Well,
munchkins, I awoke this morning, clutching tightly to my long-term
lover, Mr. Jagermeister, to find the Gods of Good Taste, Conscience
and All Around Decency waving a certain advertisement under my nose.
This advertisement, ostensibly for a brand of jeans but more closely
resembling a still from a snuff film, raised my ire so much that I
was forced to remove my face from the carpet, place Mr. Jagermeister
carefully back in his special sleeping case, and put fingers to
keyboard in a goode olde fashionede rant-e.
"What
ad could have elicited such a reaction?" I hear you wail. Cherubs,
that would be an ad for Wrangler jeans. This ad features a shot of a
young woman floating face-down in a muddy river, ass-crack exposed,
scratches festooning her right shoulder. A slogan across the bottom
proclaims, ominously, "WE ARE ANIMALS". A quick click around the
Internets revealed a host of related Wrangler ads: a naked woman
standing, stock-still and terrified, in the glare of car headlights;
half a dozen or so severed heads stuck on poles. But it was the first
ad - the image of the mud-soaked, ass-cleavagey woman - that had
me loudly proclaiming, over and over again, "Not cool, Wrangler.
Not cool." Only a handful of other times had I ever seen a fashion
advertisement try to so closely link sex and death.
Sexual
objectification in fashion advertisements is nothing new. By now, not
even Victoria Beckham's naked legs, splayed open in a come-fuck-me
fashion over the side of a Marc Jacobs bag and screaming as loudly as
newsprint can that her body is an object to be bought and sold, will
shock most people. But this Wrangler ad is something different. This
ad says, violence is sexy. Murder is sexy. Waterlogged women with
blue-grey skin? Hella sexy. By the way, bitches, buy our jeans. Fuck
you, Wrangler.
It
got me thinking about the myriad other ads for various items of
clothing that feature women who have been battered, abused, and
killed. Women tossed in corners; sprawled at the bottom of cages;
stuffed into the boots of cars. Women like the one in the Wrangler
ad, robbed of life and discarded like yesterday's trash. Face-down.
Faceless. I'm a clever wee cookie, if I do say so myself, but I
just don't get exactly how the violation and death of a woman is
supposed to inspire me to buy a particular brand of clothing. "At
least your ass will look good when you're murdered and dumped in a
ditch"? I don't fucking think so, Wrangler.
You
all know the stats by now; I'm not going to trot them out again.
Suffice it to say, violence against women has been going on since the
beginning of time. Every day in this country women are raped, beaten,
and left in ditches to rot. It happens to people's mothers and
their sisters and their girlfriends. It's not new, it's not edgy,
and it's certainly not sexy.
I
remember an America's
Next Top Model
episode from a few cycles back in which the contestants had to pose
as murder victims. Urged to appear "lifeless", yet "alluring",
they sprawled across stained concrete expanses and lay crumpled at
the bottom of stairs, arranging bruise-mottled limbs to best showcase
their frilly gowns. I watched this episode the same way I always
watch Top
Model:
aghast, yet riveted, wondering if Tyra and her gang of yes-men could
even hear what they, themselves, were saying. As they looked over one
young women's photo, the comment was made that "She doesn't
look sexy. She just looks dead."
I
never thought I'd say it, but: Amen, ANTM. Amen.
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