Selling (out) our Women

October 20, 2007 1:05 PM

List of Ads Offensive to Women. Topping the list: Dolce & Gabbana: This ad is beyond offensive, with a scene evoking a gang rape and reeking of violence against women. In an interview, NOW Foundation President Kim Gandy said, "It's in Esquire, so they probably don't think a stylized gang rape will sell clothes to women, but what is more likely is that they think it will get them publicity. It's a provocative ad but it is provoking things that really are not what we want to have provoked. We don't need any more violence.

Also, the The ABCs and Ds of Commercial Images of Women

posted by Tommy Gnosis (215 comments total)

Is there a distinction to be made between a gang rape and a gang bang? if so, apply it to the photo here. (example: in bukkake photos there are a number of guy over a woman.
But she is a willing participant)
posted by Postroad at 1:10 PM on October 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

We don't need any more violence.

Please don't speak for the portion of "we" that wants to kick the people that make these ads in their Baby Gear.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 1:14 PM on October 20, 2007 [6 favorites]

That's a gang rape? Uh, I'm not seeing it. I see a bunch of people that look like extras from a Guenther video. The guy in the background has a "Damn, I wish I was Christian Slater" look about him.

Call me a sexist pig man or whatever, but I think that anybody seeing that ad and thinking 'omg she's being gang raped' has a few screws loose.
This is where modern feminism takes a wrong turn and careens off into the ditch.
posted by drstein at 1:16 PM on October 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

In the interest of "balance", here is a profile on Kim Gandy done by some right wingers.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 1:18 PM on October 20, 2007

Creepy
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 1:19 PM on October 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

What are the chances more than one of those guys is straight, anyway?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:23 PM on October 20, 2007 [5 favorites]

I don't think it's easy for an image to effectively communicate whether a woman is "consenting" but I can think of a few:

Woman on top
Woman not being held down
Woman not being suggestively attired in shackle-pumps
Woman appearing to have the slightest amount of enjoyment of the activity in question

That last one there is what you would put in if you were honestly trying to say "it's a wholesome consensual gang-bang!" Instead of, you know, a dead-eyed look suggestive of a woman trying not to be aware of what is happening to her.

We can all make up fun stories about what's really going on in this image that makes it not rape-fantasy, but here's one: how about it being a guy held down ass-up with the same guys standing around him and the same kind of expression?

Oh and Tommy, what's up with the "our" women thing?
posted by emjaybee at 1:23 PM on October 20, 2007 [13 favorites]

What are the chances more than one of those guys is straight

More than a few of the comments in blog post I linked to above tried to make that point as well, but I don't see how that makes the ad any less offensive.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 1:25 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

My biggest question with the dolce ad is, why would those five obvious homosexuals want to have sex with that woman, forcible or otherwise?
posted by jonson at 1:25 PM on October 20, 2007

drstein holding a woman down while a bunch of men stand around, passive....well let's just say it's not something that I think is appropriate. You don't need a few screws loose to find it offensive. (on preview emjaybee has it right, what if it were a man being held down while oiled up men stood over him? would that run as a magazine ad?)

As someone who works in advertising I'm lucky enough to have avoided most of the campaigns where the keyword is "edgy". So often the message the image sends is forgotten as the creative types look at the photo. Instead they see great lighting and strong imagery without thinking about what the imagery is saying. I don't know if that happened in the D&G ad, but it does happen an awful lot.
posted by Salmonberry at 1:25 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

CURSE YOU FLORENCE HENDERSON!
posted by jonson at 1:26 PM on October 20, 2007

what's up with the "our" women thing?

Sorry... was thinking in the sense of the royal "we". I didn't mean for that to sound possessive or patriarchal, though I can see how it could be interpreted that way. I've never been any damn good at FPP titles.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 1:27 PM on October 20, 2007

Wouldn't it be nice if more people would think "Is this going to improve or harm society" when making these decisions, instead of thinking "more mOrE MOAR MONEY MINE ME MONEY!"

Dolce & Gabbana has a sick greed.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:28 PM on October 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

It is worth noting that almost nothing in ads is accidental, especially at this level. So, if there is some ambiguity about whether or not this is a rape scene it is very likely that is what is being intended (the ambiguity that is). It would be too over the top to make it explicit so a certain measure of plausible deniability is built in, "what? No that's not rape she's obviously consenting, do you have a screw loose you damn feminist!"
posted by edgeways at 1:29 PM on October 20, 2007 [8 favorites]

Damn you Florence Henderson. I had ready, "If there's going to be any rape in that group, the girl won't be involved.
posted by geoff. at 1:30 PM on October 20, 2007

These ads are dumb. I

What in the name of sweet-pogo-sticking jesus are these bizarrely coiffed greased up nihilists supposed to inspire me with?

Am I supposed to want to smell like whatever in the fuck they all are? Is it a smell? An emotion? Are they selling me hats? Jeans? An image?

I know they make clothing and a few other things. But seriously.. what the fuck?

Same with the stupid perfume ads. Exceedingly skinny vacant stare motherfuckers leaning on things.

Yeah, we know, you have a sense of dissatisfaction with the world around you.

Pretentious fucks. Especially considering that the stuff they're hawking came from some lab scientists test tube, not from the armpit of the god of nihilists himself..

But I digress.

these ads are dumb, but the page bitching about them seems to be focusing on pretty minor stuff.
posted by Lord_Pall at 1:31 PM on October 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

I think they just want her shoes.
posted by found missing at 1:31 PM on October 20, 2007 [23 favorites]

I don't see how that makes the ad any less offensive.

It doesn't, really. It just makes it more ridiculous. Too ridiculous and stylized and ultimately limp and bloodless to push my personal hand-wringing buttons. Ad tries to be controversial to get attention, mostly looks sterile and vapid, gets extra publicity anyway. That's my take, for what it's worth. Regretable, maybe, but too inept to be worth wasting much bile over.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:34 PM on October 20, 2007

Is there a distinction to be made between a gang rape and a gang bang?

I dunno, the thumbnail didn't look so bad, but if you look at the image it's a bit different, the guy is holding down the woman's arm, and she has a sort of pained expression on her face. It doesn't look like a gang-bang, but those guys look pretty disinterested for rapists.

The people in the ad don't look 'normal' either in terms of a gang bang or a rape scene.

To me, frankly, It looks like the woman is having a seizure and the one dude is a lifeguard trying to help her, while the others rubberneck.

(I say lifeguard because he looks like the type, plus there is a pool, and she's not passed out because her knees are up. So seizure?)

To me it isn't sexy, or even sexual, really.
posted by delmoi at 1:35 PM on October 20, 2007

Here's a better one, for a brand of heavy cream made by Candia in France. The text says: "Babette, I tie her up, I whip her, and sometimes she ends up in the saucepan". To "end up in the saucepan" is French slang for "to have sex", from a female point of view. It apparently didn't turn off customers: sales went up 36% and Candia made a second ad: "Babette, I can do anything to her".
posted by elgilito at 1:35 PM on October 20, 2007

I think that babette ad is offensive to heavy cream.
posted by Lord_Pall at 1:37 PM on October 20, 2007

IRFH has a good point. The style of the ads, and I've seen a few of them, reeks of laziness. Very 80s in it's look.

They could have chosen a lot of different ways to go and deciding that holding down a woman is what would make it tick. Just goes to show that rather than try to actually produce good ads the company chose to produce crappy, offensive ads as a way of branding their products. I can easily say I won't have any interest in their offerings.
posted by Salmonberry at 1:38 PM on October 20, 2007

Troll ad wins.
posted by DaShiv at 1:42 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

"drstein holding a woman down while a bunch of men stand around, passive....well let's just say it's not something that I think is appropriate"

To me, it doesn't even look like the other people are even in the same time & space. Christian Slater-ish is sitting on some mysterious floating box, and Shirtless Dude has no feet. He's floating in some water on some astral plain.

"It's a provocative ad but it is provoking things that really are not what we want to have provoked."

It doesn't seem provocative at all, really. It's Yet Another "throw half dressed people in to sell a product." If you want to be really obnoxious about it, make the claim that it's sexist because there are a bunch of shirtless men and only 1 woman. Or something. But calling it a gang rape? I think that's stretching it quite a bit.
posted by drstein at 1:43 PM on October 20, 2007

They all look so bored that I can only imagine they're standing around at a photo shoot.
posted by rtha at 1:50 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

So when one group says that they find something offensive, it's an acceptible response to mock sexual orientation? Way to go people.
posted by allen.spaulding at 1:50 PM on October 20, 2007

Sorry, I can't take NOW seriously, especially after reading some of their comments on the ads. I'd say they need to relax, but that'll probably get me branded as misygonist who wants women to "just lie back and take it". It's hard to have a conversation is one side is batshitinsane.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:50 PM on October 20, 2007

It's hard to imagine how it could get much more offensive.
It's the banality of the treatment, the fumblingly misunderstood messages about sex and power. Playing with fire not to light a candle for us to see by but to spark a little heat into the dead corruption of corporate style. Not just ugly; moronic as well.
posted by Abiezer at 1:53 PM on October 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

Well, she is pretty thin so it looks to me like she is hungry and wants a sandwhich but the men are holding her down so she can't get one because men are evil and they want women who look like skeletons. They will probably all take turns raping her later but this is just general body image oppression not rape yet.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:55 PM on October 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

So when one group says that they find something offensive, it's an acceptible response to mock sexual orientation? Way to go people.

Not mocking, acknowledging. The image represents what it represents - which seems more tasteless, in my opinion, than offensive.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:01 PM on October 20, 2007

Jesus, I am SO glad NOW is there to tell me what's offensive to me.
posted by tristeza at 2:03 PM on October 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

These ads are not dumb. Offensive, maybe, but not dumb. They are exquisitely well designed, photographed, and targeted. Everything is thought out, right down to the strategically placed "OL" and "G". They're like really clever subliminal puzzles.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:06 PM on October 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

List of Ads Offensive to Women.

I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I was onboard when I saw the Dolce & Gabbana ad. Even though I didn't think it evoked rape, I could understand the idea that someone might. But then as their list rolled on, it just became clear that the makers of this list thought that it was offensive anytime a beautiful or thin woman was in an ad, regardless of what the ad was for. A silhouette of a woman crossed with a beer bottle is offensive? The words "super skinny" for a hair product are offensive? A cigarette ad with a woman in it is offensive? The bar for offensiveness seems to have slipped down a couple notches.
posted by 23skidoo at 2:08 PM on October 20, 2007 [9 favorites]

I can see their point on some of these examples, including the D&G ad. But I think they do their cause a disservice by applying the "offensive to women" label so broadly. They need to realize the difference between an ad that's sexual, and an ad that's sexist. For example, the Candies and Ralph Lauren Polo ads both have sexual themes but don't seem to put women down or objectify them unless you want to believe they do.

Meanwhile, the Dior and Brown & Williamson ads are marketed at women, which is no more sexist than using a male model to market golf clubs. The fact that those two ads both relate to addiction, and whether that's unethical, is a separate question from whether they're sexist.

There's still inequality in the world, no question about that. There are still body image issues for both genders that are perpetuated by the media. There are still real examples of ads with questionable and/or offensive content...

All the more reason not to dilute your message by stamping an authoritarian "OFFENSIVE TO WOMEN" on anything that indicates that women may have, or god forbid enjoy, being sexy and having sex.
posted by Riki tiki at 2:12 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

I liked the ad. I'm off to get me some gabbana (not too big on dolce).
posted by parki at 2:19 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

I dunno. I think that this is a hell of a lot more offensive to women.

The D&G ad is merely in poor taste.
posted by MythMaker at 2:19 PM on October 20, 2007

The page says this:

Tired of advertisers peddling flesh and not product? Now's your chance to sound off to advertisers about the negative, dangerous messages they send to women and girls.

I agree with that. I am not shocked or outraged, but I am weary or a lifetime of seeing women denigrated, emaciated, and objectified to sell products. I dislike the messages that these ads send to girls and young women. Realistic or not, that D&G ad reeks of violence. Outrage is too strong a word for my response, but I'm not liking these ads and think there is nothing wrong with urging women (and men) to let advertisers know they suck.
posted by madamjujujive at 2:25 PM on October 20, 2007 [11 favorites]

NOW woman gets called out by Patrice O'Neil.
posted by Mach5 at 2:28 PM on October 20, 2007

If you don't like an ad, don't buy the product. That's it. If you like the ad, buy the product. Obviously these ads work, otherwise companies wouldn't invest in them. In this society, everyone's trying to make a buck. Everyone's vying for attention. In order to outdo the competition one has to keep upping the ante. Sex sells. Duh.

There's nothing more to see here. Move along.
posted by ZachsMind at 2:32 PM on October 20, 2007

The D&G ad has made several appearances on mefi before, we must just be jonesing for extra controversy today.

It's easy to gloss over it online, but when I saw it in a copy of GQ, across two pages, it really did shock me. In fact, I wrote them a letter about it.

The fact that the men are so blasé is exactly what makes it disturbing-- they don't see anything wrong with what's happening and seem to be turning a blind eye.

And if you think this is about some easily-offended people projecting their own imagination onto the ad, then you're incredibly naive about marketing and how ads are generated. Dozens, maybe hundreds of people worked on this ad, you can be sure that if anything, the impact is softened from how it was originally intended to appear.
posted by hermitosis at 2:33 PM on October 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

I'm not liking these ads and think there is nothing wrong with urging women (and men) to let advertisers know they suck.

I agree in theory. Except... These types of ads are trolls. Their only intent is to be noticed and get a reaction. Any reaction. Telling advertisers that you don't like their ads is worse than pointless - it tells them that they have your attention. So I'm thinking there are really only two ways to respond that makes any sense. Ignore them completely, or inform them that you will be boycotting their customers. Anything else would just confirm that their tactics work.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:34 PM on October 20, 2007

Shouldn't these ads be offensive to everyone, and not just women? Or are we fine saying that men are just cretins?
posted by shakespeherian at 2:37 PM on October 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

NOW woman gets called out talked over by Patrice O'Neil.
posted by hermitosis at 2:37 PM on October 20, 2007

Looks like rape fantasy to me.

Doesn't make it less offensive to me, but still.
posted by konolia at 2:37 PM on October 20, 2007

Here's the secret: view all advertising, lifestyle magazine articles, and reality tv shows as the product of clean and shiny white people with multicultural names, not eight years out of school, told all their lives that they were smart and special, now especially proud of themselves to be living in the big city with money to burn and to be working in a so cool renovated former industrial space with extremely comfy chairs, yet drowning their weekends in alcohol, cocaine and sex with strangers just like them because inside they suspect that they're whoring their genius to The Man, all overseen by a 53 year old who once burned as brightly as them, who now juggles a wife, two exes, a 27 year old mistress named Amber, a daughter with a fatherless child, a son who last month blasted through six hundred bucks on the credit card buying imaginary product on Second Life, and thoughts of suicide that cause his therapist to yawn deeply when he tries to articulate them.

Or you could be like NOW and react to all advertising as Duluth's oldest living spinster librarian reacted the day she stepped into the drugstore for her regular Saturday night Eskimo Pie and spotted Hugh Hefner's first publication behind the counter.
posted by TimTypeZed at 2:40 PM on October 20, 2007 [40 favorites]

rtha writes "They all look so bored that I can only imagine they're standing around at a photo shoot."

Exactly. It doesn't look to me like consensual sex, or non-consentual one-on-one sex, or non-consual group sex, or anything, really, besides "a bunch of people at a photo shoot". If I were forced to find a comparative sexual situation, I'd say it just looks like the set of some horrible porno: two bored people about to have sex, and a few crew members milling around.
posted by bugbread at 2:45 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

A cigarette ad with a woman in it is offensive?

Seriously, that ad has to be at least 10 years old. Nothing since then NOW could get offended about? Or were they trying to fill up spots on their template, so they pulled out that Glamour 1955 issue sitting around?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:46 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

"It's in Esquire, so they probably don't think a stylized gang rape will sell clothes to women..."

Well, the ad is in a men's magazine. And the likely targets of the advertisement are the metrosexual and gay men who are attracted to the "hotties" in the picture.

I think they just want her shoes.

Bruce: Look, are those Manolo Blahniks?

Tad: Indeed they are.

Chad: Karl, hold her down while Erik snags that lovely pair.

Bruce: Darling, do you wanna join us boys for a Cosmo, or two?

posted by ericb at 2:49 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

This reminds me of the ad for Fetish perfume. The copy read "Apply generously to your neck so he can smell the scent as you shake your head 'no.'"
posted by sneakin at 2:53 PM on October 20, 2007

Either your sense of humor is drier than I anticipated, ericb, or you're just more of a jerk. Can someone help me figure this out?
posted by hermitosis at 2:56 PM on October 20, 2007

BTW -- the D&G ad was pulled in Spain and banned in Italy.^*

A previous ad depicting models brandishing knives caused controversy for D&G.
posted by ericb at 2:57 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Whose the target market here and here? What about this one?
posted by ericb at 2:59 PM on October 20, 2007

Fashion trivia: Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce separated as a couple in 2005, but obviously still work together.
posted by ericb at 3:02 PM on October 20, 2007

Either your sense of humor is drier than I anticipated, ericb, or you're just more of a jerk.

I'll go with either one.
posted by ericb at 3:03 PM on October 20, 2007

Again.

Every ad in existence should be perceived as a guy in a cheap suit waving his arms in a crowd trying to get your attention. Some of these guys are gonna wear something other than a cheap suit, because they know that they have a better chance of getting your attention if they drape a bunch of half naked people on them, but the guy in the cheap suit is still there, waving his hands trying desperately to get you to look his way.

That's how he puts food on his table. If you were hungry enough, you'd surely contemplate wearing a bloody goat carcass on your head if you thought it'd feed your family. Most advertising executives sell their soul to the Devil quietly the first week they are in business, cuz they need money for brunch next Tuesday.

Perhaps if the picture in question was actually of an advertising executive with a goat carcass on his head, I might actually be upset for the goat. Half dressed naked people in suggestive poses. Meh.

This is nothing new.

There's nothing more to see here.

These are not the droids you are looking for. Move along.
posted by ZachsMind at 3:04 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

If rape is nonconsensual sex, and neither person looks like they want to have sex, but they're about to, does that mean that they're about to mutually rape eachother? It's like D&G wants to cover all parts of the "rapist fantasy / rapee fantasy" market.
posted by bugbread at 3:05 PM on October 20, 2007

ZachsMind writes "Perhaps if the picture in question was actually of an advertising executive with a goat carcass on his head, I might actually be upset for the goat."

I believe this is the ad you're looking for (though, admittedly, it was more a promotional event than a print ad, and the goat carcass wasn't on the ad exec's head).
posted by bugbread at 3:07 PM on October 20, 2007

Dozens, maybe hundreds of people worked on this ad, you can be sure that if anything, the impact is softened from how it was originally intended to appear.

Right. Because one of those later people couldn't have been trying to bump up the "edginess" from that original conception. But be sure to raise the spectre of even worse we haven't seen.

And if you think this is about some easily-offended people projecting their own imagination onto the ad, then you're incredibly naive about marketing and how ads are generated.

Considering you're the only person to offer the interpretation -- perhaps the only one to think of it -- that these men are passively condoning something rather than, as stated by several above, "on a different plane" or "standing around in a photo studio", yeah, I think there's a lot of projection going on here. Is it calculated to have that effect? Of course. But the effect is optional. You choose to get offended. I kind of think there are better (worse) things to get offended about.
posted by dreamsign at 3:08 PM on October 20, 2007

Obviously these ads work, otherwise companies wouldn't invest in them....In order to outdo the competition one has to keep upping the ante.

Benneton's advertising campaigns have often thrived on controversy -- especially in the 90's.
posted by ericb at 3:08 PM on October 20, 2007

What you are all objecting to is the lack of subtlety. These images work as advertising by appealing directly to emotions we'd rather deny. You have enough sophistication to feel disturbed but you don't fully grok why you react. The advertisers are simply associating with a brand the release of conflict between violent desire (to dominate or be dominated, in the first ad) and social responsibility. Purchasing the product becomes cathartic and no one suffers except financially. How is that bad?

Acts that result in an undesired violation of personal agency are offensive. Fantasy is fantasy and as such is healthy. Direct your rage, outrage, and disgust at rapists, child abusers, and the like. People getting upset over images are living their own fantasy -- that their outrage improves the world. As fantasy goes that's rather more offensive because it encourages destructive inaction rather than preventing destructive action.

If you've been a victim then you may experience this image on a personal level and I understand tramua well enough to know that such reactions can't be dismissed simply because they aren't reasoned: but you with direct experience finding the memory inflected upon you by an image, you are the only one with a right to be angry at the image.

The rest of you, stop feeling good about how outraged you can get. If you're just trying to be sensitive then may I suggest you do something productive: volunteer at a help line or to teach sex ed or castrate sex offenders, whatever.

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that violent and destructive impulses exist within us all, just as we all, on some level, desire our own destruction. Advertisers know this and exploit it. Is that what you're offended at? That advertisers are exploiting aspects of yourself that frighten you? Understand yourself better and you won't be exploitable in that way. These ads become tasteless, as offensive to personal standards of sophistication and refinement as American Idol or McDonald's or George Bush, but not intrinsically threatening.

Fantasy and reality are distinct. If you are too feeble-minded to make this distinction then please go kill yourself before you do any harm. If you can't get over what is depicted then don't buy the product. Don't demand that it be sold in a manner you find less challenging. It isn't up to everyone else to modify their expression or their business model to avoid provoking your anti-social impulses or to protect your fragile self-image.
posted by Grod at 3:17 PM on October 20, 2007 [11 favorites]

Here's the secret: view all advertising ... as the product of ...

people who should kill themselves.

posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 3:23 PM on October 20, 2007

Or you could be like NOW and react to all advertising as Duluth's oldest living spinster librarian reacted the day she stepped into the drugstore for her regular Saturday night Eskimo Pie and spotted Hugh Hefner's first publication behind the counter.

Sigh.

All the usual arguments (though calling them arguments is giving these comments credit they don't deserve):

Those women complaining are crazy/insane/hysterical! Check.

Those women complaining are sexless prudes! Check.

Sex sells, QED! Check.

It's only a picture, and you think is actually means something, you silly girl? Check.

If you don't like it, register your displeasure the very useful gesture of not buying anything! I'm sure the Ad company responsible for this will be knocking at your door in record time to ask you opinion! Check.

Har har, it's so cute when they get mad. Good thing we never have to take them seriously! Check.

Leaving thread now.
posted by jokeefe at 3:27 PM on October 20, 2007 [37 favorites]

Yeah, my husband and I like to play a game called What Do They Want You to Buy?, which consists of us flipping through the pages of our respective magazines and shouting out whatever the ads ostensibly want us to buy. It usually goes something like this:

Him: Car! Car! Truck! Watch! Car! Gadget! Sexy Tit-Flavored Alcohol! Futuristic Razor!

Me: Shoes! Jewels! Birth Control! A Tampon...Made out of Diamonds! Lipstick that Will Never Come Off, Ever! Scientific Conditioner! Moisturizer with Gold in It! Ooo look, a D&G ad. Hrm, I'm not sure... Greasy Prostitute? Luxury MegaRape? Squeal Like a Pig Experience?
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 3:29 PM on October 20, 2007 [11 favorites]

Larger version of the Dolce & Gabbana ad.

Sexy Tit-Flavored Alcohol!

Make it a double.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:33 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's hard to imagine how it could get much more offensive.

Oh, that's easy.

(1) Make the dude holding her down a dirty, shirtless guy with really obvious and severe Down's syndrome. Make sure his very tight pants have a preposterously huge bulge. Give him big scars on his back. For real fun, make him non-anglo.

(2) Add a dead goat on the floor, lying in a pool of blood that appears to have streamed from its hindquarters.

(3) Make the dude looking down, that's standing in the water, a bored Catholic priest holding a whip.

(4) Make two other dudes lookalikes for the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King.

(5) The last dude in the back right? Make him a little boy. Make him the most bored by everything. He's holding a knife.

(6) Change the tagline: DOLCE AND GABANNA: CERTIFIED JEW-FREE SINCE 1983.

(7) Change the location to the rotunda of the capitol or the oval office. Liberally add sprays of blood and feces to the floor and walls.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:37 PM on October 20, 2007 [32 favorites]

I think many people who object to the ads don't really understand them. The woman in the D&G ad is getting fucked, but not by these dudes. They're too effete and tentative. They're boy voyeur wannabes. The guy in the sunglasses is helping out by holding her down, but his legs are in the wrong posture. No, she is getting fucked by the D&G logo. It's the only thing hard enough, man enough, Italian enough to do the job. The "G" has found her G-spot. And it's good.

So the next time she's walking around Beverly Hills, bored and horny, surrounded by boys who aren't man enough to do the job, Dolce and Gabbana is there for her. It's extremely clever. And those who find it offensive sow its seed. Fucking brilliant.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 3:40 PM on October 20, 2007 [11 favorites]

ROU_Xenophobe writes "It's hard to imagine how it could get much more offensive.

"Oh, that's easy."

You did well, but you skipped some obvious things:

Don't make the guy have Down's Syndrome, make her have Down's Syndrome.

And make her 8 years old.

Yeah, "It's hard to imagine how it could get much offensive" is a claim that's very seldom true.
posted by bugbread at 3:49 PM on October 20, 2007

What exactly do people mean by "offensive" anyway? Generally, the only times I've ever offended on a gut level are when someone insults a family member or friend of mine, or when I see real -- not simulated, symbolic, or abstract -- acts of extreme cruelty. Nothing in these ads strikes me as remotely "offensive" in either of those ways.

Has "offensive" really just turned into a word people use to describe anything they don't particularly like?
posted by decoherence at 3:51 PM on October 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

ROU_Xenophobe - my point was the utter shallow stupidity of it and the casual nature of the wrongness. I realise it could be more crudely gross-out. The pseudo-sophistication combined with sorcerer's apprentice meddling with forces they are too dull to understand. The horrible thought of talentless hacks rehashing genuinely provoking work from twenty years ago and thinking they're clever. Quietly piling another turd onto the towering edifice of shite that is the citadel they inhabit, and we get to live in the stinking shadow of.
Obviously I'm over-doing it for rhetorical shits and giggles, but it is the ultimate in offensive.
posted by Abiezer at 3:52 PM on October 20, 2007

decoherence writes "What exactly do people mean by 'offensive' anyway? Generally, the only times I've ever offended on a gut level are when someone insults a family member or friend of mine, or when I see real -- not simulated, symbolic, or abstract -- acts of extreme cruelty. Nothing in these ads strikes me as remotely 'offensive' in either of those ways.

"Has 'offensive' really just turned into a word people use to describe anything they don't particularly like?"

Well, you admit that you find things offensive when they insult folks that you consider your in-group (friends, family members). Other people just have different boundaries for their in-groups. I suspect that they mean by "offensive" the same thing you mean by "offensive", they just have a different scope.

Like, some people think Linkin Park is awesome. Nothing by Linkin Park strikes me as remotely awesome. I find Explosions in the Sky awesome. But I'm pretty sure that what they mean by awesome is the same thing I mean by awesome, even though we feel that way about different things.
posted by bugbread at 3:56 PM on October 20, 2007

Abiezer writes "Obviously I'm over-doing it for rhetorical shits and giggles, but it is the ultimate in offensive."

You are the wrongest person ever. Nobody has ever been wronger than you right now.

Obviously I'm over-doing it for rhetorical shits and giggles, but what you are saying is the absolute peak of incorrectness.
posted by bugbread at 3:59 PM on October 20, 2007

Ooh, hoist on my own petard! View's lovely from up here.
The above was an expression of my first reaction though. The idea that they're contributing to the sum total of misogyny in the world via a weak pastiche conceived by the self-regarding mediocre with the ultimate aim of flogging some not-so-special clothing. If they were really setting out to shock it probably wouldn't be so bad. It's both nothing and spirit-draining.
posted by Abiezer at 4:08 PM on October 20, 2007

Right. Because one of those later people couldn't have been trying to bump up the "edginess" from that original conception. But be sure to raise the spectre of even worse we haven't seen.

If you've seen any of D&G's other ads (like the ones linked to in the thread), then I'm sure it's clear that that they are intending to strike a major nerve from the get-go. The fact that they've succeeded so rarely is what's actually noteworthy about their campaigns in the midst of other fashion ads.

Considering you're the only person to offer the interpretation -- perhaps the only one to think of it -- that these men are passively condoning something rather than, as stated by several above, "on a different plane" or "standing around in a photo studio", yeah, I think there's a lot of projection going on here. Is it calculated to have that effect? Of course. But the effect is optional. You choose to get offended. I kind of think there are better (worse) things to get offended about.

Get real. If I was the only person to think of it, then there wouldn't be an issue to begin with. This ad has been going around (and around, and around) for a year now. Just because something doesn't register in MeFi's meh-osphere doesn't mean it's a position not worth taking. As a homosexual I try to stay particularly sensitive to the way sexuality is portrayed in the media, and so it's completely reasonable that I would wind up with an unsavory opinion about this ad.

In fact, I'm actually more disgusted with it knowing that D&G is a prominent label in the gay marketplace, and is possibly more careless in its misogyny because it's less interested in how women will react to these ads. This is an ad for straight men and gay men to bond over, the woman is just bait.

Choosing battles wisely has nothing to do with whether you get offended, it's about what you DO about you feel. In my case, I turned the page, made a mental note that D&G was irritating, and sent GQ an email complaining about the ad, which took 5 minutes, whether it made any difference at all or not.

Keep in mind that your average metafilter user is a straight male of a sexually-active age, and therefore we as a site are not necessarily the best judge of what is offensive to who, or why. The fact that we do as well as we do in our discussions is a testament to the sensitivity and intelligence of these males, but it's brainless to assign the majority here any special authority on this subject.
posted by hermitosis at 4:08 PM on October 20, 2007 [6 favorites]

Bugbread, are you really suggesting that when people say these ads are "offensive," they mean it in the same way as if someone had vilely insulted their mother or their closest friend?

I get that people don't like the ads. I get that people find them distasteful. But the offenses in question seem so abstract, so symbolic, so removed from anything likely to affect anyone on a visceral, emotional level that the word "offensive" seems hardly to apply.
posted by decoherence at 4:11 PM on October 20, 2007

JoKeefe: "Leaving thread now."

Finally she's gone!

Alright! Bring in the dancing girls and the portable wetbar!
posted by ZachsMind at 4:13 PM on October 20, 2007

Decoherence: "Has 'offensive' really just turned into a word people use to describe anything they don't particularly like?"

That may be the most coherent statement in this entire thread.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:19 PM on October 20, 2007

In her book, Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West, Sheila Jeffreys has an interesting discussion about misogyny among gay fashion designers:

From Google Book Search:
Gay men can have problematic relationships with femininity and with women as a result of their situation under heterosexual male dominance. Bullying and persecution ... all inculcate the notion that boys and men attracted to other men lack the masculinity appropriate to the status of manhood. Femininity is the default position and can become erotized in masochistic gay male sexuality, but it signifies the subordinate position into which they are cast in relation to heterosexual men. Thus their relationship to femininity and to women themselves can be troubled and uncomfortable.


Here’s a blog post that discusses gay men and misogyny:

Queer men face a serious problem within the community that does not receive much attention or discussion. A pathological current spreads among gay men that has reached epidemic proportions. No, I am not talking about the growing dependency on spray-on tans (although...). Rather, I am constantly struck by the level of misogyny that comes into play during many informal gatherings of gay men. Misogyny, the irrational fear and hatred of women’s bodies, too frequently creeps into our conversations when we are in exclusively gay-male groups.
…
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 4:19 PM on October 20, 2007

...Okay. So. It wasn't a 'statement' per se. It was a question. Still. It's a coherent one.

The term 'offensive' is a word people use to describe anything they don't personally like.

There. Now it's a statement.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:22 PM on October 20, 2007

Misogyny, the irrational fear and hatred of women’s bodies, too frequently creeps into our conversations when we are in exclusively gay-male groups.

And more from the blog posting to which Jasper Friendly Bear links:

"More times than I would like to recount, however, I have witnessed exclusively gay male partygoers descend into discussions about their disdain of vaginas and women’s bodies in general. Even the most sexist straight guy would probably blush at the unchecked misogyny in queer-told jokes about vaginal penetration and/or menstruation. If you are a gay man who claims that he has never witnessed this type of discussion within a circle of gay male friends, you are either lying or not paying attention."

What? I have never been involved in such a discussion. I guess I'm a liar and aloof! However, I've been in many a chat with friends about how beautiful and stunning "so-and-so" looks, etc.
posted by ericb at 4:27 PM on October 20, 2007

decoherence writes "Bugbread, are you really suggesting that when people say these ads are 'offensive,' they mean it in the same way as if someone had vilely insulted their mother or their closest friend?"

Yep, that's what I'm really suggesting.

I'm not offended by this ad, but I've been offended by things in media that aren't about my direct relatives or friends. And I've been offended by things said about my direct relatives and friends. The two offensivenesses were the same (not in degree, of course, but in substance, much in the same way that I think burning gasoline is hot, and the sun is hot, in the same way, but to different degrees).

decoherence writes "I get that people don't like the ads. I get that people find them distasteful. But the offenses in question seem so abstract, so symbolic, so removed from anything likely to affect anyone on a visceral, emotional level that the word 'offensive' seems hardly to apply."

Hence my Linkin Park example. You don't feel something. That's groovy. But don't mistake that for "and thus other people don't either, and they're using the word wrong".
posted by bugbread at 4:27 PM on October 20, 2007

queer-told jokes about vaginal penetration and/or menstruation

Can't say I know any.
posted by ericb at 4:29 PM on October 20, 2007

Jasper Friendly Bear writes "Femininity is the default position and can become erotized in masochistic gay male sexuality, but it signifies the subordinate position into which they are cast in relation to heterosexual men. Thus their relationship to femininity and to women themselves can be troubled and uncomfortable."

Er, if I'm reading this right, then would it be fair to say that this ad represents a rape fantasy from the perspective of "rape victim fantasy", since the female's position is the character identified with?
posted by bugbread at 4:30 PM on October 20, 2007

Wage slaves who are defined from within and without as nothing more than "consumers" and "end users", who in their every off hour are required to navigate a mindscape almost entirely made possible and governed by advertising and marketing just to survive, whose only freedom is one of "choice" and so who must choose from a mountain of commodities that can only be distinguished from each other by intangible "branding": these people (that would include me) entertain the illusion that they have any options in this situation? that we need more "good" advertising and less "bad" advertising and that we could somehow arrive at that by complaining loudly or making different choices as per our consumption? I don't think so...marketing defines our discourse, it is the only language we understand yet we can barely speak it sometimes...

I don't know what G&D sells but I can only assume there are many products out there that are similar, forcing G&D to go "edgy" in order to differentiate their brand from the rest. Edgy is about provocation and in the branding arms race it's only going to get more provocative and hence more offensive as time goes by.

Is it the marketing that is coarsening our culture, or is our coarse culture requiring marketers to use nastier and nastier methods to get our attention, even if only for us to argue about the method? I wonder....
posted by bonefish at 4:37 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

While there are likely some gay men who harbor an "irrational fear and hatred of women’s bodies," I suspect many -- if not, most -- admire the beauty of the female form. And such admiration comes without "sexual desire." Heck, this objectvity is a compelling force in the ability of gay men to stylize women -- their hair, make-up and fashion. The appreciation for a woman's beauty with no sexual underpinning is what allows a gay man to work so well in collaboration with her.
posted by ericb at 4:42 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

ericb writes "What? I have never been involved in such a discussion. I guess I'm a liar and aloof!"

Well, that, or you don't hang out with the assholes that Gayprof hangs out with. Yet another example of "X is true for me, therefore X is true for everyone, and they're either lying or stupid not to notice it."
posted by bugbread at 4:46 PM on October 20, 2007

bonefish writes "marketing defines our discourse, it is the only language we understand yet we can barely speak it sometimes..."

Funny, I'm pretty sure I also understand English, Spanish, and Japanese. It's a bit of a surprise to find that I don't, but please don't tell my boss, because I'm sure he'd pay me far less for my services as a translator. And then I couldn't exercise my only freedom, which is apparently one of choosing which product to buy (apparently other choices like "shall I take a nap or shall I stay awake", and "shall I go for a walk with my son or shall I just fiddle around on my guitar" were also equally illusory).
posted by bugbread at 4:57 PM on October 20, 2007

Those women complaining are sexless prudes! Check.

Yeah, the line you quoted does have that implication, although I wasn't trying specifically to say that.

I can see their reasons for raising concern about the featured D&G advertisement. I don't agree with them, but I can see how the ad can be read as a rape scene. Anyone involved in creating it should have been able to see that, and perhaps should have moved onto the next sketch. Maybe I'm naive, but I'm guessing the creatives get lost in trying to find novel ways to arrange pretty people, and sex and power dynamics are forces they use to try to express their artistry, currency and boldness. In this time we have movies opening every weekend that display new ways to dismember people, we have easy access to porn where multiple guys use much younger females, we have aggressively misogynistic music and we have a bad boy aesthetic of tattoos, graffiti and motorcycle chopshop t-shirts. Marketers who rely on selling attitude probably have nightmares of being so quickly overtaken they'll seem to have become possessed by the spirit of Shirley Temple. And they'll blunder into presentations, like this one, that are offensive to some and mostly stupid to others because they operate in a self-congratulatory envelope that cultures a tendency towards wanking arrogance.

But social activists - or any other political group - have their own envelope, and their own tendencies towards self-perpetuating absurdities. Over their entire list of offensive advertisements they seem professionally aggrieved in a pursed-lip way, and that's what I responded to.

Sexless prudes are my people. As a long-standing, very seldom lapsed member of that club, I never once thought that the members of NOW, or many feminists, were high on our outreach list.
posted by TimTypeZed at 4:58 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

ROU_Xenophobe writes "7) Change the location to the rotunda of the capitol or the oval office. Liberally add sprays of blood and feces to the floor and walls."

8) A mention that both Dolce and Gabbana are two well know homosexuals, not flaming ,but surely well out of any closet !
9) A mention to how people outrage over nothing, go in denial over bad aspects of reality.
posted by elpapacito at 5:09 PM on October 20, 2007

Okay, I was going to let this thread go by without commenting but I find I can't. I'm really rather surprised at the number of people on here who have found several ways to say "it doesn't look like rape really" by talking about... how the models all have the dead eye stare, or how all the male models are likely gay anyway, or how it's just a fashion company attempting to be edgy...

But the fact remains that the image was quite clearly intended to imply sexual violence against a woman. If not a gang rape, at the the very least one man's violence against a woman going ahead unimpeded while several other people watched.

I dunno. I think that this is a hell of a lot more offensive to women.

Indeed, that was also very offensive. Because the judge there was trying to say that it didn't look like rape really...
posted by Zinger at 5:16 PM on October 20, 2007

bugbread writes: I'm pretty sure I also understand English, Spanish, and Japanese.

...none of those languages are in the ad. In fact, there is no text at all in any language in the ad, there is only image and brand. And what is it saying? As this thread shows, a lot of different things to different people, which could mean it is saying nothing more than "G&D" (not even "buy G&D"). Maybe it's not a language, maybe it's an anti-language.
posted by bonefish at 5:18 PM on October 20, 2007

bonefish writes "...none of those languages are in the ad. In fact, there is no text at all in any language in the ad, there is only image and brand."

Ah, so your point was "the only language we understand in advertisements without any language is advertising". How very deep and astute.
posted by bugbread at 5:20 PM on October 20, 2007

If I was the only person to think of it, then there wouldn't be an issue to begin with.

The "it" in question was regarding the supposed role of the other males in the photo, and opinions ranged from mentally not even there, to gang rapists. No one had suggested that what had been considered a theme failing, if you will, was actually designed to evoke the impression that they were blase about violence and/or rape. That was you. So I'll get real so long as you get particular enough to actually hold to a point.
posted by dreamsign at 5:29 PM on October 20, 2007

Maybe they just did it for the lulz?
posted by chlorus at 5:29 PM on October 20, 2007

Get real. This from the person who says reactions to this ad are not about projection? Then by all means, tell us what the objective meaning of the ad is then and why all other interpretations are wrong.
posted by dreamsign at 5:31 PM on October 20, 2007

The last D&G ad that ericb posted looks like the aftermath of a gang rape. An all-male one.

Funny, I don't remember seeing much of an outcry from GLAAD.
I guess there's some kind of double standard at work. I forget - are gay men part of the patriarchy, or are they victims of oppression, and how come there's nobody to tell me how I should feel about the gay gang rape ads?

In the absence of guidance from an advocacy group, I'll just choose to feel "meh."
posted by bashos_frog at 5:53 PM on October 20, 2007

BoneFish: "...none of those languages are in the ad. In fact, there is no text at all in any language in the ad, there is only image and brand. And what is it saying? "

*ahem*

...

IT IS NOT SAYING ANYTHING.

It is a picture.

Pictures don't say anything.

They show.

The adage may be true that a picture is worth a thousand words. However, it is not the picture that says any of those words (unless it comes with a caption or whatever). It's you. It's me. We say things and claim them on the picture's behalf, but the picture could care less what we say about it.

This is a conflict that art throughout history has had to fight.

The Venus de Milo says nothing.

The Mona Lisa says nothing.

Whatever it says to you? That's actually you talking to yourself. No you're not crazy. This is natural human behavior. We talk to ourselves and pretend art is talking to us. We anthropomorphize everything. We talk to our plants and have even conducted scientific experiments that prove to ourselves that paying attention to plants and doting on them improves their growth. We have conversations with our pets, as if they care to learn our language. As if it matters to them what we have to say.

I have read critics and art enthusiasts talk at length about Picasso and what Picasso's work says and they can write entire books saying what Picasso's work says. Picasso's work says nothing to me. I look at it and all I get is 'meh.' I look at a work by Pollack and all I 'hear' is 'vomit.' That's the only word illicited from me regarding his work, but other people have written books and made movies elaborating on what they think Pollack says in his works.

His work just sits there and could care less whether or not I think it's vomit. It's gonna exist regardless of my opinion. As well it should.

AT BEST, an advertisement is saying "buy this." However, it doesn't even really say that. We imbue the picture with words, and advertisers may even add captions to tell us what they want us to think the image says, but it doesn't have any words for itself to say.

And yes unfortunately, even the worst ad ever in the history of anything is a form of art. It is commercial art that has sold out, but art nevertheless. It conveys emotion. And here is the beautiful irony: Commercial art tries to say something but what it actually says is up to the viewer.

We look at hyenas and lions in the wild, and we take sides. Most would see the hyenas as bad guys and lions as good guys (some would disagree no doubt), but they're both predators. They're both vying for the food stock of their environment. The real victims are the prey. However, we can't stop all lions and hyenas from eating. We can't protect the prey, because then the predators would starve. Who's the good guys then?

Whenever someone gets offended by art, it's because they see the worst that is inside them in the image.

If the image in question were evidence of an actual gang rape, then there'd be cause for alarm. This is just a provacative image that an advertising agency made for one of their clients, in an attempt to get YOUR attention. It means nothing beyond what you imbue.

Congratulations. Thanks to you, they can call this a success. THAT is why you will see MORE of this kind of provacative behavior in advertising. BECAUSE IT WORKS. Thank you for encouraging their behavior.

Please. Honestly. There is nothing more to see here. Stop rubbernecking. You're causing accidents.
posted by ZachsMind at 6:10 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wow. Thanks to this thread, Dolce & Gabanna will forever be seared into my head. Metafilter, I congratulate you on accomplishing what an otherwise dopey ad never could accomplish: reminding me of the brand. Bravo.
posted by tgrundke at 6:36 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

The last time any of the men in that Dolce & Gabanna ad saw the inside of a woman was when they went to visit the Statue of Liberty.
posted by flarbuse at 6:59 PM on October 20, 2007

I bet more there are more women who fantasize about having five guys at once than there are guys who fantasize about sharing one woman with five of their bros.

That's all I'm saying.
posted by Edgewise at 7:11 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

I bet more there are more women who fantasize about having five guys at once than there are guys who fantasize about sharing one woman with five of their bros.

Uh, no. I bet there are more guys who fantasize about sharing one woman with five of their bros than there are women who fantasize about having sex with five gay guys at once.
posted by fuse theorem at 7:38 PM on October 20, 2007

Whatever it says to you? That's actually you talking to yourself.

You know, the thing that I find odd about this whole thread is that the Mefi audience is as sophisticated an audience as it gets. Post a link to a piece on Barthes or Judith Williamson, and you'll get hugely erudite discourse on how we decode an advertisement. Post an actual advertisement though, and you get accounts that suggest that the reading is completely unproblematic and its meaning uncontested.

Well, I'm sorry, but I don't believe there was ever a gang rape that looked anything like this. Even in porn, which is where I think this image is taking it's external references from, the gang rapes don't look like this. Not enough anger, not enough violence, not enough humiliation. If it's anything at all, it's a reference to group sex or a rape fantasy. Your archetypal use of sexual imagery to sell clothes. Buy one of our dresses and not only will you be able to find one man who wants to fuck you, you'll be able to find half a dozen who are up for it. Put your man in one of our suits, and women will want him so badly, they won't be able to contain themselves.

But not only is it nothing like rape, its actually nothing like sex. Nobody is breaking a sweat. Nobody has a hair out of place. In the same way that art takes its references from earlier art, so advertising takes its language from earlier adverts.

I don't even think it's shocking. It could have been though. Replace these obvious models with real people. Photograph them in a way that shows the men as genuinely engaged. Use a woman that doesn't look like a supermodel, and show her as genuinely distressed or genuinely resistant and you might begin to approach shocking. As it stands though, I think that the subject of this photograph is fashion advertising, and it's cynically designed to pull the chains of the very people who feel as though they've had their chains pulled. In that sense, it's a successful campaign as it's achieived the objectives that were no doubt set out in the agency's brief. If that fact offends you, then I suspect that the most rational response to a campaign like this is simply to ignore it.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:54 PM on October 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

Why do you keep telling people to move on, zachsmind?
posted by pinky at 7:55 PM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

You know, I'm trying to see the "rape" in this ad but it's just not there for me.

At the very most, I see a scene of some very light bondage/BDSM -- if the ad was just one older guy and an older woman, it probably wouldn't be much different than "Fantasy Friday" in 30 million bedrooms across America.

So, I guess I'm asking: does feminism see any difference in the portrayal of BDSM and rape?
posted by Avenger at 8:05 PM on October 20, 2007

Zinger writes "But the fact remains that the image was quite clearly intended to imply sexual violence against a woman."

I think the fact that there's so much disagreement about this issue should be a strong indicator that it isn't "quite clear". That's how "quite clear" things work: there is very little disagreement about them, what with them being so very clear and all.
posted by bugbread at 8:12 PM on October 20, 2007

proof that Dolce & Gabbana are equal opportunity gang-rapists
posted by [expletive deleted] at 8:13 PM on October 20, 2007

proof that Dolce & Gabbana are equal opportunity gang-rapists

As referenced above.
posted by ericb at 8:48 PM on October 20, 2007

Well, as they say on MySpace... "THANKS FOR THE AD!"
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:13 PM on October 20, 2007

Ms. has been calling out ads like these on its "No Comment" page since its inception 35 years ago.
posted by brujita at 9:14 PM on October 20, 2007

Uh, no. I bet there are more guys who fantasize about sharing one woman with five of their bros than there are women who fantasize about having sex with five gay guys at once.

Well, if you're going to go there, might as well complete the analogy: how many gay guys fantasize about sharing a woman with five of their gay bros?
posted by Edgewise at 9:16 PM on October 20, 2007

Chiming in late, here.

I view all advertising with total cynicism and a degree of awe in the design. I'm not particularly shocked by much, especially anything that doesn't need a NSFW label. For what it's worth, I'm a 40-ish woman, if that's important in this discussion.

I think we can complain all we want when we feel offended, but I have doubts on how much that would change anything. Advertisements are very carefully and cleverly designed for the market they aim for, often the most common denominator. Why would they change what works?

I also just wanted to point out that the NOW site also offers a Positive Ads page, too. Some lovely imagery, to be sure, but I'm just as cynical about those ads as the ones they considered negative.
posted by lilywing13 at 9:31 PM on October 20, 2007

There was a time when I'd find an ad like this "offensive".
Now, not so much... I guess the advertisers have won.
posted by hadjiboy at 9:38 PM on October 20, 2007

When I see ads like that I think of the Screwfly Solution.
posted by meehawl at 10:00 PM on October 20, 2007

All advertising should be offensive to everybody.

Read your Vance Packard.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:04 PM on October 20, 2007

I think the fact that there's so much disagreement about this issue should be a strong indicator that it isn't "quite clear". That's how "quite clear" things work: there is very little disagreement about them, what with them being so very clear and all.

Thanks for the condescension there bugbread. But if you'd actually read my post, the bit about it being quiet clear was referring to the advertiser's intention, not the various interpretations of it on this page or elsewhere. Given D&G's other ad, which many other people have already linked to, the overall campaign is very definitely sex and violence related.
posted by Zinger at 10:19 PM on October 20, 2007

As someone said upthread, nothing in advertising is unintentional. And because we see so many ads every day, we tend to think that we tune them out and thus we're not affected by advertising. I don't believe this; I think that advertising both reflects AND perpetuates social norms.

For example, start making note of the ads you see for household cleaning products. Now, note how many feature women using the cleaning products. I guarantee it will be the majority. On the one hand, I think that this is a reflection of the reality that few men do as much household cleaning as women (although men today do a larger percentage of unpaid household labour than they used to, women still do the majority); however, I also think it serves to reinforce the gendered division of labour, in which housework pretty clearly seems to be the territory of women. I don't think the reason more women take the lion's share of housework is because they love doing it or are more inherently suited for it; I think it's because they (and their male partners/family members) are trapped by stale gender roles which are perpetuated daily by what we see around us.

Jean Kilbourne has made several documentaries (well, filmed lectures, actually) about advertising and gender (the most recent is Killing Us Softly 3). Every time I teach intro to women's studies we do a unit on women and advertising. Students--male and female--usually say that ads don't affect them and that advertisers are just reflecting society rather than influencing it. After we watch Killing Us Softly, most of them are fascinated and at least a little unsettled, if not downright pissed off at the sexist ads around them that they never stopped to analyze before.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:31 PM on October 20, 2007 [8 favorites]

Oh noooooooooooooo.

As a woman, I would like a moratorium on people declaring what I find offensive. Not because I do not find those things offensive (I usually do) but because any such declaration is immediately followed by a bunch of people being really, really offensive, usually leaving me to think that my hard-won feelings of general benevolence about humanity are me being a total dumbass.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 10:53 PM on October 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

You go, jokeefe.

Hmmm, the general tenor of this thread seems to be that these ads are not /should not be all that bothersome. I also see lots of disdain for NOW for what is hardly a radical stand: contact the advertisers if you find these ads objectionable. And lots of intellectualizing about why these ads shouldn't be taken seriously.

Walk a mile in my 3 inch heels and tell me not to be bothered by this crap. It's interesting that this thread is about 4 to 1 male to female ratio, yet of the few women who had the temerity to comment in this moderately high testosterone zone, most expressed varying degrees of discomfort with the ads. More telling, another dozen or more favorited comments by those like jokeefe who spoke out against the ads. Lots of quiet, lurking women and I wonder why. I suspect jokeefe hit the nail on the head - *sigh* - "leaving thread now."

You guys need to think about why it is that so many of you think these ads shouldn't be bothersome yet so many women are saying, um, they kinda bother me.

Sexy ads are one thing, but I doubt many women find these ads sexy. Not OK: the subtle or not so subtle cooler than cool ads that give a nod and a wink to abusing, denigrating, or humilating women, along with the ones that perpetuate the dangerous idea that women need to look like the CK skeleton to be cool.

On preview, great comments, hurdy gurdy girl and thehmsbeagle.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:11 PM on October 20, 2007 [11 favorites]

Sexy ads are one thing, but I doubt many women find these ads sexy. Not OK: the subtle or not so subtle cooler than cool ads that give a nod and a wink to abusing, denigrating, or humilating women, along with the ones that perpetuate the dangerous idea that women need to look like the CK skeleton to be cool.

Bingo. And it's weird to me that so much "high fashion" advertising goes there. So for those of you getting all "GEEeeEEEeeezZZ if you don't like it don't buy their stuff..." don't worry, I don't.
posted by Salmonberry at 11:43 PM on October 20, 2007

jokeefe and madamjujujive both hit the nail on head, about the ads and this thread. WTF.
posted by homunculus at 11:54 PM on October 20, 2007

And it's weird to me that so much "high fashion" advertising goes there.

Allow me to play armchair aesthetic psychologist: high fashion and advertising both have always had complexes about not being art, but "merely" design. Consequently they massively overcompensate, especially when they intersect, with ads that actively discourage consumption of the product in question, and whole collections that don't contain any clothing that is functional, attractive or pleasing in any way. This is an attempt to gain artistic legitimacy by rejecting the purpose that they feel has been thrust upon them, rather than by bringing a new legitimacy to that purpose. You also see this happen a lot with set and costume designers, for similar reasons (though there they have artistic collaborators that can and do say them nay).
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:14 AM on October 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

I wasn't going to really comment, because of all the stuff jokeefe mentioned, but I feel like madamjujujive made a point that all teh dudes who said this ad a) isn't offensive or b) that there are better things to worry about should read:

You guys need to think about why it is that so many of you think these ads shouldn't be bothersome yet so many women are saying, um, they kinda bother me.

Saying that it's just a picture would be fine, if it didn't actually refer to stuff and wasn't released for a purpose in a time in society in history.

Although I have to say I've minded ads more: at least this one makes what it's about obvious.
posted by SoftRain at 12:52 AM on October 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

I read the thread until now and saw a lot of stuff I almost want to respond to, but really don't. However, I liked what madamjujujive said, so I thought I'd chime in.

There's no winning here. If I point out that the material is offensive whether or not it actually looks like a gang rape, and that it speaks to what it means to be a woman, and that it is inexcusable for many different reasons, then I'm easily dismissed: either I'm some over-the-top feminist (and who likes those?), or I don't understand how advertisement works. Because if it's offensive to you, it means you just don't understand what's really going on. Yeah.

I don't like being told by so many different products of society that my role is to be held captive by the man. I don't like it being implied that if I were good at being this thing that I am, that my skin would be tanned and shiny, that my hair would naturally blow in the wind, that my whole form would yield to the sexual desires of men, and that my mind may just as well be absent. I don't like being reminded that extolling those "virtues" of women sells things--that it is an advertisement that succeeds. I don't like being forced to remember that there are people who actually judge me by the standards presented in those ads.

It doesn't define my life. I don't see that ad and instantly believe that I am a useless member of society if I do not acquiesce to the sexual advances from suspiciously-oiled men. I do not think that I am as vapid and sexual as most of those ads imply all women are. I'm not that stupid. My life is not ruled by them.

....But, damnit, it's an annoying reminder. It's offensive because it says that women are whores, that "whore" is an appropriate word to be used, derogatory and self-satisfied. Just because it's a ridiculous advertisement, or just because advertisements are meant to gain comment, doesn't change what it's expressing or what comments ought to be made about it. The ad is saying something about me, which I find disgusting, and it is saying it to me, which I find horrific.

I hate being forced to get onto a feminist high-horse. It's so cliche. But, sometimes, it just feels at least a little bit necessary.
posted by Ms. Saint at 1:04 AM on October 21, 2007 [10 favorites]

Is there something wrong with me that I didn’t find this ad disturbing on first view? I knew I should’ve, but I just couldn’t. Is it because I’ve become so accustomed to seeing women portrayed in such ways? It’s almost become the norm now-a-days, and to see something really shocking you’ve got to be knocked out of your socks. I think that’s why most of the guys weren’t that bothered by it, although jokeefe’s comment bears repeating.

mjj, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
posted by hadjiboy at 1:09 AM on October 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yeah, seconding (thirding? fourthing?) what people have been saying. As a woman sometimes I just get tired of trying to go about my business and read a friggin magazine and be hit with incessant fucking TITS ASS LEGS SELL STUFF BUY STUFF ZOMG SEXY SEX SEX BUY BUY BUY FEEL GOOD SMELL GOOD LOOK GOOD SHUT UP DON'T THINK DON'T TALK STOP TALKING SHUT THE FUCK UP TITS ASS ASS TITS BUY BUY BUY!!11!1! It just gets tiresome past a point, you know? And it really makes me sad for humanity that we're so tediously, boringly predictable. I find ads like the D&G offensive as much for their triteness as anything else, like it's something new and provocative to use that kind of imagery to sell something. What the fuck ever.
posted by supercrayon at 1:20 AM on October 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

I'm glad you decided to comment, Ms. Saint. I've been thinking about this thread quite a lot tonight, and I find your comment, for whatever reason, to be the most persuasive. For what it's worth, I now regret my somewhat flippant tone earlier, although in my own defense I will say that I never intended to imply any dismissiveness of other's feelings, only to describe my own reaction, which was that the image was tasteless and calculatedly button-pushing, but mostly harmless in its obviousness and artless staging. Nevertheless, I just wanted to say that your excellent comment has proved the value of continuing to hold these kinds of conversations, because at least one person was listening, and was persuaded to see another point of view. Consider me officially offended, for all the reasons you so eloquently described. So maybe there's a little bit of winning possible here, after all. Thank you.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:30 AM on October 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

On a completely different tangent, the term "suspiciously-oiled men" is absolutely brilliant.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:41 AM on October 21, 2007

You know, I wouldn't have looked at that and immediately thought "gang rape" - but I did think it looked damn stupid and poorly thought out, and then immediately wondered who the hell the ad was supposed to be targeting and what it was supposed to sell. I definitely see an art director trying to be edgy and grab attention - and also one who is trying too hard to be "arty" in all the worst ways. Anyone who arranged a composition like this and isn't lampooning something is trying to - well, I'm not sure I can figure out what the hell the message is, and while I'm not offended, I'm pretty sure that the art director had something sexual in mind when he put that little group together. And that the woman in the center isn't exactly enjoying herself - wait, is anyone in that image enjoying anything? (That's depressing in itself - the idea to sell through sexual boredom? Huh?) As a woman, none of it appeals to me - but then I get the feeling that I'm not the target audience for the scene that it's presenting.

But after all these comments I have to say that we can not pick any and all ads appart too much. Move along and nothing to see?!!! WTF! Ridiculous amounts of money are spent on these things. Let's pull them all to shreds. Offensive or not, let's not let the bildge be presented without some mocking. I'm offended that someone got paid for putting this together and convincing someone else that this image would be appealing. Although I don't immediately look at it and see gang rape - the more I look at it - well, I just become more annoyed. With the person who sold this tripe to the D&G. While I don't look at it and scream that we need to censor it all immediately I certainly don't think D&G get a pass - in fact I'd just loooove to have their PR rep come out and explain exactly, in great detail, this ad means to the company.

Oh and remind me - what was MeFi's gender breakdown last time anyone checked? I always get curious when I hear lots of people harumphing about how women shouldn't be offended by things - how many women do we have in here these days? Honestly. I do know the number has increased. (And I mean that in a non snarky way. The last few sentences anyway.)
posted by batgrlHG at 1:45 AM on October 21, 2007

As a woman sometimes I just get tired of trying to go about my business and read a friggin magazine and be hit with incessant fucking TITS ASS LEGS SELL STUFF BUY STUFF etc. etc...

Yeah, as a man I get tired of it too. It's tiresome and boring. And the incessant, never-ending omnipresence of it is ultimately... dulling. Dulls the senses, dulls the sensitivities, dulls pretty damn much everything. I don't think it's just women who feel like you do. People, don't fall into the "as a _______ ," trap! Unless it's "as a human being". It's not only women who feel the way you do about this.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:54 AM on October 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

The ad is saying something about me, which I find disgusting, and it is saying it to me, which I find horrific.

Let me play devil's advocate here. If your assertion holds, this ad may as well be saying at least as much (and, thus, as little) about men, Caucasians, brunettes, me, and the spectrum of blue as it is about you. Now, before I crank up the outrage machine, I want to reconsider your strong identification with the woman in the picture.

A visual depiction of a woman is not always, per se, an automatic representative of all women, or of womanhood, nor is it a direct address to you as a specific instance of woman. Anything of the sort requires a leap of substitution. And it's important to acknowledge this substitution, and exercise it conservatively, because otherwise we exist in a world of persecution, in which impersonal statements become twisted into deeply personal judgments or attacks on us. There's a term for this outlook taken in the extreme - it's paranoia, where we see ourselves in everything, the punchline of every joke.

Is it possible for you to see a woman depicted in media or art without it having bearing upon you or upon womanhood in general?
posted by kid ichorous at 2:08 AM on October 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh and just for fun - guys, next time you're at the grocery store flip through a Vogue - you know, the ones that are $5 or more, the stupidly heavy tomes. If you've never been exposed to fashion ads before it might be a weird trip. Cosmo and its ilk are one level, but Vogue goes all out budgetwise for this sort of thing. Not that there aren't some nicely done and even artistic photography in there - but there is a great deal worthy of eye rolling at the very least. When I was in college we used to put ads on a communal bullitin board just to dissect and roundly mock. Even more interesting to check back issues from 10 years ago and see how the same themes/arrangements of people and items are repeated. Multitudes of thesis fodder.
posted by batgrlHG at 2:09