prices, and the people who care about this stuff should be allowed to care about it. Note that there's no hue and cry about a lack of Hanukkah display, so it's a niche concern to be sure, but still I think it's reasonable to call the display distasteful. Not tasteLESS or offensive, just clueless and dumb.
Manys, right on the money.
As an unhappy uptight person I'm offended that they seem so peaceful and relaxed. My Christmas angst should be represented.
no need to worry/bitch/moan. soon our end game of manditory gay marriage for all will be played.
at what point do we save outrage for things that warrant it, and not freak out about every little thing?
I would think that there are bigger things to worry about than the window displays of some boring chain store.
at what point do we save outrage for things that warrant it, and not freak out about every little thing?
When everybody agrees on what "warrants it" and what constitutes a "little thing."
Are you nominating yourself as arbiter?
I was just on Clement St. and I saw a window display that didn't have any Asians in it. I'm offended.
@Manys: certainly people have the right to get upset over whatever they want to, but we can critique the focus of their concern. In this case, getting upset over a mass market, generic, holiday advertising campaign seems pretty silly. It is tough to see how anyone could be truly insulted or truly negatively impacted by this in any way. And to expect a mass marketer to tailor every one of their ad campaigns to precisely one's own niche demographic seems a bit self-centered. So, yeah, people can get upset, but it is tough for me to muster much sympathy for them on this one.
Just poor marketing. And not just for the demographic, either. It's ugly and uninspired.
We San Franciscans are the most narcisistic people in the world. Funny.
Outrageous. Have you seen the haircuts? No sense of style at all.
Achtung! You must remember that the Castro district BELONGS to the gays! Forget it ever was Eureka Valley and forget it was ever once populated by heterosexuals. It belongs to the homosexuals and all shops and businesses in the district MUST be gay themed. Those found not in accordance with this edict will have to move back home to their parent's house in suburban New York or Massachusetts.
GlenParker, although you intended to be funny, that's sort of the same overreaction that's inspired this article.
If folks take a moment to think about, even for just a few moments, what it might be like to be an oppressed minority and that most of world, in every way possible and at every given opportunity, tells you that what you are is unacceptable. And after you find your one place in the world to feel accepted, whole and free to be you, it's intruded upon by that "other world" again reinforcing that somehow you're just not good enough. Well it's enough to make some folks pretty freakin' irate.
Granted, I'm not saying that the viewpoint isn't without it's flaws. But many folks in the gay community have suffered some pretty serious beatings, physically, mentally and emotionally, throughout their lives. I see no reason they can't indulge their deep-seated outrage, even with something so seemingly minor. It's not at all minor. This is yet another intrusion.
And as manys and others said, it's not offensive so much as it is dumb and insensitive to a community that, despite it's better judgment, went out of it's way to allow a big chain store a location in this neighborhood. The very least the could do is put up an inclusive holiday display that reflects the traditions of the neighborhood, FFS.
It's almost ironic that Pottery Barn is a subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, a San Francisco-based corporation.
Almost.
If the Pottery Barn wants to put up a display that reflects the tradition of that neighborhood they should show pictures of dairy farms as that is what that 'hood started out as. The gays moved into a heterosexual neighborhood and now they think that everything in that neighborhood should be a reflection of their sexual orientation.
How is that window display dumb and insensitive? Because it doesn't show same sex couples and happens to be located in the Castro district. That's lame. Stop being a victim and stop blaming Pottery Barn.
Not even close, imperialist. As best we can tell it was an Ohlone settlement for almost 2,000 years.
I'm sorry I stand corrected: the Pottery Barn should have an Ohlone gay couple opening oyster shells under a native tree in their window decoration.
@GlenPark: Please stop the lies. I find it very hard to believe that you typed that while standing up.
What lies? That the Castro wasn't always gay? That the Mission wasn't always populated by Hispanics?
@Glen Parker: I knew my joke was bad, but I didn't think it was that bad.
I was just joking about your "I stand corrected." See, if you're sitting while you're typing...
Millions of years ago the Castro was a sea of molten lava. I demand that Pottery Barn redesign their advertisements to reflect this aspect of our neighborhood's history instead of attempting to jam their human-centric point of view down our throats.
I don't know if this counts as cultural sensitivty, but I think my dad would be psyched to hear you calling it "the pottery barn" since he can never figure out what stores are actually called.
Sorry Chris, didn't catch that. I'm just a simple product of the San Francisco Unified School District.
@Jnice: I always refer to the merchandise from this sort of place as coming from The Crate Barn -- people usually know what I mean.
Pottery Barn is actually a closeted gay store. This just confirms it.
I wonder what kind of reaction it would get if the Chestnut Street Pottery Barn did their big display windows with Gay couples and their children.
I predict the windows would be smashed within a week.
Huge blah-corp. company chooses "cookie-cutter" seasonal sales display. Said display contains images of the most common pair bonding paradigm (currently) in the US. Quelle Suprise.
Why bother getting one's pants in a twist over a non-issue, when there are some quite valid challenges facing the homosexual community?
We're here!
We're straight!
Get used to it!
I wasn't going to call PB about this until I read so many heartless posts.
We're here
We're QUEER
FU!
The problem isn't so much that this is insensitive to the neighborhood, its more that if they put in a gay couple in the displays in the Market at Castro store, there would probably be a call on right wing radio to boycott Pottery Barn in places like Boise Idaho. As for Chestnut, they could hardly care, it's not like that neighborhood voted for Prop 8.
I'm so glad that I care not the least about this.
the fact that so many people are more worried about this than say, oh I dunno, the economy, the fact Prop 8 passed and so on says a lot.
I aint no arbiter of nothing, but I do know classic lefty liberal overreaction while real problems go flyin' by when I see it - i DID attend UCSC after all...
I agree with Travin. Imagine day after day seeing every single ad campaign marketed as if you don't exist. I can imagine it would get a little grating/frustrating. They want gay people's money, obviously, since they put that store in the main area of the Castro, yet they don't want to acknowledge their existence? Screw them.
As for Prop 8 and the "can't they find anything better to worry about" argument: people can focus their rage on various issues at one time. I know I certainly do. I'd say I have the ability to be pissed off about, oh 25 things at once. Oops, make that 26.
I went to see Milk at the Castro last night and they didn't even ask if I was gay before letting me in.
I was at the meeting where the PB comment was made. The tone and tenor with which it was made is so different from how it's being represented here.
No one suggested to rounding up the troops, grabbing the pitchforks, and going after the heads of the people at PB. Quite the contrary. It was a pretty rational suggestion to simply call PB and point out the incongruity of ads using all-heterosexual couples right in the heart of the Castro, especially right after the passage of Prop 8. To some, seeing those ads every day is like putting salt in the wound. The man who made the suggestion didn't express the outrage that people here seem to think. So from what I'm seeing, the overreaction here isn't coming from the lefty liberals. Rather, it's coming from people who are using the suggestion to validate the existing "loony left" stereotype of San Franciscans (deserved or not.)
@ mushmouth, it's kind of alarming that you would just make something like that up because you are badly mistaken. Perhaps these are the reasons some are so upset about the display, because it illustrates people's complacency and lack of empathy and concern.
Folks in the Marina voted Yes on Prop 8 on average of about 20%+, in some portions it was as high as 40%+. Take a look at the map in this article.
@bluecanary, thanks for the support but my words were speaking in empathy from another's viewpoint and worries. Personally I don't have any issues with the display except from a marketing standpoint it was a really dumb decision, or lack thereof. It's unfortunate that it's resulting in people feeling upset and betrayed.
@yatdave, if you've never experienced the visceral reaction of a transsexual to the simple mistake of being referred to as the wrong gender, let's just say it's painful and traumatizing. So it's not so difficult to imagine what reaction to something like this display can cause to a community, even if folks aren't carrying pitch-forks over it.
The reason i love SF is the diversity. How every group socializes with each other. You know, mission folk with marina folk. Gay folk with the Asian community. all getting along and playing nice.
Just like a giant high school lunch room!
This event proves it; SF is full of elitist hypocrites.
How petty.
The map looks like you should be more pissed off at the Sunset, Richmond, Bayview/Hunter's Point and Visatacion Valley hoods instead of the Marina.
I think that the people who are offended by this should just boycott the store and encourage others to boycott the store. I think the fact that there's a PB at this location stinks anyway so I haven't been into it since it opened years ago as a way of protest.
Unfortunately, plenty of gays who live west of the 5 fwy shop at PB. I personally prefer Room and Board. Their design is a little more mod and the store has much more variety.
Anybody else notice that there are only white people pictured? If we're going to be sensitive about gay/straight, we shouldn't forget race either. such narrow filters of reality...
Just because of this, I'm going to CONTINUE to NOT shop and Pottery Barn. Really, who shops there anyhow? It's nothing but ugly crap.
@Glenpark, it's sad that you can't relate one iota to what many queer people have gone thru. Actually, it's a good thing. I wouldn't wish anyone to grow up in a society that continues to marginalized and oppress you. Good for you!
@zucchini But surely only white people shop at Pottery Barn anyway? So the posters in that respect are a fair reflection...
zucchini: ironically, given the castro's history of race relations that may be the portion of the display that is most accurate.
Travin? What was I making up? I'm guessing I need to spell things out for you. "giant fur diaper" made a statement of if they put a gay couple in the window of PB on chestnut the window would be broken within a week. I'm saying the people of Chestnut street wouldn't bat an eyelash at a gay couple in the window, as it is not like the people of Chestnut street voted in FAVOR of prop 8 (voted for marriage in-equality). It is clear by this map http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/11/14/MNIQ144185.DTL&o=1 that Chestnut street residents voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8.