Brisbane’s upcoming Queer Film Festival is set to be a big event, bringing together gay, lesbian, transgender and intersex communities from Queensland and all around the country.
To celebrate and promote the event, organisers have created a series of beautiful poster artworks – one of which you definitely won’t be seeing on the streets of Brisvegas.
Brisbane City Council has banned this picture of two young men kissing on a beach from being used on a billboard to promote the festival. Organisers of the event have been told that the image is too explicit and confronting.
Jake Harrison, of My Kitchen Rules fame, features in the poster series. He is justifiably disappointed with the decision.
“It is annoying,… As soon as this type of ad, featuring two gay men is used, it is deemed unfit for Brisbane’s eyes. Of course the best poster had to be torn down,” he said.
We’re not too sure what could possibly considered ‘explicit’ about a couple kissing in their swimmers. There’s no nudity here folks, just some very, very excellent abdominal muscles. The poster is simply an endearing – albeit sandy and potentially itchy – expression of love.
And as for the image being ‘confronting’. Surely in 2014, when all of our national laws that discriminate against homosexuality (except that pesky marriage act, which is still in need of some serious tinkering) have been abolished, we can all be un-confronted by a picture of two blokes kissing?
After all. What’s wrong with a sneaky pash in the waves, eh? Seems bloody well Australian.
Top Comments
I thought at first the ol' Australian Christian Lobby was at work again (the ones who demanded the "rip and roll" condom ads featuring a homosexual couple be pulled from public display), but considering the current mayor and councillors there is a fair chance they are just acting on their own homophobic agenda. The huge backlash after the condom ads were pulled is hopefully a good sign that the average Brisbanite won't stand for such rubbish and the poster will be allowed to run.
What's crazy is you have to look closely at the image to realise it's not the original From Here To Eternity image and actually has two men in it.
True Teegz, you hardly notice that it's 2 guys, it doesn't slap you in the face. I did notice in another story on MM that the 2014 Sports Illustrated has 3 very attractive young women all topless, hugging and touching each others butts suggestively and looking sweetly over their shoulders at the camera. I go to the beach a lot and I just don't see young women holding each others bums very often. In fact I don't think I have. It's probably safe to say that this magazine won't be withdrawn from the shelves so the powers that be must be using a different set of guidelines to gauge what is "confronting". The magazine cover doesn't come near to reflecting anything that is realistic and it reeks with the innuendo of entertaining viewing for the men that involves the not so heterosexual type of sex which must surely also be confronting if 2 guys on a beach are. I wonder if how to explain both of these images to kids came into play when the rule makers were thinking on it? Because I think that explaining the 3 women demands just as much explanation as the 2 men and has much more visual impact in the initial sense than the more subtle black and white on the beach.
Don't get it, they aren't even naked, I've seen way more raunchy posters than that!!!!