[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
I’m actually cynical to the point at which I don’t think the average meat head born post-1985 even knows what National Socialist Germany was about or any of the details of World War II. I really don’t think they are that intellectual or interested. Does anyone hang out in any of the fitness-oriented forums on Facebook? Ever consider the intellect and depth of the average poster? Most of us indulge a bit here with selfies and progress updates, but do you think people who are providing on-the-hour updates of their every waking moments are interested in much else? “Hey guys, here’s breakfast.” “Hey guys, I have 20 more grams of carbs and 3 grams of fat left for the day. What should I eat?” “Hey guys, there’s this person at the gym I want to speak to. How do I do that?” “Hey guys, here’s me after eating pizza.” Some of these are near verbatim of what I’ve read. I assume these are not the type of folks who empathize much or are concerned with right versus wrong in any qualifying way.
I am not an advertising executive, but I assume–perhaps wrongfully so–that a company would use symbols that hit home with a majority of people in a field or models that they would like to look or be like or whose looks they admire, especially in an image-driven niche like fitness. Considering almost no men lifting feel like a woman or want to be a woman or would look at a transvestite as a sex object, I can’t picture a transvestite’s image being the impetus to buy nutrition or fitness products. At 36 years old I don’t idolize anyone or aspire to look like someone else or so seriously admire another man’s looks.,But when I was in my teens and early 20’s I was a bit starstruck by my favorite good-looking bodybuilders (Dennis Newman, Chris Duffy, Gary Strydom, Mike Francois, and Mike O’hearn, for example) and that compelled me to buy bodybuilding magazines. (I was never a huge supplement user, but for the past few years I do love my Flameout, Finibars, and Plazma, which I use almost daily). Transvestites don’t strike this chord with sixteen to thirty-five year old men. This doesn’t mean they can’t respectfully treat one.
My feelings here, flawed as they might be. And again, I share some here because, again, I think we have some mature people here.
(And no, I don’t have a problem as a straight man recognizing who’s good looking.)[/quote]
Your assessment of the company’s perspective is probably fair, and again I think my reaction was knee-jerk. I had someone in my office last week struggling with this issue and the client mentioned that 12 trans people were killed in 2014 and there are already 16 dead this year. (These are not numbers I’ve verified.)
I have a hard time not being knee-jerk about people who are enduring a shit storm for doing things that harm no one. An example of a firing I support would be the #FHRITP guy in Canada. I find what he and his friends did offensive in a manner that aggresses against others, as opposed to being something some people might not prefer, but does not directly assault them.
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It’s not like he was fired from a job as a cashier or insurance rep. A company that relied on his likeness to strengthen their brand. His likeness has dramatically changed, and the company no longer feels that it strengthens their brand. There is no issue here. If Cindy Crawford decided to chop off all of her hair, dress like a man, and stop wearing makeup, she would probably be dropped from Cover Girl just the same. In fact, thousands of women just plain get old and get dropped from whatever product they’ve been repping for years because their likeness has changed and no longer strengthens the brand of the company. This is a non-issue.
