For years, American Apparel have been met with controversy over the revealing or blatantly sexual nature of their ad campaigns. Although we often see this trend in more high end lines, this brand in particular seems to meet more criticism due to it’s target audiences of teenagers, especially teenage girls. However, in an age where feminism and sexual liberation movements aim to ‘pardon’ women’s inherently warranted behaviors, why is it that courtesy stops when dealing with sexuality in the media and sexual expression’s by youth? Where is the line between sexual liberation and sexual exploitation?
It is often argued that media is the source of many beauty standards within our society with brands presenting disproportionate numbers of young,thin, and predominantly white women as ambassadors for their products. These advertisements in many cases present women in purposely sexual scenarios and poses. We’ve seen this time and time again in everything from food to car commercials . And ,unlike American Apparel, these brands cater to people of every group, gender, sexual orientation, etc. So why are we so quick to criticize a brand like American Apparel sexualizing women but not other brands who are selling items even further detached from the idea of female sexuality?
When talking about a brand such as American Apparel, its difficult to ignore opposition to the brands former CEO, Dov Charney, who was fired earlier this year due to “ongoing misconduct” and sexual harassment lawsuits filed against him. While he supports issues such as immigration and U.S manufacturing, he also strongly defends what he called “provocative art”. On his website he even states “sexual freedom, art, and photography are important to me”. No matter your own personal thoughts, he takes a clear stance on his choices made while he was with the company.
While these questions are aimed at topics such as feminism and media influence I see the controversy overall speaking to a larger problem of how comfortable many of us are, as feminist or otherwise, with female sexuality in the hands of men. Very often, we define an action as sexual liberation when it involves only women but when a man is involved it becomes a grey area often perceived as exploitation. What are your thoughts? Are these types of ads harmful or helpful to the push for sexual liberation?
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"We absolutely celebrate women, diversity, healthy body image and female empowerment in our ads and in our company culture in general. We never retouch the women in our photos, don't cover our models in makeup and always try to capture the individuality and personality of the subject - who are usually our employees, friends and customers."
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