Today, Explained - Target-ing Pride

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Companies have been leaning into Pride month for years. So why are brands like Target and Bud Light facing such intense backlash now? Vox’s Emily Stewart and historian Kyle Williams explain. This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Michael Raphael with help from Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The top song on iTunesChart.net today is Boycott Target by MAGA rapper Forgiato Blow, feat Nick Natoli, and Stoney Dude Bro. Target has aggrieved some conservative activists because June is Pride Month, and the company is selling Pride merchandise, a thing it has done in order to make money for years. Except previous years have not been 2023, a year in which Anheuser-Busch's King of Beers Light got in trouble with Kid Rock and Travis Tritt for partnering with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney to sell beer. A year in which Lego, Kohl's, and PetSmart are also facing boycott calls over their sales of Pride-related merch, such as PetSmart's Pride bikini for dogs and the rainbow lamb chop toy. It's all coming up on Today Explained. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long.

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to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Companies have been making money by selling pride merchandise for so many years that it's difficult to find answers to questions like, which company was first? What year did they do it in?

This is just something that's done, and it's 2023, and it is not that controversial. But it's 2023, and so of course it's controversial. Vox's Emily Stewart has been covering Target and Bud Light, two companies that conservative activists have targeted recently. Emily, can you start with Target? So a lot of the controversy really appeared to center around misinformation and a rumor that Target was selling tuck-friendly bathing suits to children. So I found an extra small swimsuit in the child section. It says light binding effect on it.

And then the bottoms in the kids section, keep in mind, say tuck-friendly construction. They're giving it to your kids. This was not happening. These tuck-friendly bathing suits were on sale in adult sizes. They were not being marketed for children. But as with so many things on the internet, the rumor started, rumor took off, and that had people really worked up. What is a tuck-friendly bathing suit? It's basically a bathing suit. So if you are a trans woman, it would help you kind of conceal your genitalia and offer more coverage. Okay, so retail giant Target, headquartered in Minnesota, is not going to sell tuck-friendly kids' bathing suits. Like, I'm sorry, that's just not a thing that would happen.

How did a rumor like that get started? People are really kind of on the hunt for something to be mad about, specifically around trans issues. It doesn't take long for these things to take off. Like even before the calls for a boycott around Target started, like I started to see this rumor show up in my Twitter feed, right? Because it's somebody takes a picture and says, oh, you know, here is this tuck-friendly bathing suit

that I found in the Target children's section being marketed to kids. And that's really how this kind of took off. There's one picture, there's a couple pictures going around, and then people start to believe it. And I think the political context this year is quite different. You know, we've seen really a raft of anti-trans legislation across the country in many states. Laws covering everything from sports to education to health care access. So you're seeing bills that are being proposed or passed that would require teachers to out students to their parents. Bills that would prevent doctors from giving hormone therapy to trans youth. A legislation that would prevent trans youth from being on sports teams

that align with their gender identity. And to be clear, they're fired up about the T, the trans issues. For a hint of what was going to happen here, we could go back to early April, when there was a freakout over Bud Light. Can you remind me what happened there? So at the beginning of April, Bud Light sent a handful of cans of beer to a trans influencer named Dylan Mulvaney as part of a pretty run-of-the-mill marketing campaign. This month I celebrated my day 365 of womanhood and Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever,

a can with my face on it. Check out my Instagram story to see how you can enjoy March Madness with Bud Light and maybe win some money too. Love ya. Cheers. Go team. Whatever team you love, I love too. Okay. That being said, this really, really picked up traction on the right. There was a huge amount of backlash. With, you know, I remember back to April, Kid Rock shot a bunch of cases of Bud Light.

Let me say something to all of you and be as clear and concise as possible. A country singer named Travis Tritt said he was dropping Bud Light from his tour writer. And there was a lot of backlash and there were calls for a boycott. And it really, really, really took off. You know, I think that even I think back to early April, I kind of thought most boycotts don't really work. There is still a lot of anger at Bud Light. They have seen a dip in sales. How long this will last,

who knows, but it has hurt the company. And you know, the company didn't handle it super well either. They didn't really stick to their guns. They got a little bit nervous, started putting out statements saying that they love America. And so at this point, everybody's mad at Bud Light, right? Like the right's mad at Bud Light. And so are progressives who think that they kind of

didn't stand up for their values. When bigots are loudly announcing they don't like your beer because they are bigots, that is an opportunity for you to say, then our beer is not for you. The company took quite a bit of a hit and they're a little bit nervous. And so I think a lot of companies are probably a little bit nervous. And so I think a lot of companies are probably a little bit nervous. The Bud Light thing was kind of a win for activists. The company didn't handle it well. It appeared to waffle. It ended up with two executives being either sidelined or taking some time off. And so it seems like the dust up over Bud Light and the way in which the company handled it led to a group of activists, conservative activists, looking for more targets. And then they found one.

In Target. In Target, yes. It's obviously that pun. But yeah, basically, Target every year has a ton of Pride merchandise, as do many retailers. And they started to roll out their pride merchandise in May. And the right was on the hunt for another corporation to go after. You know, I think seeing some of these activists, seeing the success that they had with Bud Light, they thought, oh, we can probably do this again. Who is the they here? You know, I think you do see some people online, you know,

big voices on, you know, conservative Twitter and videos or whatever, but there are also customers showing up at Target stores and making a mess. Earlier today, I was watching a video of a man who walked into a Target store filming himself and started to destroy some of the Pride merchandise and some of the signage. There was another video of someone who'd gone into Target and was filming employees and kind of the signage. There was another video of someone who'd gone to Target and was filming employees and kind of harassing them. Hey, do you guys support the satanic pride propaganda? I, yeah, both. You support it? Satan and pride. You support Satan? Mm-hmm. What's God going to think of that? I don't believe in God.

Wow. So you think- Do you need help with something? You support the public. And so some of it is loud figures on the right, but some of it's customers that are showing up and harassing the stores and harassing the workers. How does Target react? Like, what does the company say publicly? So on May 24th, Target put out a statement saying that it would remove some items from its annual pride collection

after it had experienced threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and the well-being while at work. They haven't been super open about what they are pulling, and a lot of it has been them saying they're going to review what to leave out. You know, I imagine it's store by store, but, you know, they're taking a look at it. And like I said, it's not like Pride is gone from Target. In plenty of stores, this stuff is on display. It's certainly being prominently featured on their website, but they're scaling back a little bit. How big a deal is Pride for Target? I have not been in a Target for a long time. I just don't live near one. And I'm wondering, like once you're in the store, is it, is the Pride stuff right at

the front or do you have to go to the back where like they keep the wrapping paper during Christmas? Is it a point of pride, the Pride merch? I had a source go into a Target last week to kind of check stuff out. And she said, you know, there really is Pride stuff all over. There are shirts, there are tote bags, there are tarot cards. It's also featured pretty prominently on the website. And I do think it's important to point out that pretty recently, Target CEO Brian Cornell said on a podcast.

When your teams, your leadership represents the consumer you serve, I think good things happen. So I can see the benefits for our shareholders. I know that focus on diversity and inclusion and equity has fueled much of our growth over the last nine years. Target hasn't really been hiding that they pull out this kind of merchandise and that they want to sell to this demographic and that, you know, they want to sell rainbow stuff. Do they cancel Pride entirely or is it just we're pulling X, Y and Z? Target still is doing pride, but they are pulling certain items.

The retailer removing LGBTQ brand at Prowlin from their stores and website, whose products featured satanic themes. Target also reportedly reviewing its adult collection of tuck-friendly swimsuits that allows trans people who have not had gender-affirming operations to conceal their private parts.

And in the South, there has been reporting that some of the stores have moved some of the Pride merchandise to the back, so it's not as prominently featured. You know, conservatives almost seem surprised that corporate pride is upon us once again.

That was Vox's Emily Stewart. Coming up after the break, think about it for a moment. Is it weird that we expect corporations to take positions on social issues as opposed to just selling us stuff and making money. That's ahead. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop

wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, R-A-M-P dot com slash explained, cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, terms and conditions apply. Estar escuchando a Hoy Explicado. Today Explained. My name is Kyle Williams. I'm a senior editor at the Hedgehog Review,

which is a quarterly journal of ideas and cultural analysis at the University of Virginia, and I'm a historian. And you have a book coming out? I do, yeah. It's called Taming the Octopus, The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation, which is a history of big business in the 20th century that's coming out early next year. So I'm wrapping up copy edits and that kind of thing. Let's say tomorrow or next month Target does something wild or Bud Light does something wild. Do you have to, like, make frantic edits? I see what you mean.

No, I mean, I think that the dynamics, and this is very much a historian kind of way of approaching the headlines, is the dynamics that we're seeing play out are old dynamics. I think they're intensifying. I think there are things that are new about the environment that we're in right now. But the question that I'm asking in the book, and then I think the question that's kind of underlying all of these controversies, is the question of what is the corporation? What is it good for? What is its purpose? And those are, it turns out, very old questions that Americans have been wrestling with from generation to generation, I think. All right, so let's start here today. Target's CEO, just about two weeks ago, did an interview on a podcast.

And he's kind of boasting to the podcast host that Target really focuses on diversity and inclusion. And in fact, Target has made money because it focuses on diversity and inclusion. And then about seven days later, Target says, oh, we're pulling some Pride-related merchandise. We're not going to be so into diversity that we're unwilling to back down if we get some pushback from conservative activists. You're a historian. Is there precedent for this kind of behavior by a big company? I think that this kind of thing happens from time to time, where a business will have to respond to its changing social and political environment. It makes a judgment that it's going to offer products that are reflective of the changing cultural and social moment, and then having to back down or respond to criticism. I think what is really new in this moment, though,

is that the conservative movement in the United States is changing. The way the conservatives in the past have responded to big business being more welcoming and opening to progressive causes was to say, just focus on profits, stick to business, stay in your lane and i think that we're seeing a dynamic where that's changing quite a bit now there are seeds there are seeds to this response to target in the conservative movement i think especially of the southern baptist convention you know the largest protestant denomination in the united states launched a boycott of disney in 1997 over the company's decision to provide health insurance benefits

to same-sex couples. Disney is not the Disney we knew in our childhood. Disney is not the same company. They've made some changes and they have not been for the best. That boycott was incredibly not successful, which is why almost no one remembers it. In that moment the conservative Baptists occupied a very minority position within the conservative movement. But now I think we're seeing a moment in which those kinds of ways of responding to big business are reaching into the mainstream of the conservative movement. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida using his position within the movement to make big demands on big corporations, to reject what they're calling woke capitalism. Now I think you're seeing this change within the movement where conservatives look at companies like a Chick-fil-A

or a Hobby Lobby corporation, and they're praising them not just for the profits that they make or the productivity margins that they have, but that they represent conservative cultural identities. When did Americans start expecting more from companies than that companies would just sell them stuff? Ever since the rise of corporate capitalism in the early 20th century, corporations have been doing their best to overcome the perception that they are a nameless, faceless bureaucracy,

that they're just focused on making a buck. And the way that they've done that from the early 20th century, companies like Journal Electric and AT&T used advertisements, they used spokespersons with homely personalities and art that reflected a kind of humanness, that they gave money to charities and they paid for public works, and they contributed to communities to show that they had a personality, that they have a corporate soul. When compared to the way that business had been done in the United States before then, corporations were shockingly abstract, and they seemed dangerously powerful. And so Americans have always had something of a love-hate relationship with big business. We support it and desire it for what it can do for

us, for its productivity, for its efficiency. But I think we're also a bit suspicious and sometimes intensely worried about the power that large corporations exercise. You know, they have immense privileges and rights that allow them to become big and powerful. And these legal and economic powers are given to corporations by states, and they're inscribed in law. But we often don't really have as much of a clear idea about what social responsibilities they should have. And so I think what we're seeing here is an intensification of that fight over what big business really is for besides making money. When did companies themselves begin to be aligned with the kind of inclusion that we think of a lot of companies as expressing today or as being aligned with today?

In order to understand the relationship that corporations have with progressive movements, you really have to go back to the post-war era, to the rise of the civil rights movement, and the way that activists started to see that the object of their activism should not focus simply on Washington or on state legislatures and on law and public policy, but on big business strategy. And the way that this played out was that activists James Peck and Baird Rustin are examples of civil rights activists in the 1950s that bought shares of the Greyhound bus company and demanded that they desegregate their bus lines. Our power is in our ability to make things unworkable.

The only weapon we have is our bodies. And we need to tuck them in places so wheels don't turn. They wanted to put shareholder resolutions to the floor of the shareholder meeting and demand that they make changes. Those kinds of tactics got adopted in the wider civil rights movement in the 1960s and early 1970s. Stoughton Lind, who I quote in my book, he said, why do we continue to demonstrate in Washington as if the core of the problem lay there. And he encouraged fellow activists to lay siege to corporations, as he put it. And so activists would buy up shares and they would go to the annual meetings of General Electric in like 1970, 1971, and demand that they end discrimination practices in the

workplace and demand that they have representation in car dealerships and demand that they mitigate the pollution that they've caused. Civil rights, environmentalism, these are progressive causes. These are lefty issues, we might say. Not carrying pride merchandise is a conservative issue. It's a conservative cause. Does this mean the politics of the people doing the protesting have changed over time and, in fact, maybe even changed just in the last year or two years?

I wouldn't say what's happened is that the protests have changed. I think that we still see protests and activist movements and social movements and people calling on big business to support progressive causes. But I think what we're seeing and what's new is this change in the conservative movement where conservatives aren't calling on big business as much simply to focus on profits. Now, I think that's still there. That's still in the milieu. That's still a part of the movement. But what you're saying is more of a vocal minority within the conservative movement that's saying what we want is corporations to take on and to represent

conservative cultural identities. What I hear you saying, and I think what I've experienced in my lifetime, you know, as somebody who became a consumer in the 90s, I understand the definition of corporate responsibility as it has existed to this point from the progressive point of view. You don't pollute the river. You don't cut down the rainforest. You make sure that you are hiring people from diverse backgrounds. When I hear corporate responsibility, that's where my brain goes. What is the definition of corporate responsibility for conservatives? What are we seeing? Conservatives haven't yet quite figured that out. In some ways, I think that they're caught between a shareholder value, just focus on profits, just focus on business kind of response, and something else that's not quite articulated yet.

And it's articulated, as far as I've been able to see, in being very critical of woke capitalism, or as they call it, or ESG, or DEI. The Texas House passed Senate Bill 17 to prevent public colleges and universities in the state from having diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or policies. I think that's one of the rhetorical problems that the cultural conservative movement is facing right now? What is the positive vision that they have for big business? And one response might be that they don't want businesses to be that big. I'm sort of speculating. But I think the conservatives would say that they're standing for something that's very important, that they are articulating something that is positive.

But the way that it's worked out within the culture war in the last few years is it's been mostly activated in a negative way towards these controversial issues that have been coming up. I see the moment that we're in as one where people are sorting out their political, economic, and personal identities. We live in a moment of hyper-politics,

where social psychologists and political scientists can tell you that the kind of beer that you drink, the place that you shop, is actually a pretty good predictor of how you're going to vote. And people see more and more their economic lives being an expression of their political identity. You know, the mantra of the feminist movement in the 1960s and 70s was that the personal is political. And I think what we're seeing now is that it's not just that the personal is political,

but the economic is political and the economic is also personal. And those dynamics are playing out in the left and the right. And I think that's going to pose significant problems for executives and other big business leaders. Because what it means is that there's not an easy way out of the Hedgehog Review at UVA. Today's show was produced by Victoria Chamberlain and edited by Matthew Collette. It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard and engineered by Michael Rayfield. Welcome to our new executive producer, Miranda Kennedy. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. you