Hot Topic (9/9): Is American Apparel ad "child porn"?
From MomLogic.com
Another ad campaign has everyone's 100% cotton panties in a wad. And rightfully so.
How does a clothing retailer set itself apart during a weak economy? Easy! Just keep launching ad campaigns that border on child pornography. That's what American Apparel, the Los Angeles-based clothing manufacturer, seems to do about every other month.
Even though the model in this ad is a very legal 23, watchdog groups have condemned it as nothing more than child pornography, saying that it "sexualise[s] a model who appeared to be a child under the age of 16."
Do you think this ad crosses the line?
Have advertisers gone too far?
Would you refuse to shop at American Apparel because of this ad?
Have advertisers gone too far? Yes they have!
Would you refuse to shop at American Apparel because of this ad?and yes I would.
Sexualizing young children or someone who looks like a young child should not and is not a tactic to sell CLOTHING- of which she is wearing very little of.
I'm generally very accepting and open to nudity or the human body being displayed in general, however, marketing pedophilia is vile, and that's what they are doing whether they admit it or not.
i think its very distasteful and couldent they have atleast had her wear a bra or a top unter the fleece i mean i know sex sells but leave something to the imagination
the same I have never shoped at American apparel so I have NO CLUE what they actually sell.
Quoting jakjasjon:
Same here, She looks just like my 12 year old niece. Plus she even looks uncomfortable with the pose herself. How low marketing will sink is sickening.
Quoting gogetem:
That gives me the creeps.
Quoting athenax3:Have advertisers gone too far? Yes they have!
Would you refuse to shop at American Apparel because of this ad?and yes I would.
Sexualizing young children or someone who looks like a young child should not and is not a tactic to sell CLOTHING- of which she is wearing very little of.
I'm generally very accepting and open to nudity or the human body being displayed in general, however, marketing pedophilia is vile, and that's what they are doing whether they admit it or not.
stephanie/cloth diapering/full term bfing/extended harnessing mama
Really tacky ad. This wouldn't make me want to go right out and buy it, but it's nothing new for this company. I manage a screenprinting business and we get American Apparel catalogs all the time. We always joke about the models because most of them look like they just crawled out of bed before the photo shoot. They don't look made up and well manicured like most models. It makes me wonder why a company would want to use those images to promote their business.
Quoting athenax3:Have advertisers gone too far? Yes they have!
Would you refuse to shop at American Apparel because of this ad?and yes I would.
Sexualizing young children or someone who looks like a young child should not and is not a tactic to sell CLOTHING- of which she is wearing very little of.
I'm generally very accepting and open to nudity or the human body being displayed in general, however, marketing pedophilia is vile, and that's what they are doing whether they admit it or not.
I agree with the above, however, I would still shop at the place because their factories pay them well. They work against sweat shop labor practices and I think they are into environmental sustainability as they try to use organic cloth as cotton which is the second or first most poisoned plant by pesticides and other chemicals which has a bad affect on us and the earth.
I agree that advertising has a large impact on our culture. Look at the way makeup is sold. Beauty is defined by the industries that sell makeup and clothes and the way the psychology of the advertising works is that it makes the viewer feel deficient in some way and encourages the viewer to purchase the product to fill the void in her feeilngs. So makeup companies try to make the woman feel old and plain and show the makeup as the solution.
However, I think this ad is intentionally hyper-sexualized and yes there are some people out there who will jack off to it while they rummage through any advertising with young models. Some young people will be fooled by it and think it is cool and would probably wear the hoody the same way if they could get away with it. But the extreme overt objectification will create discomfort in most people and that not only gets the name of the company out, it also ignites something in the consciousness of the masses. Why? I think it is overtly sexualized, shocking, and distasteful for a reason. I think that the model is supposed to look super young and super uncomfortable so that we can see the idiocy in all advertising that shows young people in objectified situations.
This one does not gross me out at all. I think it is a very smart way to advertise. With it, they get create controversy amongst the public and in that way, they provoke people to think about what they view and what they take for granted. For example, as you saw above, one of the answers indicated that she has not ever heard of it, well now she has. Another reason that I truly think that this ad is just to provoke us is that I can just see this particular company doing this as I have seen American Apparel's ads before and they were always of employees wearing the clothes, looking confident and happy in their clothes. However, now they have moved towards controversial sexual ads.
What grosses me out is when little children, not looking like sex objects but working towards a future in it, being used on advertising. Babies are cute and children playing is cute but when you look at all kinds of magazines to free local papers, here in my area, there are often pictures of pretty little girls with straight hair looking angelic in their demeanor standing in front of the scene. For instance there was one parenting magazine that I remember from 2 years ago because my child was about 2 and she commented on it. It was a summer issue and there was a pool and in front, there was a girl of about 5 years old who had straight hair, most likely brushed meticilously with the aide of a drier, she had some accessorry in her hair, her bathing suit was flowery and once piece and she was smiling at the camera obediently while her back was towards the pool. Now, if you look at boys, they are never expected to stand so many times so obediently with dried straigtened hair and an accessory in it in front of a pool. They are instead expected to be boys, to play and splash and have fun. This girl did not look like she was having fun, she looked like she was a bathing suit model.
My daughter looked at it and said something like, 'I like that, i want my hair to be like that, i want bathing suit like that.'
Why is it that so many little black girls for example pick a white doll as their favorite when they are given two dolls, one black and one while to choose from? It comes from the same non-overt images we see around us, that value a particular look, an objectified person as she is only an image to be judged as beautiful, there is no creativity in what she is doing, no agency (no personal power over her own look). Why is it that young girls have so much trouble these days deciding what is acceptable in terms of their looks, what is pretty and what is not, what is slutty and what is not, in this world? I think in many ways, we create this atmosphere where we contantly judge others for their looks and that is the biggest culprit in our culture, advertising being a part of it.
I read this book recently that explains a lot of this stuff well and I recommend it to all parents:
Triple Bind, Saving Our Teenage Girls from Today's Pressures
Eight Year Old Girl Given "Catastrophe Award" By Teacher
- Cafe GroupAdmin
on Sep. 9, 2009 at 1:17 AM