Lesbian Mommy T-shirts Do Not an Activist Make

Marc Jacobs' lesbian mommy T-shirt

Behold, Marc Jacobs' latest foray into T-shirt activism. As reported in New York magazine, Jacobs has two new politically themed tees for sale, both bearing the statement: "I pay my taxes. I want my RIGHTS!" That's all that appears on one shirt, that and a dinky little American flag. The other shirt is where he's really going for provocateur status, featuring a drawing of what we are supposed to assume is a lesbian couple with a toddler we are supposed to assume is theirs. Jacobs' gay moms are clearly over the butch/femme dichotomy—the woman with the uber-short haircut and shoulder tattoo is wearing a dress and showing cleavage. Her partner wears a strapless dress and a ponytail. Their pose is relaxed—one has her arm around the other, who keeps a protective hand on the toddler. It's the iconography of the holy family, and the American nuclear family, just without the XY phenotype.

Since its priced at $24, pretty cheap for Jacobs, this shirt might well fly off the shelves and extend to everyone who sees it the message that gay families deserve equal treatment under the law. "Give the attractive, not-too-butch, affectionate-but-not-rubbing-it-in-your-face, tax-paying mommy lesbians their RIGHTS!" And that wouldn't be a bad thing.

What bothers me is that it's the latest example of retailers using activism as a marketing ploy, sending the message that buying is an acceptable substitute for doing. Wearing a T-shirt with a political message is a pretty passive form of activism, and what action it involves has to do with consumption, what the wearer gets out of it—a new T-shirt, a piece of the Jacobs brand, and a basically unearned sense of political engagement. I wonder how many people who bought Jacobs' 2008 Hillary and Obama T-shirts didn't actually vote in the election.

What do other Double Xers think?

Comments

Reply:

By: daniel1508 | Wed, 12/16/2009 - 08:53

Hey this is a very nice post. The tees are very interesting. I think every individual has the right to wear what they want as long s they do not hurt any persons sentiments.

mens dress shirt

Re: green_bull

By: Dark King | Mon, 08/03/2009 - 00:09

You're right: I do have a heterosexual view on this. But I stand by my point - marketing like this increases the apathy in the general population, reducing the tension and making it easier for reform to take place.

I'll take your word that it takes guts for a lesbian to wear one of these shirts. My point is that the very existence of these shirts means that in a few short years, the message these shirts send will be politically neutral. Either the discrimination will have finally been erased from law (erasing it from society, sadly, looks to be something that will take many more generations) or the political dialogue will have progressed to the point where the majority opinion is "I don't care either way".

Shirts like these are just a sign of this process. Plaster messages like this on enough shirts, coffee cups, mouse mats etc and eventually they will be part of the background. Hopefully by being part of the background, homosexual politics will be no longer be so highly loaded that the kneejerk passion over-rides our basic humanity and common sense.

You might be right, but...

By: green_bull | Fri, 07/31/2009 - 09:16

You might be right, Dark King, that one day this t-shirt will see apathetic eyes, but I believe that you are speaking more from a heterosexual view point. But, thank you, the world needs more people like you to say “who cares?!” For me, as a lesbian, it takes guts to wear this shirt. And Margaret, whether a passive marketing ploy or not, it is still one for step in the right direction and a slap in the face to all those hate breeders out there. What caught my eye, though, was the actual image of the ‘femme’ mommies. The picture on the t-shirt is quite far from the truth; rather it serves to almost gloss over the issue. Would we turn away in disgust if we saw a more butch family portrait laminated on Jacob’s t-shirt? In reality, this is the majority of the population--not blonde locked vixens wearing black strappy dresses. Is the t-shirt then sexist imagery? Would Jacobs dare show a more accurate portrait of a lesbian family? We can’t all be Portia De Rossi’s, you know.

hyperlinks

By: pfeytser | Thu, 07/30/2009 - 23:08

I would encourage people to click on the "holy family" and "nuclear family" links.

p.s. - it's rather poignant that both are white.

Lesbian Mommy T-Shirts = victory by apathy

By: Dark King | Thu, 07/30/2009 - 18:41

Imagery (and messages) like these would have been punishable by death 50 years ago. They would have caused a minor political firestorm even 20 years ago, back when Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were claiming that the road to the White House ran through their congregations.

What these shirts help to do is defuse the "homosexual issue" - or at least take more tension out of it. The sooner homosexual relations become just another logo on clothing, the sooner people will stop caring. It breeds apathy, just as the famous Che Guevarra image has now lost most of its political impact and is just a piece of art. Once homosexual politics has attained that level of apathy, it will be easier to get equal rights...as the majority opinion will be "who cares anyway?".