Pushkin

The ridiculously fresh-faced Adam Pushkin is enjoying his relocation to Manchester.

After spending a peripatetic few years at the sharp end of cultural festivals throughout the UK, most notably the Cheltenham Literary Festival, the Birmingham born 30 year old feels he’s touched down in a milieu that’s refreshingly open, engaging and accepting.

Especially when it comes to embracing the ‘queer aesthetic’ he’s such a passionate advocate of. “Manchester is a city that is, and has been for a long time, ahead of the game,” Pushkin notes. “The people of Manchester are generally pretty open-minded, pretty curious and keen on the gay and lesbian minority in the city. In fact, they openly support it.

“The media in Manchester aren’t fools and they pick up on that. They know that if they don’t adopt a similar attitude as well then they’re not going to last. Whether that’s as true in all parts of the country, well I’m not so sure about that.”

Pushkin only joined Queer Up North five months ago, not long before the festival – which celebrates a dizzying, and dazzling, array of queer culture – put on its fifteenth annual two and a half week long program of events.

Without a doubt he was in at the deep end but, as he takes time to stress, the city’s media buoyed him with their support.

Local media supportive 

“The local media have been very supportive, across the daily newspapers (he singles out the MEN and Metro for particular praise), through to local radio and magazines.

“I think they take a very non-judgemental stance,” he continues, “an approach that seems to say ‘all human life is here and that’s a wonderful thing’.”

Pushkin believes that this isn’t a uniform reaction though, and that’s why How Do is talking to him today – to discern the challenges that his charitable organisation has in securing a platform for its communications, and what that imparts about the wider issues affecting the gay market.

Festival for everyone 

He explains; “we don’t have lots of pictures of naked people prancing around in our brochure, unlike a lot of other organisations, because we want to make it clear that this is a festival for everyone. We don’t want people to be put off by various preconceptions of what might appear in a festival that is marketed as ‘queer.’”

Another problem, we suggest, could be the use of this term ‘queer’. People that aren’t au fait with the scene may regard it as being a derogatory word and, in an attempt not to come across as un-PC, skirt around it somewhat. But then what is the correct terminology? How can the media, and marketers in general, stay on safe ground when they’re communicating to the, well, the ‘queer’ market?

“Language is always a tricky business in this area,” agrees Pushkin with a knowing laugh, “and that impacts companies looking to target the pink pound. They can be nervous about making the wrong move, saying the wrong thing, and that sometimes means they don’t make any move at all.

“We always have people asking us about our use of the word queer. We see it as a positive catch all term for anything that exists outside of the norm.
 
“One of the advantages of using the word is that it covers everything in a way that no other word does. You can end up being very PC and saying LBGQTG, or whatever, and it becomes unwieldy and tedious. So we see it as embracing things that are slightly strange and unusual, and we’re proud to be unusual - we don’t see that as a bad thing at all.”

Pushkin sees more stereotyping at work in the way that ‘mainstream’ companies and brands try to target the queer market. The need to stop “dividing up society” he says and accept that we’re all living in a modern, integrated and sympathetic civilization. That’s the way, he believes, to really start piling on the pink pounds.

Queer culture has a resonance 

“Queer culture has a resonance beyond the gay and lesbian communities,” stresses Pushkin. “I think, in terms of marketing and thinking about the pink pound, companies need to stop seeing 10% of people as gay or lesbian and 90% as heterosexual.

“What people actually need to see is that all of us that are gay, or lesbian, or bi-sexual have large numbers of friends, family and colleagues who are incredibly sympathetic to us. Who are keen on celebrating their queer friends and family. Who are keen on this kind of diversity in society.

“They need to think about that when they consider aligning themselves with a queer brand, such as Queer Up North. They don’t just want to be thinking about it in terms of promoting their organisation to people who are gay. You’re actually talking to a huge number of people that simply have sympathy with what the gay brand is doing. I mean perhaps 50% of our audience is heterosexual - it’s not just this supposed 10%.”

He concludes; “People generally will look much more favourably on organisations if they know they take a positive and creative approach to queer culture.”

Advice that the media, as well as the broader commercial sector, can surely profit from.

How Do met Adam Pushkin through BDH\TBWA’s ‘Power of the Pink Pound’ seminar. The event was set up in conjunction with Arts & Business North West.

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Comments (2)

1  By Frank Collins , on 14-09-2007 10:53 Re: 'Straight talking and queer reactions'    Regarding Adam's comments about language and the use of particular words like 'queer' I think he raises an interesting question. Language is a very difficult thing to try and pin down because its use and the meaning of words change all the time. The use of the word 'queer' I would argue is now in 'common parlance' (whatever that might mean) and isn't as loaded a word as it used to be. This certainly stems from the reclaiming of the word by activists and creatives alike in the mid-1980s and I myself at the time regarded myself as a 'queer' artist and writer out of political necessity. I no longer find it distressing if someone yells 'queer' at me in the street because in the end that person might as well be shouting 'animal, mineral or vegetable' at me. I'm not offended because it's what I am. Maybe the way they yell at me tells me what they are implying but as a certain Mr. Crisp once said 'names cannot hurt me now'.    What I do find contentious is the way in which some institutions, such as the BBC for example, are struggling to deal with the use and mis-use of the word 'gay' these days. Whereas I take a deal of pride in the way the gay community and others have reclaimed 'queer' as their own, I am anxious about the way in which certain broadcasters are now mirroring playground bullying tactics by equating 'gay' with 'rubbish' or 'crap'. I am a gay man. I am not a 'rubbish' man...I might be tempted to say I'm not a 'naff' man but anyone who knows gay culture would recognise the further complications of using that word in that context!     Institutions such as the BBC and others who have the national ear need to recognise the damage that the negative connotations attached to the latest and trendy meanings of words might have on vulnerable individuals who are struggling with their identity and sexuality. I don't have a problem with words having several meanings but I do have a problem if one of those meanings is negative and has been taken out of context to infer an inferiority that leads to bullying.     Most people would probably say 'oh, it's just a passing phase' but that just reminds me of my father's reaction to my own coming out and I can assure you that was no passing phase! Maybe we need to keep reminding society that 'gay' is a word used as a positive affirmation within our diverse community rather than some casual insult used out of laziness by certain DJs.     QUN's work at least embraces the respect for certain words and the beneficial effect of reclaiming others. But as we observe the recent television spat between Jim (my friend's know I'm not homophobic) Davidson and Brian Dowling it is clear that the battle lines are still drawn over the contentious use of language and the meaning and effect of words. I would encourage QUN to look at tackling this in the witty and insightful way they discussed and debated the notion of a 'queer' Coronation Street at this year's festival. Report