Can we retire the term "politically correct" now?

What does it mean, anyway? I first heard the term back in high school, in the late '80s. A feminist guest speaker was talking to us about sexual harassment and rape. In an open session, I mentioned that I thought it was a good idea for a guy not to walk right behind a woman stranger on a dark or empty street, but rather cross to the other side so she wouldn't be scared. For this, I was pronounced "a very politically correct young man."

That was then. The term was at first applied in a positive manner by late second-wave feminists, to describe a person who was on-side. However, with the backlash that inevitably came during the '90s, the term was appropriated as derision. Today, when someone calls me "politically correct," they're dismissing my opinion as overly-sensitive "politics" (as opposed to reality or common sense).

And that's what American Apparel is doing here, in this billboard shared by Sociological Images' Lisa Wade.

What this says is that when people complain that AA ads are encouraging the sexualization of schoolgirls, fetishizing sexual violence, or just plain exploiting people for fun and profit, they are just sucking up to feminist "politics." The fact that AA is sweatshop-free excuses all this, because their manufacturing is "ethical." Never mind that their founder, Dov Charney, was fired by his own board for "several instances of alleged misconduct" with female employees.

"Politically correct" is dead. This cynical advertising is just flogging its corpse. Time to move on.

American Apparel touts "sweatshop-free" with a topless woman from Bangladesh

Via American Apparel

Of course they did. Maks is a Bengali-American woman who works in their merchandising department. Here's the copy (transcribed by Stylite):

Meet Maks 

She is a merchandiser who has been with American Apparel since 2010. Born in Dhaka, the capitol of Bangladesh, Maks vividly remembers attending mosque as a child alongside her conservative Muslim parents. At age four, her family made a life changing move to Marina Del Rey, California. Although she suddenly found herself a world away from Dhaka, she continued following her parent’s religious traditions and sustained her Islamic faith throughout her childhood. Upon entering high school, Maks began to feel the need to forge her own identity and ultimately distanced herself from Islamic traditions. A woman continuously in search of new creative outlets, Maks unreservedly embraced this photo shoot. 

She has found some elements of Southern California culture to be immediately appealing, but is striving to explore what lies beyond the city’s superficial pleasures. She doesn’t feel the need to identify herself as an American or a Bengali and is not content to fit her life into anyone else’s conventional narrative. That’s what makes her essential to the mosaic that is Los Angeles, and unequivocally, a distinct figure in the ever expanding American Apparel family. Maks was photographed in the High Waist Jean, a garment manufactured by 23 skilled American workers in Downtown Los Angeles, all of whom are paid a fair wage and have access to basic benefits such as healthcare.

How many buttons can AA push with one ad? They take a shot at the competition, like Gap, who were implicated in worker abuse and deaths in Bangladeshi sweatshops. They continue the sexual exploitation of young, attractive, female employees in their ads. They use this woman's ethnicity as a prop. They have a go at traditional Muslim notions of modesty. And, of course, they have everyone talking about them again.

I have no idea where this ad has been placed, or even if the advertiser feels the need to throw any media money at it. It's posted on their site, and has been covered by Elle, NY Daily News, Jezebel, The Daily Beast, SMH, HuffPo, Daily Mail, and elsewhere. Just more proof that the internet gives us the collective intelligence of a hamster in heat.

Is American Apparel's most explicit thing yet... feminist art?

American Apparel, apparently concerned that its ability to shock people with its sexualized advertising is starting to wane, has once again engaged the world of earned media with an "outrage":

"The Ardorous X American Apparel Period Power Washed Tee" features an explicit illustration of a woman masturbating while menstruating.

Here's the product description:

The Ardorous is an all-female online art platform curated by Petra Collins, a Toronto-born artist. Petra began her infatuation with photography at age 15 and became an American Apparel retail employee around the same time. She creates portraits exploring female sexuality and teen girl culture. Now 20, Petra has worked with Vice, Vogue Italia, Purple, Rookie, and is a contributing photographer for American Apparel.

Compared to American Apparel's sleazily objectifying ads, however, this one seems to have an authentically feminist purpose — at least to the woman who drew it.

Ms. Collins, who is based in Toronto, told Vice that she was trying to challenge taboos about women's bodies:

Menstruation—and also pubic hair—really freaks people out. There’s pubic hair in the drawing, which I guess is super shocking to people, even though I cannot get over that. I feel like I’m so sheltered in a way. I always forget that people are so close-minded. 

Grown women are taught to repress their postpubescent body or hide it. When you start puberty and you start growing hair you’re taught to shave it, because no one’s supposed to see it. With your period, it’s something that you conceal—no one’s supposed to know. It’s almost pedophilic—and I don’t want to throw that word around. But this feminine ideology we have, of the woman being a prepubescent girl, is how we’re taught to change our bodies. 

That's actually pretty cool. It's not the first time AA has done something constructive in their marketing assault on "decency".  So, while I won't be wearing this unisex V-shirt to work anytime soon, I have to give them points for art. Even if they do stand to make a few bucks from it.

UPDATE: The shirt is no longer available at the AA e-store.

"Will do dishes for sext"

Sir Richard's Condoms, always a cheeky marketer, has rolled out a new app for men who can only be motivated by their loved one's T&A.

"Pretty Please," according to the Denver Egotist, "challenges the recipient to agree to complete a task before they’re granted permission to view a photo — a photo uploaded by a lover that's presumably sexy and worth doing said chore in order to unlock." It will also auto-delete the picture before the woman ends up as the next Scarlett Johansson. (Interestingly, the screen caps at the Apple App Store no longer feature the boudoir shot as seen at the top of this post.)

I know it's all in fun, however it's kind of a depressing stereotype that women use sex as currency and men are lazy slobs who are only in it for the orgasm.

I suppose the sexting could go both ways, in theory, but to be honest I doubt I could convince my spouse to take out the garbage by promising her a photo of my junk.

American Apparel enters a silver age

Fashionista posted this recent American Apparel ad, featuring "Jacky", a model who is not only fully clothed but also appears to be over the age of 20.

Okay, she's still offering her crotch to the world, but they have a brand to think about here!

UPDATE: More from Jacky at Fashionista

At the American Apparel XXXmas party

The staff at the LA factory and head office apparently got drunk, disrobed, and modelled some awful Christmas sweaters.

So, you know, it was a lot like an ad agency party.

Source: Facebook

American Apparel shoe ads take all the joy out of sex

Dominated, humiliated, detached, impersonal... I guess some people are in to those kinds of things in the bedroom. But these ads (via Ads of The World)
don't feel sexy at all. They just feel wrong.

Shoe fetish, or ass kicking?

Reminds me of Puma, except it's a real ad.

"The shoes are doen here!"

Note that she is always there as "his" plaything.

Yeah, yeah. I know. By talking about how awful these ads are, I become part of the problem. But I really do believe there's such a thing as bad publicity. We need to talk about what we like and what we don't like so that, as consumers, we have a more informed relationship with the brand.

F'd Ad Fridays: Rate everything with Jotly

"Everything about your life is exciting. To everyone."

That's the pitch for Jotly, the only app you'll ever need to rate every goddamn thing on the planet.

Just check out this long and rambling, but somehow charismatic, ad:



Imagine!

Yeah, it's a joke.

Thanks to Edd for the tip.

American Apparel's "Next Big Thing" is obviously not "growing a pair"

Last month, American Apparel impressed nobody when it launched it's "Next Big Thing" model search for plus-sized amateur porn fashion models.

But then it got good. Nancy Upton, a size 12 model with a wicked sense of humour, entered the following pictures in an attempt to lampoon the contest with the disclaimer, "my good friend Shannon Skloss came over to take some "booty-full" photos of me... but I just couldn't stop eating."

Nancy, in a public tribute to her awsomeness, won the contest by popular vote. But AA refused to crown her as their new booty queen. More than that, they responded with the following insufferable whine:

Dear Nancy Upton,

My name is Iris Alonzo and I am a Creative Director at American Apparel. Along with four other women, I conceived of the Next BIG Thing campaign for American Apparel. Firstly, we are very sorry that we offended you. Our only motive was to discover and celebrate the many beautiful XL women around the globe who enjoy our brand, and to promote the recent size additions to our collection. Nothing more, nothing less. We would also like to assure you that no one is getting fired over your stunt, as you expressed concern about in a recent interview. We are fortunate to have a great boss who trusts and believes in our instincts and ideas, and we are still very excited about all of our Next BIG Things and looking forward to meeting our new XL brand ambassadors.

It’s a shame that your project attempts to discredit the positive intentions of our challenge based on your personal distaste for our use of light-hearted language, and that “bootylicous” was too much for you to handle. While we may be a bit TOO inspired by Beyoncé, and do have a tendency to occasionally go pun-crazy, we try not to take ourselves too seriously around here. I wonder if you had taken just a moment to imagine that this campaign could actually be well intentioned, and that my team and I are not out to offend and insult women, would you have still behaved in the same way, mocking the confident and excited participants who put themselves out there? Maybe you’ll find it interesting that in addition to simply responding to customer demand and feedback, when you’re a vertically-integrated company, actual jobs are created from new size additions. In this case, for the XL women who will model them, industrial workers that make them, retail employees that sell them and beyond. That’s the amazing reality of American Apparel’s business.

Though I could spend hours responding to your accusations and assumptions, this isn’t the appropriate forum for that, so I will only briefly address a few issues here. In regards to April Flores’ “that’s not our demographic” experience, I don’t recall the name of the confused employee credited with saying that, but he or she was sadly uninformed, and our company certainly does not endorse their statement. For as long as I can remember, we have offered sizes up to 3XL in our basic styles, and as far as adding larger sizes to the rest of our line is concerned, if there is the demand and manufacturing power to support it, we’re always game. There are thousands of brands in the market who have no intention of supporting natural - and completely normal - full-figured women, and American Apparel is making a conscious effort to change that, both with our models and our line. If every brand that tried to do this was met with such negative press, we may have to wait another decade for the mainstream to embrace something so simple.

In the past, American Apparel has been targeted for various reasons, many times by journalists who weren’t willing to go the extra mile to even visit the factory or meet the people in charge. Dov is a great executive director and American Industrialist, but there are hundreds of other decision-makers in our company, over half of whom are women. I suppose you have read a few too many negative pieces about us that have helped to form your opinion of who we are and what we stand for, and perhaps this has clouded your ability to give us a chance. I get it. I read some of it too. As a creative who isn’t always the most tactful and tends to stay away from the limelight, maybe I haven’t spoken up as much as I should have over the past 8 years that I’ve worked at American Apparel. Perhaps I could have shed some light on some issues that have been left cloudy over the years. However, sensational media will always need something to latch on to and success, spandex and individuality (and mutton chops circa 2004) are certainly easy targets. And who knows - maybe the PR ups and downs are all part of our DNA as a company. What I do know is that after all the years I have been working for this company I can wholeheartedly say that American Apparel is an amazing and inspiring place to work. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can represent of a ton of people I know when I say that we really like Dov and we passionately believe in his vision for a beautiful factory with sustainable practices. We are the largest sewing factory in North America, after all…10,000 jobs is nothing to sniff at. A lot of people would be very sad if this company wasn’t around.

That said, we realize that we are in no way perfect and that we’re still learning. We want to do better or differently in many areas, and we are actively working on them every day. You’re literally witnessing a transparent, sincere, innovative, creative company go through puberty in the spotlight of modern media. It’s not easy!

Oh - and regarding winning the contest, while you were clearly the popular choice, we have decided to award the prizes to other contestants that we feel truly exemplify the idea of beauty inside and out, and whom we will be proud to have representing our company.

Please feel free to contact me directly anytime. If you want to know the real scoop about our company before writing a story, I’ve got it (or if I don’t, I can put you in touch with the person that does!).

Best of luck,

Iris Alonzo
Creative Director
American Apparel

PS: You suck.

New American Apparel ad true to smutty tradition

Hey, waitaminute! American Eagle? I thought they sold scruffy casual wear. Now it seems, they've hopped on the bandwagon of selling clothes without wearing clothes. How original.

A not-sleazy American Apparel ad?

I'm not saying I love it. But it's a refreshing change from the amateur porn.



Directed by photographer Tony Kelly, featuring precocious breakdancers Jalen Testerman and Lil Demon.

Via Viral Videos

With the size of my mouth, they'd better offer a Quadruple Mac

Duncan at The Inspiration Room posted this video of a McDonald's Facebook app that measures the size of your maw, then suggests the best size of burger to stuff in it. How lovely.



Burger Roulette is a project of Miami Ad School students Shahak Shapira and Edi Inderbitzin. And it could never, ever lead to any embarrassment or awkwardness.

Not in a Brazilian years...

Hmmmm... this somehow reminds me of another inappropriate fast food promotion...

Oh...

Don't try Burger Roulette at home, kids — it's "unpublished" spec student work.

Ethical nudity (contains nudity... duh!)

Copyranter picked up the latest protest by FEMEN, the Ukrainian feminist group the internet can't get enough of.

Why? I'll give you two reasons:

Zuckerberg sees no boobies, hears no boobies, speaks no boobies.

FEMEN are notorious for their topless protests, even in the middle of winter, against what they see as a culture of sexism in Ukraine — and the world.

Originally focussing their anger on sex tourism in the Ukraine — either through prostitution or "mail-order-bride" scams — they have branched out to attack such issues as living conditions in Kiev, the safety of women on the subway, throwing panties at the Italian embassy on Valentine's Day as a protest against Burlusconi's sex scandals.

Now, they're protesting their groups ban from Facebook on grounds of nudity. FEMEN founder Anna Hutsol replied, referring to both the Facebook ban and an earlier ban from YouTube:

"The administration of Facebook, as well as the administration of Google, have demonstrated a wooden approach to filtering hosted photo and video, to equate protest FEMEN and trivial erotica "

And this, to me, is the question we will have to start asking ourselves about sexual nudity in advertising, protest, art and general communication. And I'm sure your first question to me will be "aren't you being kind of hypocritical, supporting FEMEN and trashing PETA and American Apparel?"

Maybe I am. But it's the "trivial erotica" comment by Hutsol that sums it up for me. American Apparel, as a fashion brand, is the very definition of trivial. And their ads, in my opinion, trivialize sexuality by making it a commodity like a t-shirt.

From the AA catalogue

PETA has a heartfelt message about animal cruelty. And they do occasionally try to show the connection between humans and animals in their protests, however naively.

But much of the time, they just use sex to get attention. Which is also trivializing.

But they can do what they want with their bodies, right? Sure. I'm just arguing that FEMEN is something different entirely.

In exposing themselves in an aggressive, sometimes even violent way, the FEMENistas are using sex and nudity in a completely different way. Their message is, "You want to objectify women? Well objectify THIS, you assholes!"

Their sexuality is not coy, or yielding. It is an assault on the conventions of what they see as an oppressive society. They are uncompromising extremists, who live communally in an all-female movement. And they regularly get arrested for their daring statements.

So yes, of course Facebook banned them. FB admins can't stand the sight of breasts, even if they are doing something as innocent and human as feeding a baby. They make some exceptions for art, but inconsistently. And nudity as political protest? Right out.

And I think that's unfortunate. Because there are all kinds of nudity in the world. Some kinds exploit people, some trivialize them, and some objectify them. Other times, it's beautiful, artistic or meaningful. Too bad America's black-and-white morality can't judge the difference.

UPDATE: FEMEN are having another go at Facebook. (See below)

Legalize Gay

I'm not going to beat around the bush: I think American Apparel is a sleazy advertiser. But I love their t-shirts. So I'm both impressed by, and suspicious of, this little piece of corporate social responsibility:

The ad was run in AA's newsfeed, with the following explanation:

"Last week, American Apparel was contacted through Facebook and informed that a student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater was physically and verbally assaulted for her sexual orientation. The victim was wearing one of the company's Legalize Gay t-shirts at the time of attack. Hate crimes such as this are abhorrent and we deeply condemn them. Despite the unfortunate event that triggered it, the immediate response of this young woman's fellow students to hold a campus wide rally as a show of unity was incredibly inspiring. In response, we have run the following full page advertisement in the university newspaper offering free Legalize Gay t-shirts to any member of the student body who can put it to good use."

So good for them. But can they stop sexually abusing their employees now?