April 16, 2008...10:35 pm
Feminist Fashion #1 NWS
NWS = not work safe [read, not work safe. in this case, it's sexuality]
I am going to attempt something perhaps paradoxical. It’s called feminist fashion. Jezebel markets itself as a pop culture, fashion savvy, pro-sex feminist blog, but they sometimes miss the big picture, in my opinion. (I do love Jezebel, though.)
At any rate, I was inspired by the bruhaha over Victoria Spice and Marc Jacobs’ Spring/Summer 08 ad campaign that NYTimes brought to attention.
Here is the Tom Ford ad that just got banned in Italy (too bad it’s already been run in 3 magazines):
Here is the last Tom Ford fragrance campaign (covered here, also):
Images via Radar here and here
And some more:
Images via the Fashion Spot
Now, consider these:
Tom Ford makes clothes only for men. He makes fragrances only for men. Why do his ads feature women? (Check out his website for more ads.) That was a rhetorical question.
First ad: the woman is biting the fuck you finger. Blowjob, much? Other than the sunglasses, what in hell’s name does this have to do with men’s clothes? Oh wait. This isn’t selling clothes. It’s selling a culture.
Second ad (fragrance): the woman has a completely shaved body. This is not anywhere near a natural body. The bottle is placed between the legs. The hand leads to the bottle. The hand is an invitation. The bottle is the gift. Conveniently, it also stands in the place of the cunt and the vagina. Message of the ad: if you buy this cologne, you also buy vagina. The woman has no head. She is not a real person.
Third ad: Actually has some men’s suits. Anyway, men can remain clothed. Women must be naked and available. Buy Tom Ford, buy a naked woman who will grab your crotch.
Fourth ad: Buy Tom Ford, buy the opportunity to stare at the naked shaved crotch of a woman.
In case you were wondering, the answer to the rhetorical question is that objectifying women is very profitable in the fashion industry. It’s an entire industry built on the assumption that people will pay, a lot, to be objectified (the clothes make you, man, not you your clothes). Clothes = identity.
Tom Ford’s response to criticism that his ads are sexist?
He shrugs off critics who claim he objectifies women by pointing out that he’s an equal opportunity objectifier; he’d be the first to run more penises in his ads if he could get away with it. (Out)
Just because you objectify both genders does not excuse you from objectifying. It’s horrible when done to women. It’s horrible when done to men. Penis, vagina, asshole, and breasts are not inherently bad objects. It’s in the delivery, and Tom Ford fails.
I’m going to end this post with some positives.
Diesel, from S/S 07, I believe:
via the Fashion Spot
The menswear ad actually has a man wearing clothes in it. The parrot colors are startling vibrant and alive. The back lighting is gorgeous. The number of buttons left unbuttoned is just enough to be rakish but still classy. Basically, the contrast between the muted but still flashy clothes and the birds guarantee a second glance. And no disgust.
[edit April 23] Thanks to a commenter, I’ve now learned about fish-hooking. This is for the banned ad (finger in mouth). This makes the ad more despicable, because now it’s also glamorizing violence. In this case, it’s violence against women. That is not funny, folks. It hurts people who have really, truly been hurt by violence. (This is also why rape jokes aren’t “funny.” It’s not fun to make light of other people’s pain, especially when it’s a serious issue in society.)
7 Comments
April 17, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I’m actually a fan of these ads, cause they’re a lil.. saucy/naughty. I don’t think too much into them, though, I just take them how they are.
April 22, 2008 at 4:00 pm
the finger one isn’t just about blow jobs. it’s about fish hook-ing… ain’t that simple, more derogatory than you think.
April 22, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Thanks, dude. I get it now - more violence against women.
Just like the good ol’ days (not like, there’s any violence against women today or anything. They’re all asking for it).
April 24, 2008 at 12:26 am
Despite your extreme caricaturing of the ads intent, it’s important to consider the chief role of advertising: capture interest. An ad, no matter how well placed and ingeniously informative, is essentially meaningless unless it grabs attention.
In fact, adverising has a long history of not discussing a product. Apple’s oft-lauded 1984 television spot didn’t even mention the word computer. Why is it an effective and important ad? Because it piqued viewers curiosity like no other Superbowl ad since.
All four of the advertisements you showed are deliberately provocative. As such, they meet criteria #1 of good advertising.
The bigger question at hand is should these ads be banned? You submit that they are sexist and applaud their banishment. However, if advertisements, in order to be effective, must be provocative, wouldn’t banning all potentially controversial advertisements be not just counterproductive, but plain stupid?
Banning ads for their sexism establishes a dangerous precedent in advertising. Imagine banning controversial statements in public places, for fear of the potential damage they cause! (and if you call this reductio ad absurdum, what about your little caricatures in your own article…
This IS a slippery slope, and we CAN do comparative harms.
Situation one:
1) They remain unbanned, some are offended for their portrayal of women.
2) They are banned, establishing a dangerous precedent and severe restriction of freedoms enjoyed by ALL of us.
Well, to quote dear old Spock: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Sorry whining minority, but these ads shouldn’t be banned.
April 24, 2008 at 6:24 am
I never said I thought they should be banned, just that they’re sexist.
April 27, 2008 at 5:25 am
“It’s not fun to make light of other people’s pain”
maybe not for you, but for many of us, it is fun. relax, realize that some other people like to play with concepts that you hold sacred.
May 5, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Dosta, I believe what you set up there was a little false dichotomy: as in EITHER we ban the ads, which would certainly lead to the destruction of freedom and all we hold, OR we let them be and say “tough shit chickies”.
It’s funny that you set it up like the article called for banning when all it did was point out some of the subtext.
I also don’t know whose “needs” get met by this kind of advertising but nevertheless…you contend that ads are “meaningless” unless they grab attention. Well they did just that, and now this post analysed the meaning.
I can see you have a problem with this, I just think you kind of invented the problem yourself since you adress the issue of censorship which this post did not, and then create a pick-a-terror-scenario-false-dichotomy.
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