MORE THAN A WORD :: This week, Tourism Toronto released their WorldPride video effort. What Pride Means To Us: World Pride 2014 is the tourism bureau’s best Pride promo effort, after arguably missing the mark in previous attempts, most notably 2011’s “Pride Pump 2000x”. While we here at GGN enjoyed the obvious intended parody of that campaign, it was met with upset from others (including accusations of pandering to gay archstereotypes).
Key to the success of Tourism Toronto’s new video is a softly manipulative tug on our heart-strings. Smartly underscoring the heart of the matter – that World Pride means far more than the city it’s held in – at the same time, What Pride Means To Us: World Pride 2014 correctly highlights that host city Toronto is a perfect place for World Pride, as the event gets set to arrive on North American soil for the first time.
The clever move of featuring a cameo by super-hot Orange Is The New Black breakout star, Laverne Cox, doesn’t hurt either. But US star power isn’t the star here. Instead, watch for Toronto boldfacers Justice Harvey Brownstone and Pride Toronto’s Chrystal Dean (featured in our World Pride vlog series) articulating the meaning of Pride beautifully, with popular but often controversial former Toronto city councillor Kyle Rae reminding of the importance of taking the LGBT equality movement outside our own borders.
Warning: a heavy inclusion of same-sex wedding moments may see you wind up requiring tissues, especially the parade scene. It’s an understandable choice for Tourism Toronto to make, and not just because the city was the site of the world’s first legal same-sex marriage in 2011. On June 26, Tourism Toronto, and LGBT rights organization EGALE Canada are inviting LGBT couples to tie the knot at the biggest international LGBT wedding in history, Celebration of Love.
Tristynthose are some good points: there is a lot of prieilvge for straight people as they are in the majority, and we live in a society that embraces the ideals of the majority. however, i’ll have to respectfully disagree. why does there need to be pride without shame? what does pride truly accomplish? to draw example from another minority, there is a video out there with morgan freeman talking about black history month that really resonated with me. and i agree with him. a month dedicated to certain minority does not alleviate the prejudice experienced by that minority. rather it further divides the community as a whole when it dedicates certain months to certain minorities. in my experience, having personal pride brings a person farther away, not closer to, others. it should be natural to love onesself, if one does not believe society’s story that people should feel shame because of who they are. the only reason pride is there is to fight that shame, and by doing so, almost defend its existence.in america, the bottom line is that equality should be for all. gay people are part of this all and therefore deserve rights. it’s that simple.in my humble opinion, i believe that as personal pride divides a person from others, pride of a group divides that group from this all. the more people that believe that everyone is a part of the whole, the closer we will be to securing equality for all.dignity is inherent, not something that has to be proved by parades. it’s what is left when all the shame is taken away. but that’s just my opinion. i look forward to hearing yours!