Saturday, April 07, 2012


Bottoms banned in Britain



We read:
"The American Apparel clothing chain has been warned against using exploitative images of women after a watchdog ruled a series of ads were likely to cause 'serious and widespread offence'.

Eight ads on the retailer’s website and in a free magazine in October showed women modelling knickers, socks and sweaters in various poses that exposed their breasts or buttocks.

One showed a woman arching her back towards the camera with her breasts exposed, others showed models lying face down or on their side revealing buttocks and breasts while more images were of models with their legs apart while on a bed.

One person complained that the images were pornographic, exploitative of women and inappropriately sexualised young women.

American Apparel rejected the complaint, saying the images featured 'real, non-airbrushed, everyday people', and that the vast majority of them were not professional models.

They said the images were the sort that people regularly shared with their friends on social networks and which normal people could relate to.

The retailer added that the women who featured in the images were clearly in their twenties, and emphasised that they were 'happy, relaxed and confident in expression and pose' and were not portrayed in a vulnerable, negative or exploitative manner.

Defending the campaign, American Apparel told the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that it believed it was 'important to judge what was and was not offensive by reference to the current times and the views of the majority of decent and reasonable people, not a small and puritanically-minded minority'.

Upholding the complaint for all but one of the images, the ASA acknowledged ads for lingerie were reasonable to feature women in limited amounts of clothing, but the nature of the women’s poses meant that their breasts and buttocks were the focal points rather than the products.

The ASA said: 'We considered that in the particular context of images which featured nudity and sexually provocative poses, there was a voyeuristic and ‘amateurish’ quality to the images which served to heighten the impression that the ads were exploitative of women and inappropriately sexualised young women.

Source


16 comments:

Stan B said...

I think Britains just don't like big-bottomed Asians!

Brian from Rochester NY said...

American Apparel "believed it was 'important to judge what was and was not offensive by reference to the current times and the views of the majority of decent and reasonable people"

This is a frightening argument. Who makes the determination of who these reasonable people are?

By this logic, there would conceivably be no need for morals, since the perversion of the day would become normal if enough people subscribed to it.

Remember the old saying "If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?" Parents had it right for years with this notion.

Laws and morality are necessary. I'm not advocating a 'puritanical' view of life, but we need to know where the line is, and should expect punishment when that line is crossed.

As far as this particular case goes, American Apparel is blowing smoke with the argument "well, they do it!" (on social networks) That doesn't make it right, just popular. Big difference.

Bird on a Wire said...

If you don't like nudity, poke your eyes out with an ice pick.

stinky said...

Franky, if the pic illustrating this post is representative, I see nothing offensive, just a pair of beautiful women. The pose reminds of something that would not look out of place as a Roman statue or a Renaissance painting.

Anonymous said...

I'd buy whatever it is they are selling.. No idea what their products are but I like the advertising.

Dean said...

Brian from Rochester NY:

Excellent comment.

It would be interesting to see how a representative sampling of U.S. citizens would judge that picture. My guess is that the majority would not want it in their home.

Anonymous said...

That's way more extreme than in men's magazines that aren't porn like Maxim, FHM, etc... I'm no prude, but that doesn't belong in an advertisement unless it's in playboy or some harder core porn type stuff.

Anonymous said...

Shocked they don't have tattoos. Or they have been edited out..

Anonymous said...

Nipple!

Anonymous said...

Jon Jay was again using his often deliberate "Brit-bashing" headings in the obvious hope of exciting the usual ant-UK prejudice on this site, but instead got a more intelligent response from the "Yanks" about the morality of semi-pornographic advertizing!

A. Levy said...

Personally, i see nothing offensive about that photo. I think that for many people, if the insatiably greedy advertising industry sees that people are ok with pics like this, where will they go next, keeping in mind that the undustry's goal is to shock and continue pushing the envelope.

Also, if they need nudity to sell their products/services, then they're probably not worth much.

Anonymous said...

" if the insatiably greedy advertising industry sees that people are ok with pics like this..."

What kind of a conservative are you? Don't knock capitalism, comrade.

stinky said...

Jon Jay was again using his often deliberate "Brit-bashing" headings...

No, he was using alliteration for effect. Sheesh, we got dumb trolls here.

Anonymous said...

Something smells funny here.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand the marketing concept here. What does naked bottoms have to do with a clothing line?

Anonymous said...

7:17 American asses also alliterates - I guess you're one of those!