It's Friday. Why don't you masturbate?
(click image. unzip.)
It's the latest unimaginative American Apparel soft porn ad featuring another probably underage girl. For the record, the ad is for AA's new "Chain-Link Thigh-High Socks." Also, for the record, I give up. You win Dov Charney. I've tried hard (heh) to find some sort of relevant sociological angle in your endless string of pervy advertisements. But, no dice—I'm tired and my head is throbbing (heh).
So instead of half-baked analysis, I'm offering up this post strictly as a public service to horny readers. Go ahead. Stare at her ass. Rub one out. You're welcome. If she doesn't do it for you, Here's seven more exploited girls from Charney's stable (don't read the posts, just click on the pics):
Tight Ass in Tights; Chesty Brunette Masturbates; Barely-Covered Nipples; Asian Cameltoe; Tight Asian in Tights; No Panties/Ass Crack; Hiking Boots and Thong.
Oh, and for you Homo men and Hetero women, go here and here.
(scanned from this week's The L magazine)
posted by copyranter @ 9:25 AM
16 Comments:
For a sec I misread that as ‘Cheney’s stable of porn,’ which, for a sitting VP of these United States would be a helluva makeover.
excellent. thanks, you. always interesting when 'progressive' people buy this tripe.
appreciated,
I like butts.
I'll tap that any day.
sin will find you out
i usually agree with you but i can't this time, copyranter. i think this is truth in advertising. i bought my girl a pair and they look DOPE. and that's what this ad is saying, plain and simple.
I just jerked at work and got caught. Thanks a lot.
This ad isn't saying they look 'dope' and your unbelieveably lame application of the word makes me think you're the minion of some shitty guerilla marketing company. LET'S GET ON THE BLOGS! THE BLOGS WITH THE KIDS! THAT'S WHERE THE KIDS ARE! YAY!
For those inclined, there's more of Dov Charney's online handiwork here (kleenex optional) --
http://adverlicio.us/american_apparel_american_apparel_300x250_0
http://adverlicio.us/american_apparel_american_apparel_300x250
http://adverlicio.us/american_apparel_swim_160x600
http://adverlicio.us/american_apparel_pleasure_trip_160x600
http://adverlicio.us/american_apparel_tights_and_leggings_300x250
http://adverlicio.us/american_apparel_bottoms_160x600
Originally published September 4, 2007
There's a very thin line between ick and porn
By Meghan Daum
SPECIAL TO THE LOS ANGELES TIMES Print Email to a friend Subscribe
I've been looking at American Apparel's advertisements for years now, and I'm still not sure what I think about them.
My feelings are another story. I loathe them - and not just because the super-hip, can't-be-bothered-to-look-professional-because-that's-so-uncool aesthetic is emblematic of everything that's irritating about a segment of contemporary urban-youth culture.
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I loathe them because I believe they're meant to evoke pornography, sometimes even child pornography. The fact that: a) this cannot be proved, and b) you can't say it without sounding like a prudish old biddy, drives me crazy.
You don't know what an American Apparel ad looks like? Picture people in their early 20s who look 15. Picture them in unflattering lighting, posing in underwear or tight T-shirts on a linoleum floor, a mattress, against a white wall, or in a bathtub. Imagine their "natural beauty" being so thoroughly "respected" that no attempt has been made to hide pimples, razor stubble or sweat stains. Imagine them wearing facial expressions that suggest someone has just kicked the door down and caught them carving ska lyrics into their forearms with Exacto knives.
Those are the tamer ads.
From store window displays to billboards to print advertisements (mostly in alternative weekly newspapers), we can see the company logo and young women in men's-style briefs lying on their stomachs, young women in bathing suits with their legs spread, and young women whose torsos are covered only by their knees, which in turn are covered by 1970s-style knee-length tube socks.
Though the models are an ethnically diverse bunch, there appears to be a slight emphasis on Asian and Hispanic women (it turns out many of the models are employed in American Apparel's factory or retail stores).
Although none of this absolutely adds up to child pornography, there's something about the grimy, sweaty quality of many of the shots, the fleabag motel-room backgrounds, and the models' startled, faux-innocent expressions that make it all look less than legal.
I'm not the first to make this observation, and American Apparel, wisely, has long maintained a "but-it's-art" defense. To help it along, many of the stores exhibit the work of local photographers, and American Apparel's Web site has a gallery section that displays the work of amateur photographers documenting their neighborhoods .
It must also be said that American Apparel's wares are really made in America, in a single factory in downtown Los Angeles, where workers are paid an average of $12.50 an hour and offered subsidized meals, health care and free English-as-a-second-language lessons.
Dov Charney, the company's 38-year-old founder and chief executive, has been praised by immigrant-rights groups for his anti-sweatshop stance and by the business community for his astonishing rise to success (he started in 2003 with one store).
On the other hand, Charney has also been sued by four employees for sexual harassment, is known for holding meetings in his underwear (a video of which used to appear on American Apparel's Web site) and notoriously masturbated in front of a magazine reporter who was writing a profile of the company.
He also takes many of the photos that appear in the ads, selecting models from among his employees as well as people he sees on the street (they are reportedly paid a small fee).
And sometimes he picks himself as model. A pale, resolutely non-buff manboy with a highly cultivated seedy disco-era look (handlebar mustache and aviator glasses), Charney has put himself on nearly full display in a number of ads, at least one of which shows him in bed with apparently naked, much-younger women who look disheveled and adoring.
It's icky for sure, but is it wrong?
Like Charney himself, American Apparel's ads are simultaneously defensible and indefensible. That's what makes them manipulative, especially to the progressive-minded person. No matter how vigorously she might defend free speech or hold forth about the transgressive appeal of billboard art, something about these ads puts her in the uncomfortable position of knowing just what former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart meant when he said hard-core pornography was hard to define "but I know it when I see it."
Is it the disarming "naturalness" of the models that makes us "know" we're seeing something shady? Is it possible that even the most sophisticated of us can no longer stomach a model who isn't sculpted and waxed into improbable perfection? Or does our readiness to associate amateur-looking shots of barely dressed young people with child pornography suggest we're the perverts?
It's this sort of head-spinning, unwinnable argument that American Apparel wants us to have with ourselves. It's an argument I was almost willing to concede until I saw two new photographs that went up over the store on Sunset Boulevard. They depict a man in his 60s or 70s with sunglasses and a Rosacea-tinged face. His gaze, both solicitous and oddly indifferent, points generally toward images of two very young-looking, scantily dressed and provocatively posed girls. In my mind, there's no doubt what each represent: a paying customer and sex-industry workers.
When I called American Apparel to ask who the man was, a spokesman told me that no one knew, that the photo came from a stock collection, and that the design team just thought it looked cool.
So I guess that does make me a pervert. And just when I'd gotten used to being a prudish, old biddy.
Contact Meghan Daum at mdaum@latimescolumnists.com
Have you guys seen his latest billboard on Houston and Allen? F' him.
http://annienyc.blogspot.com/2007/09/american-apparel-vs-neighborhood.html
no anon, i'm not a minion of some marketing agency. that's why i didn't post ANONYMOUSLY asshole.
and i said they look DOPE because they DO. they look fucking HOT. and by your lame attack i'm absolutely positive you are twice my age. bring THAT to the blogs on the interweb.
It's time to shut down the sick perverts at American Apparel. Their ads are clearly child porn. I personally make sure all the people I meet on campus know that these sick creeps are encouraging child rape with their ads. They have lost a ton of business in Boston thanks to me alone. (And my best friend Cheryl - props to Cheryl!)
Wherever you are, be sure to mention to everyone that American Appareal is using child porn in their ads. Young women HATE it. Young men don't want to piss off pretty young women, so they will avoid the products once you make it clear you are judging them if they buy this crap.
Amerian Apparel chose to go down the road of child porn advertising. Screw them. We don't have to fund this sickness by buying their products.
BOYCOTT CHILD PORN, BOYCOTT AMERICAN APPAREL.
Shelby, the models aren't children and are at least teenagers. I think most are adult, and there is no nudity. Sure they may be sexualized and tasteless, but for argument's sake, I wouldn't say it fits that definition.
Anybody who spends time bashing AA because of their ads has too much time on their hands and should probably just go hide under a rock. If Americans spent more time screwing, masturbating or generally focusing on sex instead of promoting war, death, and gun ownership the world would be a better place.
How many people have died form wearing AA?
How is a young womans ass provocatively displayed any more offensive than sexually neutral ads flogging ANY pharmaceutical or fast foods that are killing people on a daily basis?
Strangely, this blog post makes me want to buy some American Apparel clothing.
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