Tuesday, November 26, 2013

IKEA gives in once again to intolerant international markets


Just over a year ago, IKEA Photoshopped adult women out of its Saudi catalogue. Now they've removed an interview with a same-sex couple in the Russian edition of their magazine.

According to The Independent:
The December edition of the furniture giant’s magazine, which is distributed across the world, features an interview with Clara and Kirsty, a Dorset-based lesbian couple, talking about their family life and their Ikea-filled interiors. 
However the lengthy feature has been spiked from the Russian edition of “Ikea Family Live” in case it failed to comply with Russian’s controversial new law banning “homosexual propaganda”. It has been replaced with an article about a single Chinese designer named Chao.
The article cites an IKEA spokesperson confirming that the cxompany was complying with a Russian law benning dissemination of “homosexual propaganda among minors”.

Queerty, in calling out the big bog retailer for complicity in the Russia's "gay purge", suggested the following alternatives for IKEA:

  • Leave the lesbians in but don’t identify them as lesbians, since some representation is better than nothing
  • Pledge to donate a portion of their Russian revenue to global LGBT civil rights initiatives
  • Publicly denounce the clearly unconscionable law
  • Troll the homophobes by filling the catalog exclusively with lesbians

They also threw this Italian ad in the store's big yellow and blue face:

"We are open to all families"
Mainstream media claim a boycott is afoot, but I'm not seeing too much noise yet. However, there was one IKEA "kiss-in" in Brooklyn that is rather sweet.

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