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Why does American Apparel have to fuck up everything good with a thick coat of demoralizing sleaze? Even setting aside the complexity of their labor issues (they say they pay fair wages, their employees say they’ve been union-busted), there’s a lot that you would initially like about the company. I like cotton. I like bright colors. I like silly ad campaigns. I really like that nice, thin cotton that’s flattering while still being, you know, cotton. I don’t like leggings, but that’s a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things that AA sells. But everything is coated in this sexist sleaze that dares you to complain about it, lest you get accused of being anti-sex.
And now they’ve gone and fucked up Dr. Bronner’s. I’m taking this personally---Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap is a summer tradition of mine, because it feels really cool and clean when outside feels hot and heavy. I’m not oblivious to some of the double entendres that can be spun out from feeling tingly all over or anything, but that’s the sort of thing that can be sexual without demeaning women. It’s certainly not in the four toxic categories of demoralizing ways to look at female sexuality that not only turn off your thinking individuals, but are repulsive.
You see, when I was a small town girl looking forward to the big city life, one thing I was eager to get away from was the four demeaning ways that female sexuality is portrayed in your more mediocre entertainments, social circles, and past times. Those are 1) women as cute but harmless animals 2) women as nothing but holes you stuff with stuff 3) women as servants and 4) women as children. Or, 1) Playboy 2) much hardcore porn and almost all bad dirty jokes 3) Hooters and French maid costumes and 4) well, as funny as she could be, Marilyn Monroe. Or really any variation of the “women are too dim to know what men are really thinking” viewpoint, which was also sold to me as the god’s honest truth as part of my sex education. Sophistication, to me, was a world where women as sexually desiring, assertive people was considered not only normal, but sexy.
And that’s what pisses me off about American Apparel’s stupid ads. They’re clearly trying to position themselves as a hip, 21st century version of the Gap, but they have very old-fashioned, middle American mediocre sexist views about female sexuality. Like that video, which posits that childish women are sexy to a degree that would have probably crossed Marilyn Monroe’s line. The woman in the video is acting like she just learned how to put soap on her body and needs to show it off for you like a 4-year-old who just learned how to do something, well, more sophisticated than soaping your body. Singing a song or reciting a riddle, I suppose. In case you don’t get the point, she talks like a child, right down to a Cindy Brady-like lisp. Adorable. I suppose you’re supposed to want to applaud her, give her a cookie and then fuck her. I always did get a “Look at these dumb broads getting naked for no real pay” vibe off other AA ads, and this just drives home that’s what this is all about.
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Posted by
Amanda Marcotte on 02:55 PM •
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I understand your point, but I would say, re: Marilyn Monroe that her “childish” characters were such only on the surface. Look a bit deeper and you see that they were rather assertive for the time, e.g., The Seven Year Itch
American Apparel ads look like Eastern European voyeur porn, all washed-out and grainy. They make me ill.
Just buy Fruit of the Loom.
Oh, I know, Linn. Some of them were even funnier than that. Like her character in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” knows what she’s doing and why. If you trash Lorelei, you’re hating the player, not the game. But her character in “Some Like It Hot” is pure bimbo. I like that movie, but her thick skull is part of the plot.
Yeah, that’s true, Amanda.
I don’t like leggings, but that’s a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things that AA sells.
Not all the way through the post yet, but I wanted to somewhat justify the existence of leggings.
1. They make great tights and/or long underwear in winter, if you live in the north. Especially considering that you’re probably wearing boots, so nobody is going to know whether those leg-coverings have feet attached or what. This can even be useful if you want to wear big cushy warm socks under your boots and don’t feel like having both tights-feet AND socks on.
2. also good for exercise gear.
Though their leggings are ridiculously expensive—I have cheaper pairs of jeans.
OK, through the post, and Yes, Yes, and Yes.. Though I’m at work and thus can’t click through the video to see what you’re actually talking about. Damn boss actually within earshot for once…
Wow. Classy.
Who exactly is this even being marketed too?
Thing is, for an American Apparel ad, it seemed rather unsleazy by comparison. Sure it was demeaning but judging against past performance it was a step up.
I’ve never seen an American Apparel ad. Is this something found in magazines, on television, or in shopping malls. Is it a store, a clothing line, or a political party?
Must be a flash thing being blocked by NoScript, because I see no link. I feel like John McCain trying to work the internets.
Todd, the words “And now they’ve gone and fucked up Dr. Bronner’s.” are linked to Feministing, which in turn links to several examples of American Apparel ads or stories about same, including the Dr. Bronner’s one. There shouldn’t be any scripting weirdness.
Might be where you live. American Apparel targets parts of the country with thick populations of young urbanites. They’re all over the place in Austin, with a store across from the university, and one in our gentrifying shopping district. If you’re living in one of those areas, you might be blessedly free of their advertising.
Their T-shirts, I will say, are really nice. They’re like 75% of my T-shirts.
I’ll say right up front that I don’t like American Apparel t-shirt sizing- XL barely fits a 40 inch bust measurement and only shrinks further in the wash. I don’t go for the stuffed sausage look.
I’ve gone into one of their stores out of curiosity and I had found one or two things that looked OK (like it wouldn’t shrink too much or be too tight) but $50 for two t-shirts is way beyond the pale for me.
In contrast a lot of their men’s stuff is so baggy that they’re comparative burquas compared to how they would dress women.
Also- leggings. Please no- lived through the 80’s and I wouldn’t want to see the majority of it back thanks. Keep them in the same vault with yellow mascara.
The ads in the back of the local free rag - The Stranger are really kinda awful and make me feel dirty. Like I’ve wandered into a bad part of Budapest and have seen the underage sexual slavery section.
I file them right down there with the “women as sexy corpse” b.s. that they pass off in fashion magazines every now and then.
Thanks, I see it now. Christ on a cracker, I’m losing it today. I kept click on Marilyn thinking something should be popping up. I need a drink.
As for the ad, that’s got to be the most insulting thing I’ve ever seen, and I watch professional football, so that’s really saying something. In the words of the late, great D. Boon, “Fuck advertising, let the products sell themselves.”
If you look at Marilyn in _Gentlemen Prefer Blondes_ you will have better appreciation for her, I think. In that film it’s the men who are infantilized and a single boy who is figured as an adult. It’s not the perfect model for what we would want in representations of sexuality, but Marilyn as child was as much a creation of the mediocre American Sexuality you are so right in criticizing as it was anything else. Turning her into a child made her assertive, feminine sexuality tolerable to an overwhelmingly white and male production and consumption system. It goes something like this: they found in fantasy what they renounced in their lived experience. For this renunciation, women have paid and continue to pay. This ad is part of this system.
Can’t get the video to play, but I’ll take it as given that I’m missing something pretty appalling.
That said, I wouldn’t say they’ve fucked up Dr. Bronner’s unless they now own the brand (which I don’t think they do). Dr. Bronner’s is what it is (which is a lot of things, among them thoroughly nutty and totally hilarious), and while one would rather not have some sleazy American Apparel ad associated with the product, I don’t see how the ad can really alter the nature of the product.
My wife and I have some of their clothing, which isn’t too bad--but their damn ad campaigns are thoroughly nauseating. I hate it that they usually buy the back page of the Onion--I’m kind of embarrassed to be seen reading it in public because of the damn ads!
Snorg Tees is coming up a close second in annoying. What the hell--do they really sell that many t-shirts? They’ve taken over The Internets!
I’ll say right up front that I don’t like American Apparel t-shirt sizing- XL barely fits a 40 inch bust measurement and only shrinks further in the wash.
Ugh, yeah. Well, their t-shirts fit me OK, for me the annoying part is that I had to buy my very first pair of size-XL yoga pants there last week (I was on my way to yoga, realized I’d forgotten to grab my sweats that morning and was wearing a skirt). They fit great , look perfectly alright. But they’re an extra large. Arbitrary numbers and leters sewn into the back of my pants doesnn’t usually piss me off, but seriously, if I’m an extra-large, they must not get around much. My other yoga pants, from Danskin, are size Small, and that’s DANSKIN, makers of clothes for ballerinas. Shit, I wish I had a t-shirt that says, in some haughty typeface, “My other yoga pants are Danskin...”, a la the “My Other Car Is A Cadillac” bumper stickers.
I have such a love-hate relationship with AA. On the one hand, I love their cotton and most of the colors and the tops are usually cut nicely. On the other hand, labor issues, sexist ads, and oy, the gold lame legging section…
Finally saw the video.
That girl sounds like a heroin addict.
Seriously.
I know this because I once had a roommate who hung out with junkies (and later turned out to be one), and him and all his friends talked like that. And because that’s how the homeless people talk subway talk as they tell you their tale of woe re recent hospital stay, no money, very hungry (for a big ole fix of the golden brown, of course).
Hey, on the topic of great ad campaigns, I LOVE the fact that Pandagon is advertizing John McCain’s biography as discussed on the O’Reilly Factor. Fucking brilliant! 
Dr. B’s soap is great. AA is not. I hate the whole “concept” they are pushing. I dealt with them directly a couple of years ago to get a bulk quantity of sweatshirts for an organization, and we picked them because of their supposed fair-trade practices. Turns out, of course, that they really just have their own sweatshop here in the states- no need to outsource. Then, I started seeing their ads. Homemade porn, anyone? That made me feel extra bad, because the organization I bought the sweatshirts for was a kid’s group. And then, the icing on the cake was the wacky sizing. These sweatshirts were for teenage girls. Not particularly huge teenage girls. The sweatshirts ran so small, it was embarasing. Just what teenage girls need- another sucker punch to the ego.
I will never buy anything from AA again. And I went to the Bronner’s ad link, and left a review saying the soap is good, but the ad sucks.
AA advertising spreads resemble a cheesy dating website that I surfed once, and once only. Why do people who make a reasonably good t-shirt have to mess it up with marketing?
The same happened to J.Crew, only in the other socioeconomic direction—marketing apparently targeting WASPy Biz Majors with Rich Parents Who Vacation in St. Bart’s. Of course, response to marketing is so perverse, the majority of buyers are probably not any of these things (as happened with Ralph Lauren in the 1980s).
I won’t buy American Apparel. Which is a shame, because I like their t-shirts and a few other things, but I just can’t give them my money.
The Onion had a great thing on them a few years back.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/14_american_apparel_models_freed
Choice quote:
After freeing the captives, many of whom appeared drugged, agents seized thousands of amateur Polaroids and several dozen pairs of oversized sunglasses whose purpose remains unclear, FBI reports said.
“We may never know the full extent of what went on in there,” Special Agent Hugh Conroy said. “We do know they were held against their will in an airless, windowless basement under harsh fluorescent lights, forced to sign liability waivers, and posed in contorted positions on bare cement floors. “The humiliating combinations of flimsy unitards, leg warmers, and ‘70s-inspired tank tops they were forced to wear clearly show a deranged mind at work. Those poor, poor girls.”
Several models said they were initially drawn in by American Apparel’s progressive environmental policies, sweatshop-free manufacturing, and youthful corporate identity. But their dreams of success were soon shattered.
“Before I knew it, I was squatting on the floor in this humid room with a camera pointed at my crotch,” said model Gabrielle, whose image can be found on the back page of this newspaper.
Danica is completely wrong. It’s not a 40-inch bust that can barely be squeezed into a women’s XL tee—it’s a 38. I bought one of their tees (purchased from a place that prints its designs on AA shirts, not from the porny store) that was stretched to the limit. Then I was going to an event where there would be much-sought-after t-shirt designs—but the maker said she was using AA tees. When I told her I couldn’t comfortably fit into an XL, she assumed I must be obese. You should’ve seen her face when she met me (with a BMI of 23.7).
So American Apparel thinks women should be childlike sexbots who either are super-skinny or prefer their clothing to be skin-tight? Meh.
Thanks Jha, I needed that article. You see, I live in a cave (ie. i don’t watch TV and automatically ignore advertising since I work in that business) so I wasn’t even aware of this company before I read this post here. And looking at the video Amanda points out I thought they were just exploiting the mentally damaged.
That ad looked like a homemade porno. And the woman was clearly uncomfortable. I never shopped at AA, but I’ll make a conscious effort to avoid it.
I read somewhere that the guy who owns AA writes and shoots the pictures for their advertising, so yes, it’s homemade p0rn. AA buys a large billboard at the Allen Street /Houston Street intersection in NYC. The photos used are just at the edge and often disconcerting.
It does look like porn. The way she looked over her shoulder made it seem like she was wondering with trepidation when the penetration would start.
They also put pasties on her, or found a nipple-less model. They don’t mind flashing boobage, but only so long as it’s sanitised… I know it’s really the Puritanism of American broadcasting, but the juxtaposition of the barely-in-frame frontal nudity tease and Barbie-like anatomy is disturbing and typical of this sex-obsessed and -horrified society.
And plus, Marilyn was such a fatty-ass fat fatty that I doubt that she’d be able to be a model for AA. Not at all like the kiddie porn/junkie models they seem to prefer.
Copyranter has a series of anti-AA posts you might find interesting.
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PP,
I understand your point, but I would say, re: Marilyn Monroe that her “childish” characters were such only on the surface. Look a bit deeper and you see that they were rather assertive for the time, e.g., The Seven Year Itch