Gender continuum in Italian advertising.The representation of the LGBT identities according to the professionals.

The paper regards the advertising practice as it relates to gender. In order to appreciate the commercial “culture of production” (du Gay, 1997), we studied the production processes that lead to particular gender representations. In fact, in spite of persistent criticisms of advertising’s treatment of gender (Kilbourne, 1999), few authors have focused their attention on the production process behind the gendered messages (Tuncay Zayer & Coleman, 2014). In particular, the paper aims to describe some results of a research about the influence of the production process in the Italian television commercials representation of gender. In particular, we focus on LGBT issues emerged in the survey, in the light of a gradual spread of a gay friendly advertising. The specific objective of the paper is to study the reasons that lead to the representation of the entire gender continuum in advertising - masculine, feminine and LGBT identities - differing from previous research focused on the objectification of the female body and the roles of the dichotomy man/woman-women . Because the study’s aim is to understand practitioners’ thinking about the work of advertising in their own terms and to evaluate those thoughts relative to existing theories, a qualitative design was selected. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with senior-level agency practitioners (40 creative, planning, and account directors working in Italy) were used as the key field method. Respondents were selected using snowball sampling. The views on LGBT issues within the advertising have emerged without direct questions, but the theme has naturally developed in conversation. First results provide evidence for the existence of such autonomous practitioner knowledge schemas. Advertising agency professionals know well the bias of the most common representations of gender in Italian advertising. They recognize the most frequent sex-stereotypes and are critical towards them. They believe that gendered images are mainly caused by inexperienced operators or customers. Regarding the specific issue of homosexuality and gender diversity, LGBT identities introduced in some campaigns are not considered examples of a start of a recognition of the existence of a reality characterized by a mosaic of identity or a path for a full social inclusion, but it is considered as a trivial operation for the acquisition of new potential buyers.