For the first time, hundreds of rarely seen commercials will be accessible in one place, including several controversial spots which never made it on air. The Commercial Closet also features critical commentary by acclaimed business journalist Michael Wilke, the creator of this non-profit, education and journalism project.

According to Wilke, the project’s goal is to educate corporations, ad agencies and the world by sharing its collection and observations on how gays are represented as a minority group in the most powerful medium of our time. "I want this project to inspire change in how advertising both perceives and reflects the diversity of gay and lesbian lives," he said.

Visitors to The Commercial Closet can watch the commercials as movies, look at storyboard stills from the commercials, and see hundreds of gay-marketing print campaigns. All ads are organized into four major categories: Positive, Negative, Neutral and Gay Vague portrayals. Then there are over 50 subcategory themes such as: Male Kisses, (Straight) Dude Looks Like a Lady, Hustlers/Pornographers/Murderers/Pedophiles, Sports Stars, Sissies & Queens, Latenight Shame and Anti-Gay Organizations. The site is searchable by business category, ad agency, year, theme, portrayal, geography and medium.

Over 250 of the world’s best-known companies are represented in the comprehensive archive, including: American Express Co., Anheuser-Busch Co., Chevron Corp., Coca-Cola Co., Coors Brewing Co., Eastman Kodak Co., FedEx Corp., General Electric Co., General Motors Corp., Gillette Co., Heineken, Honda Motor Co., Hyundai Corp., John Hancock Financial Services, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg Co., K-Mart Corp., Levi Strauss & Co., Mars Inc., Nike, Philip Morris, The Gap, Unilever, Viacom, Visa International, Volkswagen and hundreds more.

Perhaps the best known gay commercial, but still not widely seen, is one for IKEA featuring a gay couple shopping for a table, which made worldwide news when it aired in a few American cities in 1994. As a sign of the times, the ad only aired after 9:30 p.m. and was pulled just a few weeks later after the furniture retailer received bomb threats. Afterward, openly gay co-actor John Slomin, who was usually cast in four to 10 commercials a year and co-starred in the commercial, said, "I didn’t get booked on another network spot for three years."

Other famous commercials dealing with gay or transgender themes include the 1974 Joe Namath pantyhose commercial for Beautymist, Volkswagen’s 1997 "Da, Da, Da" spot, and last year’s John Hancock ad about a lesbian couple adopting an infant. New gay-themed advertisements will be added to the site weekly. Additionally, every two weeks a new ad column featuring the latest developments will appear on the site and in syndication on gay.com, gfn.com, and other web sites and newspapers.