American Apparel: Bringing Pornography Into the Mainstream Media.

I recently saw a few ads for the clothing company American Apparel. American Apparel is an extremely popular hipster clothing store known for their non-sweatshop policies (and, in fact, all of their clothes are made in America). I had heard about American Apparel before, both about their clothing and about the ads they use to sell them (they have drawn a considerable amount of heat for their controversial ads, including one where they dressed their female models in blackface), but I had never seen any of these ads myself. So when I saw two of their ads (one for a zipper-front bodysuit, and one for knee-high socks), I was both shocked and disgusted. Not only do these ads have barely anything to do with the objects they are selling, they also portray women as perfectly beautiful and hyper-sexual.

These two ads that I looked at are similar, in that they show mainly naked women, but they are also different in how they portray these women. For the bodysuit, the woman is thin, blond, and practically perfect. Nowhere do you see any blemishes or even a hair out of place (American Apparel prides themselves in the fact that they choose “real” women to model for them, and they do few, if any, touch-ups on their photos, and yet their models are always still gorgeous women with few blemishes or scars). In this ad the model seems to be merely unzipping her bodysuit; her pose and the look on her face do not really hint at anything sexual. In fact, in almost all of the panels, her legs are crossed, which seems to signify that she is merely unzipping her outfit, not for sex, but perhaps just to show off her body to whoever is watching. However, in the ad for knee-high socks, the model is extremely sexual, much more-so then the woman in the bodysuit. In the first panel, the model seems to be covering herself a little bit; she almost seems to be attempting to keep the viewer away from her (even while her face looks like she is inviting someone towards her). In the middle panel the advertisers aren’t even trying to sell the socks she is supposed to be wearing; they are focusing completely on her arms, breasts, and face and the socks aren’t even in the picture. And in the third panel the model is now looking completely enticing, almost as if she is ready to seduce whoever is looking at the ad; she is no longer hiding or coy, now she’s ready for sex.

Both of these ads are extremely problematic. Not only do they promote objectification of women, but they also continue the stereotype that women are sex crazed and unable to keep their clothes on. On the blog The Reverse Cowboy (this post was from last year, but I feel that it is still relevant) the writer defends her use of one of American Apparels controversial ads on the website by saying that the model in the ad is a former porn star (which, I guess, makes it OK to exploit her body, since it’s been done before), and also mentioning that these photos can’t be sexist because a woman took them. According to her, not only is it OK to take nude pictures of a woman because she was once a porn star, but these pictures can’t even be considered sexist because a woman took them (and apparently everyone knows that women can’t be sexist). Even if these pictures aren’t sexist, they are still problematic. They are making it OK for companies to use nudity in ads that are marketed toward teenagers, and they are turning these models into mere sexual objects that men can ogle and admire wherever they go. These ads do not seem to be selling clothing, they are selling sex; it’s no longer about wearing clothes, it’s about taking them off.