In the media industry, it is quite normal for women to take photo shoots for ads, commercials and magazines. Although, women are always advertising for famous brand names, American Apparel, a clothing manufacturer that is best known for knitwear, t shirts and underwear, expanded their clothing with jeans, leggings, dresses and pants. The famous industry is never too late for young women to pose sexy, and wear barely anything for advertisement. The photos become more extreme, and many of the women are topless.
The newest photo ad has a description writing "Now Open" with a young women opening her legs. This photo is attracted by many male customers, because the woman is posed very sexually, and the message is also very sexual.
The newest photo ad has a description writing "Now Open" with a young women opening her legs. This photo is attracted by many male customers, because the woman is posed very sexually, and the message is also very sexual.
American Apparel, who uses young models who range from everyday people, to models who work similar to a porn business. As the company gets more famous, it becomes more evident that American Apparel draws attention through "sex sells". Although many women are offended by the ads, it has become more sexual and provocative to the public eye. The women think that young women taking sexual photos is not necessary to advertise a clothing company.
Do you think the public eye is attracted to a women who poses similar to a "porn star" rather than a regular ad? Do women have the right to feel offended?
Do you think the public eye is attracted to a women who poses similar to a "porn star" rather than a regular ad? Do women have the right to feel offended?
In regards to your question, i feel that women do have the right to feel offended. This ad portrays that the only way the store American Apparel or any other stores could have brought in customers is by selling the body of young women.
ReplyDeleteThis picture enforces the stereotype that men cannot control themselves and that once they witness the ad, they will automatically run to the store to buy clothes, which is not true.
It's offending because it shows that people won't buy clothes with regular and less provocative ads by women. I do think that society is accepting the idea that more women should in ads should put on the least amount of clothing as possible, which I disagree strongly about.
Why do you think society is more accepting of these kinds of advertisements?
I strongly agree with you as well. I think that the media feels that women with less clothes will attract men more, than a woman who is full covered. This can also be false, because the men will be attracted to the ad, but still not into the clothes, therefore they will still not buy the clothing.
DeleteIt would make more sense if they were to put ads of men wearing the American Apparel clothing.
It is offending to women, because the media is making women look like sex sells, and that they will only attract viewers with less clothing.
I think society is accepting these kinds of adverstiment, because they themselves are attracted to the ads. Not only men, but women learn from the ad as well. They try to make themselve look like models in the media. For example; if a woman with fair skin who is very skinny is a very popular model, many women will try to make themselves like that as well. Instead of feeling discriminated, society learns to accept it, just because it attracts viewers.
Yes, that is the sad reality of our society today. As we learned, each person interprets media differently, but there is a target audience. From a feminists point of view, this would be degrading to women since it makes it seem as though women are in ads as sex items, but from the perspective of a man, he may be interested since the message is "sex sells". American Apparel wanted male customers to look at this ad so that they would come and buy clothing from their store, or just know the name of their store for publicity.
DeleteWe have to remember that media is a construction and in the case of American Apparel it is definitely apparent. Many times the brand has been featured in the media for its controversial ads, like in an ad featuring mini-skirts, the model is bent over at the waist so you see her underwear (also by American Apparel) or in an ad featuring a woman wearing unbuttoned jeans and topless. The text covers most of her top section reading what I believe are loaded terms, 'Made in Bangladesh'. The model from Bangladesh believes this is 'cool', but what this ad really does is makes the female workers in American Apparel's sweat shop factories more invisible. All there ads are a ploy to bring attention to the brand. Even in downtown Toronto there was controversy when to advertise their new line 'Fantasia', mannequins all had visible hairy neither regions underneth their mesh undergarments. To answer your question, the public is attracted to this brand, through the medias constant reporting on their irregular ads.
ReplyDeleteI have also seen the ad of the Bangladesh woman who was topless and her jeans were unbuttoned. Many Bangladesh individuals who have seen this ad must have been furious and discriminated, because most of the culture does not allow women to show that much skin.It is found disrespectful for women who are topless taking pictures.
DeleteI also agree with you, because I think that the ad became more popular, just because the girl is of different culture, and not many people see models like this. This did make the Bangladesh girl feel cool.
Adding on to the controversy where the Fantasia mannequins all had visible hair underneath their undergarments, the media is also now trying to keep body hair attracted as well.
In response to your question, I do feel as if women have the right to feel offended because it paints women in a negative light and shows a lack of decency. The public eye has always been drawn to racy images that demean others and I feel that sexual innuendos play a part in "pornographic" images such as this one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your answer. I feel that the public eye would always prefer more sexual, or pornographic pictures, rather than a simple and modest picture. Also, women do have the right to feel offended, just because not all women are like that, and would like to expose skin for everyone to see.
DeleteYes, women have the right to be offended and the public does notice more sexually explicit things rather than normal. For one, the dominant discourse here is to dress normal, not be revealing or act sexual in public. However, an ad like this goes against the dominant discourse thus it attracts the eye of the public. Teenage males would be more attracted to go in because they probably want to see more. Since male's think this is okay and "sexy" other females might find that in order to look "sexy" in the eye of my man, I might want to buy this piece of clothe and appeal him the same way. It's really disturbing but our generation doesn't read along the lines, they just accept what is giving; our younger generation is very skeptic.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you, because I think women will buy more clothing from American Apparel, just because men finds some of the photo shoots "sexy". This will give American Apparel viewers from both sides of the gender. Although the dominant discourse is not women who dress like sex sells, the media portrays women to dress very skimpy and revealing, thus more viewers will be attracted to them.
DeleteThe generation is very pathetic in my opinion, because it does set standards for women, and give an ideal image of them for customers and viewers.
This to me is an exploitation of women to sell and advertise a product. The message behind this ad is extremely sexual like you pointed out with the model being in an extremely sexual position and the title being 'now open". However I do agree with Jennifer that the this ad was strategically created to generate attention because of it's extreme provocativeness going against social norms and the dominant discourse.The more attention a brand gets the more chance that that the product will do well and potential customers being created.And to answer your question yes I do feel the media loves the idea of scantily dressed highly sexualized woman because men desire girls that look like that while woman fall in love with the idea of being like her. Other than being extremely distasteful this ad creates an ideal woman that simply does not exist.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Jennifer, and I have pointed that out in her reply. The model is purposely in that position, thus it can relate to the title "now open". I agree that media prefers women who are dressed highly sexual, thus men will be more attracted, which will also make women to dress like that, thus men can be attracted to them as well.
DeleteWomen have the right to feel offended of course, this pose to mimic a porn star or even a position in bed and to even make an ad of it is super demeaning to the image of women everywhere! it is just norm culture that women show a bit more sex appeal to make it look good and attractive for people to buy.
ReplyDelete