'Cause she knows that it's demanding to defeat those evil machines...

Thoughts on Rape Culture, Advertising, Feminist Aesthetics, and Warrior Fatigue

The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. ~ Virginia Woolf

I haven't blogged about advertising and feminist aesthetics in a long while. It happened for a handful of reasons: lack of time, lack of energy, distracted by shiny objects. But also? Sometimes, I get warrior fatigue. Sometimes I feel lost and alone, orphaned by my own movement, and generally defeated. It is hard to always be fighting.

Oh yes, this completely
nude woman totally makes
me want to buy Shalimar...
no wait: I meant puke.

I also sometimes wonder, dear reader, if you aren't a little tired of hearing it. I feel like I am writing to the choir. If you already know this stuff, what is one more post going to do?

“There is nothing revolutionary whatsoever about the control of women's bodies by men. The woman's body is the terrain on which patriarchy is erected.” ~ Adrienne Rich

I was always a feminist. I don't know why. I think probably because being an abuse little kid raised by crazy people who kept insisting they were normal forced me to make a choice. Either they were right, and I was awful and deserved awfulness, or they were wrong, and the world was a weirdly biased and inherently unjust place.

I did what any child desperate to survive would do under those conditions.

I chose myself.

I chose not to accept that I was awful, not to let their poison change my mind. I made that decision one terrible day in a hospital, though I didn't know it at the time. But I do remember thinking, very clearly, that it wouldn't always be this way, and it wasn't worth my life. I stopped taking out the awfulness on myself that day, on my own body, and I started living, just out of spite. If I was going to die, it wouldn't be by my own hand. I would no longer be complicit in my own defeat.

Nearly twenty years later, I've seen enough of the ugliness in the world to wonder: how many women have had to make such a choice...

Dear Tom Ford, thanks for making it easy
to despise your entire product line.

All oppression creates a state of war. ~ Simone de Beauvoir

That my father had a position of public power that made normal channels of relief unavailable to us underscored the power of status and privilege. That I am naturally highly empathetic meant that when I got older, my sense of personal injustice seemed easy to extend to others when I came to see the world in all its horrible inequity.

These things made me, like fire tempers a blade.

Call it coincidence or the juxtaposition of fate and genetics, a little nature/nurture combo, but whatever it is, I am who I am: a feminist from first breath to last. But when I am tired and weary of a world where people genuinely seem to hate women, and especially hate those who attempt to fight against that hatred, even I have to take a break.

Sometimes I just can't do it anymore. When I see students protesting rape culture at a top tier college being told they deserve to be raped and at another university, a Take Back the Night week is protested by a crazy man who says the students marching for safety are sluts who should be raped, sometimes I just feel like nothing I do matters.

“Patriarchy has no gender.” ~ bell hooks

If we could see patriarchy,
I feel like it would look
a lot like this...

Patriarchy is so big; it is so everywhere and every time and every culture. It is like The Silence in Doctor Who. It's influence is always there, just outside your field of vision, pervasive and persistently changing the world for the better. And as soon as you look away, even for a moment—you forget. You can't remember where that sick feeling in your stomach came from because you're too busy just trying to live your life. You forget that the silence, and here I mean the silencing influence of patriarchy, is standing behind you, influencing your thoughts, your decisions, even your actions.

The most stunning, terrible, mind-melting eleven words I have ever read was a short line in Catharine A. MacKinnon's “Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory.” They were these:

Feminism does not begin with the premise that it is unpremised.

The piece—a thick diatribe against our broken understanding of rape and our failed ability to properly prosecute it, as well as a whole lot more—drops this nugget of wisdom in two paragraphs out of maybe a hundred containing just as many ideas. And yet, it scrambled my brain all around. She goes on.

That is, the equality of women to men will not be scientifically provable until it is no longer necessary to do so. Women's situation offers no outside to stand on or gaze at, no inside to escape to, too much urgency to wait, no place else to go, and nothing to use but the twisted tools that have been shoved down our throats. If feminism is revolutionary, this is why.

Who needs a woman
then they can have an
object and woman in one!

Even if we are revolutionary, even if what I do is a fight worth fighting, it is only because I continue to exist in the face of this vast awful thing that premises me. This is both a literal and philosophical truth in my case. The abuse of a developing child premises the adult they become; the oppression of women underlies my understanding of the world, the entire world's understanding of itself.

It affects men and women. It premises our understandings of ourselves and each other. Patriarchy is terrible for everyone, and we all cannot escape it. We literally cannot imagine a world without patriarchy. The driving animus of my life, feminism, exists because of patriarchy. Patriarchy and an inborn sense of wrongness, of injustice.

That realization, that moment when I see the horrible thing I always feel standing behind me, raising the hair along the back of my neck and I know it's real and true and awful, the moment just before I forget again, it is terrible and sad and it takes all the fight out of me.

“How else to make a dent in an object as immovable as patriarchy itself...?” ~ Dalma Heyn

Yes, my dear, sweet, lovely, and perhaps saddened reader, I get tired. I believe we all do, from time to time.

But then I see something like the video below, and I remember. I remember what it is like to feel the rage of first knowing, or of realizing the truly awful depth of the problem, and to think, “I can change it. Maybe only a little. Maybe only for one person. Maybe that person will just be me.” And with humor and angry and sadness and creativity, they begin to struggle against the wrongness without and the rage within.


And I think, that is why I write these. Because if one of you is new, or has just found this piece, or is reading any of these words and considering these ideas for the first time, let me say:

Yes, it is a terrible thing. Yes, it is okay to feel sad and frustrated and angry. But know this: you are not alone. And every single one of us, to the best we can, are fighting with you.

Until that unpremised day, viva la revolution.

Or, to put it another, particularly Whovian way:

Sooner or later, Silence will fall.


"...'Cause she knows that it'd be tragic
if those evil robots win.
I know she can beat them.

Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me,
but you won't let those robots defeat me."
~ Flaming Lips, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots"

Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics: ‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze, Pt. 4

“Hey babe, let’s go out tonight”: Rebel Ads, a Few General Thoughts

Just to be clear, I’m not opposed to alterna-girl in general.  Hell, I still am one.  To prove I'm not always a hater, here are some ads that do a marginally better job of attempting to tap into rebellion without being embarrassingly sexist.

While I may loathe some of Marc Jacobs advertising with the heat of a thousand suns (cough!Daisy!cough!), I actually think the ad for Marc Jacobs Lola taps into the rebellious advertising methology without being offensive. Pouty lips and vacant stare aside, our model seems to be fully clothes, and is actively holding something she looks like she might be about to shove down your throat. I’d give this a B- as ads go, which is a high grade for a mainstream product.

Likewise I don’t find the Anna Sui Rock Me! Ad offensive. A complete rip off of Billy Idol’s style? Absolutely. Interestingly androgynous? Yep? Open mouth, vacant stare, white like every other model? Check, check, check. But active, sort of. I mean she’s holding a guitar. She might play it…you know. Someday. Fully dressed? Yes! And the fashion is an interesting mix of leather and butterflies, metal studs and pink buttons, which I enjoy. FN1.

At the end of the day, though, edgy has become just another commodity. This urban decay cosmetics ad says it all. Click on the image to read the ad copy -- it's a trip.  This company uses rebellion as an way to attract those who might eschew cosmetics by demonstrating they can be used as tools to express external difference.  Because no one, no matter how alternative, should be allowed to escape the long arm of negative body image and gender conformity. You can color yourself in Acid Rain, Roach, and Smog, but it’s just another way of doing what your mom did with her Maybelline. Lip gunk by any other name is still the tool of beauty industry and its efforts to sell you everything you need to conform. FN2. Perhaps the really rebellious thing would be to refuse to wear make-up at all.

This wraps up our foray into feminist critique of perfume advertising that uses alterna-girl.  Have no fear, though.  There are more insidious advertising techniques to mock, and your intrepid feminist sniffa is here to bring them to you.  If you want more, stay tuned...

If you missed the previous portion a of the series, following the "Perfume and Feminist Aesthetics" tab above.  You can also find other feminist aesthetics pieces cataloged on the same tab.
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FN1. Don’t get me started on the Anna Sui Rock Me! Summer of Love ad, though. It’s the china doll childishness of it, the big eyes and weird doll pose, and childlike accessories that kill me.  The whole image screams object-for-prurient-interest-in-young-girls that makes me throw up in my mouth.

FN2. In the interest of full disclosure-- I own and wear make-up. Lots of it. My current nail polish is a shiny royal blue, and my toes are a shiny aqua. My last manicure was two weeks ago. I color my hair because I do not enjoy my natural blondness. I’m a non/conformist like the lot of these ad girls, and I’m still shopping the "rebel, rebel" lines. Sometimes, though, I wish I could wake up and feel pretty enough to just go out in the world and think I was beautiful as I was, without the idea that if I failed to “take proper care” of myself, I was failing as a woman, and less pretty because of it.

Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics: ‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze, Pt. 3

“Hey babe, your hair’s alright”: Rhianna Reb’l Fleur and Victoria Secret Love Rocks!

Before I even get to the ads, let’s look at Rhianna’s commentary on her scent, Reb'l Fleur:

The fragrance’s name, which is also a tattoo on Rihanna’s neck, originates from a name her grandmother called her. “My grandmother in Barbados used to call me her Rebel Flower,” Rihanna told People.

The scent is being described “like heels with a short, flirty dress” and comes in a high heel shaped bottle. The scent combines the impressions of delicious fruits and sumptuous florals, as well as a musky blend of vanilla, patchouli and amber.

“I believe a woman should dare to be different — willing to live her life for herself and not for other people,” Rihanna said in a press release. “This fragrance is about my passion for individuality — being expressive and empowering, yes, but also emotional and intriguing. I promise you Reb’l Fleur will not be easily forgotten.”

The 22-year-old singer tells People, “Over the years, I layered many different scents to get something that was truly my own. But I wanted…something that said ‘Rihanna was here.’ Something delicious and special, a fragrance with subtle hints that linger and leave a sexy memory.”

Rhianna, you are a huge disappointment, and not only because you’re following the ex-boyfriend who beat the crap out of you on twitter. FN1. No, it’s because you decided that “a woman should dare to be different — willing to live her life for herself and not for other people” was best expressed by a scent that is “heels with a short, flirty dress” and you dressed in nothing but bling, a sheet, and heels, stretched out like a human smorgasbord while you make eye-love to the camera. Is this what your grandma wanted? You topless under your blazer, sniffing at a flower as you gaze vacantly into the distance?

 I think you look way fiercer here in this photo of you performing. Why wasn’t this active image of you doing the thing you love, where you have talent and passion, a good enough image to sell your scent? And that’s why Reb’l fleur, for all its rebellious pomp and circumstance, utterly fails at being truly rebellious; it fails to actually challenge gender stereotypes, to march to a path not already beaten and worn by the cowed women before you.

 You want to be unique? You want to be a rebel? Next time try hawking your scent in the same clothes you’d wear to run to the grocery store or go to the gym.

. . . . . .

And while I’m picking on celebrities and their scents, let's talk about Taylor Momsen. Oh, little J. You were Dan's little sister, and the best thing about you was that you were cute and talented and into fashion and you looked like you could be anyone's little sister in America, or their next door neighbor? Where did that girl go?

Reader, do you remember Momsen when she was cute and healthy? Remember when she looked like a pretty girl you’d run into in a bookstore or high school car wash fundraiser? I miss that girl. I liked her. She was talented, adorable, and had a healthy BMI.

Now look at her. She’s out pimping for Victoria Secret Love Rocks and she looks like a zombified shadow of her former self. She is scary thin, and all that black crap around her eyes is not hiding their sunken look.FN2. I look at photos of her now, and I become terrified she will be like so many other young girls, dying of organ failure because they are riding the A-train straight into a living hell. Anorexia kills – literally. FN3.

Having personally seen more than one vibrant young woman slowly dying to be beautiful during the course of my long stay here in higher education, it is a horrific and torturous protracted event that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

 I don’t see how starving yourself is rebellious. In my mind, it’s a level of internalized objectification to the point of self-hatred. The world sees you as an object, use once and destroy. You are thing, a decoration, to be pretty and ignored. And please, take up as little room as possible while you’re at it – these big men need room to move!

And I promise you, no matter how many rosaries you sport as necklaces or slip dresses you wear, death by starvation is not rebellious. It does not, in fact, “rock.” I guess I shouldn’t expect better in a rep from Victoria Secret, but I hope Momsen will realize she doesn’t need to trade eating for a career.

Tune in tomorrow for more ranting in my current series “‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze,” also known as “Rebel without a Clue.”  If you missed yesterday's portion of the series, following the "Perfume and Feminist Aesthetics" tab above.
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FN1. And before any of you get up in my grill, I am aware of how difficult it is to leave an abuser; there are a lot of barriers. I am educated on the cycle of violence. I know very well that attempts to leave are fraught with increased violence and leaving is often the most dangerous time.  But Rhianna left her abusers and has the  financial, social, legal, and emotional resources to stay free. I find her electing to have contact with him disappointing, just like I find Oksana Grigorieva dropping her suit against Mel Gibson disappointing. I don’t require these women to be better role models for other women. I just wish they wanted to be, and wanted better for themselves.

FN2. For the record, Momsen claims she does not have an eating disorder and has “always been naturally thin.” (A) I think the photos above demonstrate that she is NOT as naturally thin as she appears right now and reports indicate she dropped 20 lbs to a 108lb size zero at age fifteen in 2008 for Gossip Girl. (B) Even if she is naturally thin, the fact that she is a "thinspiration” terrifies me at a level I can’t really comprehend.

FN3. A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover. The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old. (South Carolina Department of Mental Health, http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/anorexia/statistics.htm [Viewed May 22, 2011].)

Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics: ‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze, Pt. 2

“Rebel, rebel, your face is a mess”: Vera Wang Princess & Vera Wang Glam Princess

If the Juicy Couture ads I talked about yesterday were aimed at sixteen year-olds, then Vera Wang Princess, like Seventeen Magazine, may say they want teens to buy their goods, but are actually aiming to catch those tweens before they begin their dating duties. Therefore we get our pretty princess to our left, staring seductively at your as she pulls up her skirts, daring you to come get her. Yes, the look on her face a little sullen, like the way you practice in the mirror, and the pirate hat is clearly edgy, but underneath that ‘rebel’ exterior, she’s still waiting to be consumed by the viewer, like every other objectified girl before her.  and that big purple heart riding at the edge of her skirt?  Yeah, that's exactly what's she's daring you to come get -- her heart.

Don’t believe me? Here's our little rebel again, actually laid out for you.  I don't know which part kills me more: her exploding cleavage, the rumpled sheets, the tousled sex hair with crown barely hanging on, or that she's looks like she's pulling her own hair! (Her right hand in particular.) Now if you're into hair pulling, good for you.  What I hate here is the happy girl, laid out on a platter for the viewer, subtly suggesting violence will be a-okay with her.  If the ads were more adult, I might be less bothered by this aspect, but the model is so young and the "princess" themes infantilize her further.  As an advocate for victims of sexual assault, many of whom have been young women on the cusp of exploring their sexuality in a world that does not like women to be in control of their sexuality, I find these ads truly scary because of this part of it. I am also not at all jazzed but the rope encircling that heart shaped bottle and spelling out "princess."  What about being a princess involves rope?  Nothing, unless you're into kinky kidnapping fantasies.  And again, if that is what you and your adult partner engage in with mutual full consent and safe words in place, awesome.  Somehow,  I don't think our little princess has consented, and I think this ad tries to make it okay for you to engage in  a dominance fantasy, and her consent isn't required or even a consideration.

As for our princess, you can have her alone in her bed, or if that doesn’t quite work for you, there’s a shirtless boy to cue you in about what’s about to happen to our little princess. Apparently “born to rule” means marrying a denim clad prince.  And you know how best to bed them – by wearing Vera Wang Princess. Isn’t that how we all hope to ascend to power? By sleeping our way to the top, willingly or not? The cat, by the way, killing me.  I cannot decide if it makes the image more innocent and therefore better, or heightens the weirdness of the lolita-esque sexual messages, making it worse.  The only thing I can come up with is that cats, like women, are animals to be taken care however you deem fit.  They are to be pampered, but are not active people with equal right to reason, autonomy, or rule. If you've got thoughts about the cat please share them because I am so puzzled.

Okay, one more.  Vera Wang Glam Princess puts the modern spin on it, by making ‘princess’ the equivalent of modern celebrity. What I find aaaaa-mazballs about the male gaze in this ad is how completely overt it is. A crowd of photographers in the background, meant to indicate all the focus of the world’s attention is on our little glamorous royal. The three photographer faces you can see? All dudes. Because, let’s remember girls, the only attention that matters in the world is male attention.

Hand drawn pirate tattoo or not, our Vera Wang Princess/Glam Princess is hardly a rebel. Assuming of course we mean actually rejecting traditional modes of femininity as defined and limited by patriarchy and for male consumption, and not just trying to pick up slightly alternative fashioned boys by dressing similarly.

And the saddest part? I found these photos of a woman trying to make her daughter into this ad. How's that for women policing themselves?


Tune in tomorrow for continued ranting in my current series “‘Alternative’ Advertising and the Male Gaze in Perfume Advertising,” also known as “Rebel without a Clue.” &If you missed yesterday's portion of the series, following the "Perfume and Feminist Aesthetics" tab above.

Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics: ‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze, Pt. 1

Wow. It’s been a long time since I talked about the various categories of mainstream perfume advertising and how they reflect different methods of objectification and policing sex and gender. For those of you just joining us, it might be useful to refer to the previous posts, which you can find on the tab “Perfume and Feminist Aesthetics” above.

As you may recall, dear reader, a while back I began a series discussing the male gaze and its presence in perfume advertising. For ease of discussion, I broke the ads down into various groups. FN1. The first, general erotica, focused on ads appealing purely to sex, and which tend to quantify women as objects to be used for male pleasure. Make no mistake, we will be doing another round of these; in the year since I started this series, there have been more terrible ads that treat women as props and objects, rather than people. But there are other approaches to objectification, and these approaches frequently not only objectify women as objects, but implicate other women in the policing of their own gender or other forms of privilege by focusing on difference.

Previously we discussed the use of the “exotic” as a form of othering. Another form of othering is the idea of selling “the other” as an alternative form of appeal. Call it what you wants: alternative, DIY, hipster, bohemian. Eventually capitalism finds a way co-opt successful critique by commodifying it for mainstream consumption. FN2. I find this aspect incredibly troubling in part because, when I was a young, naïve little thing, this is the flavor of insidious advertising most likely to move my hand to my wallet. That’s right. I was a teenage rebel, and if you tried to convince me your product would make me different (like everybody else), I was right there with you.

Not terribly unlike a lot of teen girls nowadays, actually.

Thus I bring you the ‘rebel’ ad series, in all its disappointing glory.

“Rebel, rebel, you’ve torn your dress”: Juicy Couture

Let’s start with one of the most shallow examples of the “rebel but not really” ads. Oh, Juicy Couture. Our heroine, with her semi-mohawk pompadour and her haute couture dress seem edgy. And look, she’s blowing off that guy with a handful of glitter. She’s totally a strong, independent woman. Except…

She’s not. You see that, right? Yeah younger-self, I’m looking at you. She’s this incredibly, stereotypically thin girl wearing a skirt so short there’s nothing but tulle there. And even if we give her that the skinniness is genetic and not from upchucking her lunch every day in a sacrifice to the porcelain gods of thinness, and even if we declare her barely there skirt as an act of self-empowerment, we still have to deal with the guy.

That’s right. There’s a guy. And I don’t mean the glit and glam boy with the too long hair she’s literally blowing off. I mean the one she’s staring off the page at. Because if you’re younger-me, you might think she’s looking at you, daring you, young pretty alterna-girl, to “Do the Dont’s,” to be the person everyone tells you not to be.

She’s not looking at you. She’s daring Mr. Male Gaze to have sex with her, two-dimensional alterna-girl. Sure, she wears weird clothes, styles her hair like a 50’s greaser, and probably doesn’t shave as regularly as your last girlfriend, but isn’t it nice to get a little strange every once in a while? She’s not looking for a weirdo guy like glitter guy; she wants you.

Combine it with the other two Juicy Couture ads, and it confirms all subtle cuing in the first ad. This girl has a giant bow on her head – how alternative! The fact that she’s topless and has the same vacant come hither gaze as all the other ad girls? It means she’s out to capture the same insipid dude’s attention as all the others.

And here we have bow-head again (she has a top on, hallelujah!), with her alterna-male friend who appears to also be into you, Mr. Male Gaze, in case you swing that way. We here at Alterna-Sex-R-Us aim to please.

And let me clear -- I have no problem with nudity or sexuality in images or film or art or reality.  I do object, however, to using a woman's nude body to sell a product, as though her sexuality is something to be commodified right along with the bottle of perfume she's hawking.  I have a problem with the idea that we use women's bodies, and men's bodies for that matter, as things rather than seeing them as people.  If bowhead and her alterna-man friend there want to go at it, because they freely choose to, more power to them.

I just want the advertising industry to recognize that when it decouples the person from the body, you allow the distance that makes it easier for hatred against that body, for violence against that body, to be committed and ignored and excused by a world that has historically seen women as chattel, not as people.  A world that in many places still does.

And in case your alterna-fantasies of "taking" a woman run toward the pseudo-hippy type, we have a natural blonde here covered in flowers, butterflies, and feathers, just waiting to share her peace, love, and Juicy Couture with you. That vacant stare, those slightly open lips, her complete inability to act, because she’s so blissed out, so all she can do is lay there passively? All for you.

 Excuse me, younger self, I think I have to vom for a bit.

Tune in tomorrow for more continuing ranting in my current series “‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze,” also known as “Rebel without a Clue.”
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FN1. This series sprung from a presentation I did with Angela from Now Smell This!

FN2. I sometimes wonder if this process is what makes us reach farther and farther into the extreme to establish ourselves as outside the mainstream. Sure, some of it a desperate need to feel original and unique in a world where you can be connected to literally millions of other people with a click of a button. But some of it, I think, is also a legitimate effort to reject aspects of a culture we find uncomfortable. When those efforts become a new trend, it pushes those who feel at odds to further extremes. I can’t decide how I feel about it. On the one hand, more behavior becomes permissible, which means more freedom to express one’s identity without rejection. On the other hand, as the middle gets bigger, the left and right gets pushed out to further extremes, which results in the kind of political rhetoric that leads nowhere. On the gripping hand, true rejection of culture is so extreme very few ever engage in it; what we do is more upcycle or downcycle parts of a culture, because no one really wants revolution most of the time. Most of the time we just want more bread and circuses, even if we can’t admit that to ourselves. But I digress…

I wonder if this method of courtship has ever been effective...

Dear Readers—

"I have wasted years of my life agonizing about the fires
It started when I thought that to be strong
you must be flame retardant..."

Remember how about this time last year Angela from Now Smell This! And I did a presentation on Gender and Perfume and Perfume Advertising? And I came back to you all excited, and I started this fun series on perfume and gender stereotypes. And I was like – “THERE ARE (generally speaking) FIVE CATEGORIES!” I proceeded to write about two of them.

Then I took some sort of mental nap, and when I woke up, I looked at you in confusion. “What was I saying?” I muttered as I wiped at my eyes. I groped around, then shrugged, gave you a wan smile, and said, “Well, if it was important I’m sure I’ll remember it.”

Well March is a special feminist renewal time of year here in Puddletown, and by golly, I remembered. That said, there is so much to say sometimes it takes a bit for me to organize my thoughts. I’m ready now. So for those of you just jumping in, here are the previous pieces in the series:

~ Gender, Language, and Scent

~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 1: Perfume, Advertising, And the Male Gaze

~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 2: Sex/Erotica and the Male Gaze in Perfume Advertising

~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 3: The Exotic and how it relates to the Male Gaze and Majority View in Perfume Advertising

Thanks to all of you, my lovelies, for putting up with my scattered brain conversation style. I’m back on the thread. Expect four days of posts this week!

Oh, and this week's posts are dedicated to the University of Michigan's spring 2011 WSS 3004: Contemporary Feminist Debates students and their awesomesauce professor, Sara Puotinen.  Thanks for finding me, and keep on rockin'!

"But I'm not gonna live my life on one side of an ampersand.
And even if I went with you, I'm not the girl you think I am.
And I'm not gonna match you, 'cause I'll lose my voice completely.
No, I'm just gonna watch you, 'cause I'm not the one that's crazy."
~ "Ampersand," Amanda Palmer

Perfume, Marketing, and Feminist Aesthetics: Kate Walsh's Boyfriend

Boyfriend.

So many things to say. So few of them good.

Let’s start with my Boyfriend-related SA encounter. I dropped by my local Sephora for the sole purpose of trying Kate Walsh's Boyfriend. I asked the super attentive SA where it was, and she led me over to the display, which I’d manage to miss completely.

Grabbing the bottle and a scent strip, she turned to me while spraying. “People either love it or hate it,” she said wafting the strip and handing it to me. As I sprayed a little on me, she continued. “Personally, I don’t like it. But it’s mostly the story about it, you know?”

Store Display.

I nodded. I did know. The story is so well known, it is part of the formal marketing campaign for the scent:

 For Kate, that story involves a breakup five years ago, after which she realized how much she missed his scent. "So I went to a fragrance counter and bought a men's fragrance and went, 'Wait a minute, you don’t need a boyfriend to have a Boyfriend! Ding ding ding!' FN1.

The SA wrinkled her nose. “Yeah. It shouldn’t be called Boyfriend. It should be called Stalker.” And then we laughed. Mostly to keep from crying, I think. Which gets me to my biggest beef with Boyfriend.

Let’s look at the marketing language proffered by Sephora to attract buyers toward Boyfriend:

You don't need a boyfriend to have Boyfriend, the new fragrance created by "Private Practice" star Kate Walsh. Inspired by the longing felt for her boyfriend's warm scent, Boyfriend combines muguet, dark plum, myrrh, and night blooming jasmine to create a seductive floral fragrance. Topped off with amber and woody musk, this intoxicating scent includes all the notes that make your eyes roll—just like him.

Does Kate Walsh realize that she is, in fact, implying that you need a boyfriend – some kind of boyfriend? Because obviously you can’t break up with a guy because the relationship was bad and you didn’t really love each other and still be a whole person! You MUST have a man substitute. Like say, one of these. Also, I love how the ad copy downplays the “we just broke up” aspect of the story, which actually makes the ad copy worse. Because even when you have a boyfriend, you might need a temporary substitute for the rare seconds you are left to your tender, desperate, vulnerable feminine lonesome.

"The Boyfriend Kit"

And we MUST talk about the matching product kit and the fake message contained therein. There is a message from your fake, substitute, Boyfriend-scented, paramour-apparition that says: “See you tonight wear the red dress! <3 BF.” Because it isn’t bad enough that you either (a) have a boyfriend and must have some representation of him with you at all times or (b) don’t have a boyfriend but still cling to the shards of your last failed attempt at fairytale bliss to the point that you carry a bottle of scent around as a substitute. You also need fake love notes. That’s the level of self-esteem we’re aiming for here –  generically produced fake love notes, because a woman alone certainly cannot be fulfilled. In fact, she might as well be simply dead. And hey! They can bury her in the red dress her fake Boyfriend loved so much, right next to her dignity, pride, self-esteem, and personal achievements.

 And the names on the bottle and the bag. OMG, the bottle. All those dude names. Why? And they are so generic. (Not unlike the scent itself. More on that to follow.) And let’s just face it people – white. With the exception of Pablo, this is some primarily anglo name mess going on. Because our fake ideal Boyfriend isn’t just boring and average, he’s also white. FN2.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I have basically flipped out at what is more or less simply a failed marketing attempt. I’ll tell you why. Messages that a woman is not whole without a man are a societal disease, underpinning a violent epidemic. And I’m not speaking in hyperbole:

• One in four women (25%) has experienced domestic violence in her lifetime.FN3
• While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are 5 to 8 times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner. FN4
• Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend each year to 4 million women who are physically abused by their husbands or live-in partners each year. FN4
• The health-related costs of intimate partner violence exceed $5.8 billion each year. Of that amount, nearly $4.1 billion are for direct medical and mental health care services, and nearly $1.8 billion are for the indirect costs of lost productivity or wages. FN5
• On average, more than three women and one man are murdered by their intimate partners in this country every day. FN6

That means that every day while I’m a work, a woman in America dies at the hands of someone who is or was her Boyfriend. Every night, while I’m sleeping, another woman dies at the hands of someone who is or was her Boyfriend. And while I’m going to Starbucks and watching television and having dinner and seeing my friends, another woman will die, thanks to her Boyfriend. She is probably dying right now, while I am writing this to you.

Boyfriend, the offensive bottle.

So I have a problem with messages that tell women they can’t make it without a man. They must have a boyfriend. They will be incomplete. They will not be whole. Because these same messages are the ones that help keep women in bad relationships, that discouraging them from leaving before the cycle of violence escalates, that makes us, as a society, blind to seeing her and helping her. Think of what we as a country could do with $5.8 billion if we didn’t need to spend it on heathcare for DV victims. Think of how much more these victims could do if they didn’t lose $1.8 billion annually in lost productivity and wages. For one, they might have the financial means to escape their abusers.

All of this makes me feel rageful toward this insipid fragrance, which I might add only smells like a light and generally unimpressive take of an Oriental of the Shalimar-flavoring. FN7.  The scent itself is sort of boring.  It's generally kind of sweet, meaning all I got from it was the vanilla and amber (which I normally like), but it had a weird smell underneath that was supposed to be wood, and on me came across like shoving your face into a bucket of used, scentless dryer sheets.  It was a static-y buzz that was supposed to be the masculine aspect, I think, but on me the scent came off as generic and cloying, and it lasted like that for about four hours.  It's not quite what I'd expect from, say, a Bath & Body Works scent (in the way that there seems to be no subtly or balance, but rather all sirens and air horns, in their creations) but it is only a step above that, which makes it a not-great scent with an incredibly unfortunate presentation. Additionally, it does not smell particularly ‘masculine,’ in the way that scents are generally directed toward male-identified people or female-identified people.

And that’s before I get to the fact the entire Boyfriend marketing scheme is incredibly heterosexist and ignores the fact that men have Boyfriends whose scent they might miss or that women might miss the scent of the women they date. But in Kate Walsh’s world, I guess this isn’t a problem, since you know, only women can shop on the women’s side of Sephora and only men can shop on the men’s side; consequently I guess if you miss your same-sex partner you can just, I don’t know, buy the scent they actually wore.

And that brings me to my last point: as both a person who aspires to a world unlimited by gender expression, and as a person who just spent about $100 buying a bunch of lovely cheap thrill type scents made and marketed for men, it offends me to think I can’t just go buy and wear whatever scent I love, for whatever reason. Will my credit card be rejected by the Sephora SA if I’m like, “I’m here to buy a bottle of Ralph Lauren Polo for myself, because I like it and it reminds me of my brother who is currently stationed in Iraq?” No. And if I buy a bottle of L'Artisan Timbuktu because it reminds me of my grandfather, who died in 1998, I don’t think the perfume police are going to show up and take my bottle away. Scents matter. Scent memory is an important part of how we experience the world. And when we love a scent for some deeply personal and emotional reason, a generic substitutional icon is not going to meet those needs.

At the end of the day, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Or, to put it another way, a woman, or anyone else for that matter, has as little need of Boyfriend as my kittens need of a lawn mower.

P.S. Memo to Kate Walsh – fire your publicist. FN8. FN9.

For other posts related to perfume, marketing, and gender, see:
~ Gender, Language, and Scent
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 1: Perfume, Advertising, And the Male Gaze
~ Some More Thoughts on "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" and Advertising of Scents for 'Men'
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 2: Sex/Erotica and the Male Gaze in Perfume Advertising
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 3: The Exotic and how it relates to the Male Gaze and Majority View in Perfume Advertising
~ Advertising Critique: Prada Infusion d'Iris

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FN1. From this article at BellaSugar.

FN2.The SA and I actually joked that perhaps this lost Boyfriend of Walsh's was gay, given the overall feminine presentation of the scent, and that perhaps Pablo was the man Boyfriend left her for, giving him bottle naming rights despite his potentially non-Anglo heritage.

FN3. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The National Institute of Justice, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, July 2000. The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman’s Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women’s Health, 1999.

FN4. Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March, 1998.

FN5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States, April 2003.

FN6. Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Intimate Partner Violence in the U.S. 1993-2004, 2006.

FN7. This comparison is actually an insult to Shalimar.

FN8. I generally like you and think you are a talented actress. No one paid to protect your image should have let you do this to yourself.

FN9. P.S. I know you think this is all about women's empower, like "Yeah! We don't need you, men! We have this bottle of scent we bought with our own money to replace you." That is not, in fact, radical or empowering.  It says that there's still a hole that needs filling, which is the message that causes problems in the first place.  It's approximately as feminist as the concept of a momma grizzly.

Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 3: The Exotic and how it relates to the Male Gaze and Majority View in Perfume Advertising

Wow. It’s been two weeks since I talked about the various categories Angela and I sorted mainstream perfume advertising into. I’ll try to be more on top of getting the series pieces out. For those of you just joining us, it might be useful to refer to the previous posts, which you can find listed at the bottom of this post.

As you may recall, dear reader, we’ve been talking here at Feminine Things about the male gaze in perfume advertising. The first category we explored was the ubiquitous erotica. These ads appeal purely to sex and tend to quantify women as objects to be used for male pleasure. There are other approaches, though. Today we will explore ads that could be described as appealing to the “exotic,” including those ads that cross the erotic and exotic in ways that not only objectify their subjects in order to appeal to the male gaze, but that also trade upon stereotypes in order to portray people and places in the context of a majority view, exploit differences related to race, culture, and national origin.

Let’s start with this Miss Dior Cherie ad. In general, not a terribly exploitive ad. Yes, the model is ridiculously skinny, her skirt is unnecessarily short, but generally not a terrible ad. The appeal of the ad is to be found in the whimsical foreignness of it all. A woman held aloft by balloon (because she weighs nothing, apparently), floating above the skyline of Paris in a lovely party dress. Again, we have an inactive woman, someone who is being acted upon (balloons), rather than being active. The ad implies travel to far away places, exploration of the unknown, youthful fun exuberant discovery of the world and of the self. While this ad does have some appeal to women like me, who like to think of all the wonderful places in the world they’ve never been but dream of going, it also appeals to the male gaze in so far as there has been a historical practice of exploiting women of minority cultures and using their ‘exotic’ appeal (i.e. different from what you get at home, buddy) in order to excuse the sexual and physical abuse and exploitation of women in general, and minority women in particular.

For example, let’s talk about this other Miss Dior Cherie ad. Here, you’ve got another troublingly skinny girl in a party dress, standing barefoot (implied by the shoe in hand) on the wide grassy lawn of a large palatial estate. There is a lot of overlap with another category in this one (fantasy – more on that later), but I look at this and what I see appealing is the depiction of another life, a life remote and foreign. How many of us have partied til the sun came up at a friend’s country estate and then, after running barefoot over the dew covered lawns, are driven home in a Rolls? The skimpy dress, the implication from the removed shoe that this woman is willing to (and already in the process of) undress, the come hither gaze – all imply this exotic woman is ready for sex. One of the things I find most fascinating, though, is the placement of her right arm. Not a lot of people stand around with their arm crooked like that, but many people place their hand behind their head in a similar position when they are lying down or sleeping. By posing the standing model in a position one normally would associate more with lying and passivity rather than standing or being active, one places the viewer (again) in the subconscious position of viewing, for consumption, an image of a partially dressed woman in a passive and ready-for-bedding position.

Another ad that plays into similar stereotypes in more obvious ways is this Euphoria ad. You’ve got a woman who once again is giving you the come hither gaze, and (thanks to photoshop) is simultaneously caressing her own lips with her eyelids closed while her ‘dress’/bed sheet flows around her. I tend to think of this face as “on the verge of fake orgasm” face. Now I love perfume. I love perfume more than most people I know. But never once in my life has a perfume enticed me to make that face, and I can only assume that this model was (a) probably not actually wearing Euphoria at the time of her photo shoot, and (b) would not have been driven to make that face in response to wearing Euphoria, even if she was wearing it. The woman is not of identifiable ethnic, racial, or national origin and she is superimposed over a lake and trees at sunset. The land is indistinguishable and covered in shadow, emphasizing its otherness. You cannot identify where it is that this beautiful, exotic woman is from, but she has apparently traveled a long way to have sex with the viewer in nothing but a mauve bed sheet. How brave of her! I definitely want to smell like that.

And now we get to two of the most ridiculous exotic/erotic ads. First up, Prada L’Eau Ambree. When my girlfriends come over to hang out in the afternoon, and I go to share my love of perfume with them, I tend to do this by spraying them on their neck and then just nuzzling the crap out of them. Yep. I just spray the perfume on and then stick my nose right in there to enjoy it…

What irritates me about this ad is that not only does it play into my least favorite exploitative male fantasy – girl on girl action – but it uses a series of almost identical women (Are they identical? Is it the same model?) so that they can leverage in the whole ‘look, lesbian quadruplets!’ thing. FN1 Plus, the model second from the left appears to be losing the top of her dress. Chic women basically falling all over each other blends the exotic and erotic in a way that is subtle because it uses a specific kind of exoticism – sexual exoticism. It plays on the idea that certain kinds of sexual ‘taboos’ (as mainstream culture deems them) are especially attractive to – you guessed it – men, and that playing on those makes you more attractive to men by playing to idea of sexual voyeurism, the male gaze, and female objectification. FN2

Lastly, I give you the perfume ad equivalent of a United of Benetton ad: the Dolce & Gabbana scent ads. A bevy of physically fit and naked men and women of multiple ethic/racial backgrounds all staring longingly at the viewer. They seem to be arraigned in such a way as to cover any number of possible sexual fantasies: the two women on the bottom left, the two men on the top left, the couple on the top right embracing, the solo male on the bottom left. Whatever you are attracted to, whatever gives you an exotic, erotic thrill, it’s implied in this ad. I’d give them more credit for their multi-ethnic approach if it weren’t so obviously done for sexual exploitation and the benefit of the viewer. FN3 But here, like the rainbow of bottles, D&G is offering up a rainbow of sexual partners, all of whom look so eager to get with you they should be advertising for a swingers' website instead of a line of scent.

One interesting thing, though, is that the male models are shown to be just as passive as the female models in this ad. It certainly raises some debatable points about whether this simply casts men in the same passive role in order to appeal to an expanded 'male gaze' that includes gay men's desires, or if it cuts against the norm by allowing -- though gay men -- women to access images of sexually appealing men, thus subverting traditional gendered voyeurism in advertising aesthetics. My personal preference is to see both men and women pictured as active and self-actualized rather than passive and objectified, but I also recognize that even my stated desire can be limiting to the ways in which men and women can be displayed. And I'm generally in favor of a multiplicity of expression for both male and female identified individuals, even if that means that both men and women retain the right to display themselves in passive roles as part of their own sexual exploration (i.e. as bottoms/subs).

Again, I will take this moment to lament the lack of ads that actually demonstrate anything about the scents they purport to sell. These ads, particularly the bottom three, are actually selling sex, not perfume. Perfume here is simply mentioned in conjunction with the heavy implication of sex, and the advertisers hope that, overwhelmed with a desire to either (a) have sex with the person pictured or (b) be desirable for sex like the person in the picture, you'll buy the scent hoping you'll be associated with the ad.

What I find interesting about this approach to selling scent is that it fails utterly. While depicting a sheet swaddled model in a seductive pose right next to a car or in a bed might help you associate the act of seeing that car or sitting on that bed with sex and therefore provide some of the aforementioned aspired connection, it's not like anyone carries the bottle of scent they wear around with them. You don't display it on a chain around your neck. If someone thinks you smell good, they aren't necessarily going to associate the imagery of the ad with the scent because the act of smelling the scent isn't associated with the images in the ad -- they're too removed.

This gap might be addressed by putting scent strips on the ads, but that only allows the buyer to associate the image with the scent, not others who might smell you (unless they really excellent olfactory and visual memories).  The only thing the advertiser can be hoping for is that you, the buyer, will hope to associate yourself with these images, and given that they tend to convey messages that people, particularly women, are passive objects waiting to be used, often for the sexual pleasure of the viewer, we all end up encoded with subtle messaging about the nature of women. When you add markers that indicate diversity of ethnicity, race, or national origin to these images, you imply some similar messaging about non-majority individuals.

For other posts in this series, see:
~ Gender, Language, and Scent
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 1: Perfume, Advertising, And the Male Gaze
~ Some More Thoughts on "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" and Advertising of Scents for 'Men'
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 2: Sex/Erotica and the Male Gaze in Perfume Advertising
~ Advertising Critique: Prada Infusion d'Iris

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FN1 I have never really understood the whole ‘twins/triplets/etc.’ thing, but I know it’s stereotypical enough that I found a fake demotivational poster about it. Seriously. If you’ve never heard of this, just google “male fantasy + twins.” DO NOT use the image search. Trust me.

FN2 Unless you live under a rock, you know that there’s been this whole trend in popular culture that describes straight girls making out with one another for the benefit of men/in order to manipulate men. From Gilmore Girls’ Rory and Paris having a terribly awkward kiss on Spring Break, to Winona Ryder trying to reignite her career post-shoplifting debacle by kissing Rachel on Friends, everyone has done this sad sack of a storyline. Just this past week’s episode of Glee (which I love, despite the running Santana/Brittany have sex but ARE NOT GAY!!! gag) had a scene wherein Brittany and Santana ask Finn out on a date with them and at the restaurant, Santana explains, “Let us give you an introduction into the way that we work. You buy us dinner and we make out in front of you. It’s like the best deal ever.”

As a woman who is attracted to and has dated both male-identified and female-identified individuals, this becomes an ongoing problem for women who might pass for straight but are intimate with women. It plays on the worst stereotypes of bi/omnisexuals: that they are ‘slutty’ or ‘easy’ or ‘oversexed’ or ‘indiscriminate’ and always ‘ready to go’ sexually. Worse, these straight women’s performances (and that’s what they are) confuse women who are genuinely trying to explore their sexuality and are not simply making out with girls for a thrill or the attention of men.

FN3 Seriously, has anyone noticed how incredible WHITE perfume ads are? I almost never see individuals of color unless (a) it’s a celebrity hawking a (usually name branded) scent or (b) a model of color is used in order to increase exotic sexual appeal. It’s appalling.  But that's a whole other post entirely...

Advertising Critique: Prada Infusion d'Iris

Normally I don't tend to refer to other blogs in a negative way, and I don't mean to do that today. The following is not a critique of Talking Perfume in and of itself, but rather of the content of this post I ran across today, praising the new Prada Advertising Campaign for Prada Infusion d'Iris featuring Lara Stone. Talking Perfume says:

Prada Infusion d’Iris: Since its arrival in 2007, Infusion d’Iris has redefined the rules of contemporary perfumery through its delicately balanced mix of tradition and sensuality: an inspiring and joyful vision of what it means to be a woman today. Infusion d’Iris captured the attention of the market, opening up a new space within the Prada Parfums portfolio for fresher scents, within the context of Prada’s vision of timeless heritage fused with uncompromising modernity. Now, Prada Parfums has launched a new advertizing campaign that brings these qualities into a fresh alignment.

Shot by Steven Meisel, creator of many of Prada’s most striking images, and featuring model Lara Stone, this print media campaign creates a compelling vision of the unique qualities that make Infusion d’Iris an inspiring, unforgettable experience.

Lara Stone lies on a marble check floor, the same emblematic floor found in the original Prada store at Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Her gaze, both alluring and inquiring, holds our attention for a moment, but soon our eyes are irresistibly drawn to the object before her: an outsize flacon of Infusion d’Iris.

Sensual and evocative, this image reconnects the viewer to Prada’s heritage represented by the historic Prada crest that graces the bottle of Infusion d’Iris, the true protagonist of this campaign.

A celebration of the timeless Prada heritage, brought into a sharp contemporary focus.

This is a "mix of tradition and sensuality: an inspiring and joyful vision of what it means to be a woman today"? Really? First of all, this model, who is 26, look like she's barely 18 in this photo (if that). She's made-up in a smeary eyed, heroin chic style, vacantly gazing out at the viewer with slightly parted pouty lips. She's weirdly laying on the ground in her classic black mini-dress, playing with her hair. In what has got to be a truly weird photoshopping choice, her chest seems to be weirdly extended so that you see tons of cleavage free bare skin behind the giant perfume bottle, with only a hint of the top of her dress dipped down and peeking out between the bottle and her right forearm. I mean, seriously -- look at those proportions. There is no way that she somehow does not have breasts, and her childishly flat chest just goes on and on forever. IT'S PHOTOSHOPPED. The top of that dress and her natural curves would normally appear roughly at the line of the top of that bottle cap. It's not there. It's like they gave her a double mastectomy or merely the chest line of an 8-12 year old girl. And while I hate her passivity in the image, as though she has nothing to do but lie around waiting for you while she hugs her perfume bottle and plays with her hair, it's this weird appeal to pedophilia that is giving me the giant creepers right now.

And this happens all the time. Take a look at that creepy Marc Jacob's Daisy ad again. These ads seem to play to the idea that very young virginal girls are particularly sexually alluring. While this plays to certain stereotypes, it also tends to hypersexualize young girls for the viewing pleasure of men. I look at ads like this, and I don't have to wonder why we have a human trafficking problem in this country (to say nothing of the situation globally) or that so many of the victims are young girls being trafficked for sex work.(FN1)(FN2)These ads just perpetuate this fascination with the "barely legal" set, normalizing the sexualization of those who are far from being able to defend themselves psychologically, emotionally, or physically from sexual predators by taking adults and creating the appearance of childlike physical attributes, clothing, etc.

I think there are plenty of times when we tend to overreact when it comes to this. I for one had no problems with Miley Cyrus taking a photo for Annie Leibovitz and Vanity Fair in which she was seemingly wrapped in a sheet. I generally think of Miley's photo as being one she chose to do as part of an artistic endeavor, and that the photo was supposed to be accompanying an article about her professional accomplishments and talent. (FN3) This, on the other hand, tends to exist purely to play to prurient interests in order to sell a perfume that I otherwise like. The fact that the model is decided of age IRL makes it even more creepy in my opinion, because it had to be a purposeful artistic choice to make her look like a child, not the byproduct of photographing someone who happens to be sixteen.  Nothing about making this 26 year old woman appear barely legal entices me to buy more Infusion d'Iris, though, because when I look at that photo, I do not think "inspiring and joyful" OR "woman." *I* am a woman.  I know lots of women.  None of us would look forward to having our clevage photoshopped away so we could once again look twelve.  And as for "[h]er gaze, both alluring and inquiring, holds our attention for a moment, but soon our eyes are irresistibly drawn to the object before her: an outsize flacon of Infusion d’Iris," I find her zombie stare way more distracting than the overly giant bottle of perfume.


And let's talk about the overly giant bottle for a minute. I've been reading Chandler Burr's The Perfect Scent, and as far as I can tell, the industry spends tons of money on package and bottle design and market-testing. They have created some truly lovely, unique, clever, and whimsical bottles. Daisy, for example, has a way cute bottle design.  Why can't we focus on the bottles in these ads? Why can we photograph the actual perfume, perhaps in the kind of setting that was meant to have inspired the scent itself? Maybe this is simplistic, but I personally am more interested in the kinds of story-telling and imagery I get from Christopher Brosius's website descriptions of his scents than I am seeing some way-too-skinny model or celeb posed, half nude, with no bottle of scent in sight. Tell me something about the perfume! That Prada ad tells me a lot of things ("vacant, empty, sad object-person, starving and so desperate for approval she'll turn herself inside out to be what you want" comes to mind), none of which I associate with the actual scent of Infusion d'Iris, and none of which I'd want associated with myself.

For other posts in this series, see:
~ Gender, Language, and Scent
~  Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 1: Perfume, Advertising, And the Male Gaze
~ Some More Thoughts on "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" and Advertising of Scents for 'Men'
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 2: Sex/Erotica and the Male Gaze in Perfume Advertising
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 3: The Exotic and how it relates to the Male Gaze and Majority View in Perfume Advertising

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FN1 Of the 600,000-800,000 people trafficked across international borders each year, 70 percent are female and 50 percent are children. The majority of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade. (U.S. Department of State. 2004. Trafficking in Persons Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/ncvrw/2005/pg5l.html [Viewed April 6, 2010].

FN2 For a global study on human trafficking issues and how the present different around the globe, I recommend the US State Dept.'s "Trafficking in Persons report," http://www.humantrafficking.org/uploads/publications/2007_TIP_Report.pdf [Viewed April 6, 2010].

FN3 I fully realize that a WHOLE LOT of feminists think that Cyrus's VF layout was deeply exploitative and plays into the same stereotypes I'm criticizing here. But I tend to agree with Leibovitz, in that I think the photo looks almost like a classic painting in the style of François Boucher or other Rococo semi-nudes/nudes, while this photo of an acutal of age woman, dressed, cosmetic-ed, and photoshopped to look younger is weirdly exploitative. I'm open to discussing this, though.

Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 2: Sex/Erotica and the Male Gaze in Perfume Advertising

Angela and I, in our quest to make heads/tails out of perfume advertising and the traditional gender tropes it succumbs to, divided current ads into five themes that play on different aspects of traditionally and stereotypically gendered fantasy. Much of these idealized images play into the male gaze, forcing the viewer to see the image through the view of a male, despite the market’s clear acknowledgment that most of the buying power rests in the hands of women. The first of these themes I want to talk about it is the most ubiquitous, the most tired, and the most often found in ads that attempt to play to more than stereotype at a time: sex/erotica.

Let’s start with this Ralph Lauren Romance ad pair. On the left is the ad for Ralph Lauren Romance for Women; on the right, Ralph Lauren Romance for Men. Taking on the women’s ad first, I’ll highlight some of the specific things that gender it in a traditionally feminine way, particularly in contrast to the men’s ad. First, The natural setting is much more visible in as the background of the women’s ad vs. the men’s ad. John Berger’s work on Ways of Seeing talks extensively about the continual linkage in visual art between nature/land and women, which ties together concepts of dominance and conquest associated with both. Note that the individuals in the women’s ad image are passive and posed, as if frozen and waiting for the viewer to take the photo, as opposed to active imagery of the men’s ad, indicating a photo caught of bodies in motion.

Again, referring to Berger’s Ways of Seeing, we have see traditional gender messaging repeated: women wait to be taken, men do the taking. I do appreciate, and note, that in the men’s ad the female is at least pictured as active as her male counterpart, which does break some traditionally imaging (say, rather than her lying there, waiting to be ‘taken’), but even that is offset but this trend you see in men’s ads that seem to imply that it is perfectly acceptable and completely masculine and not at all in any way gay to wear cologne, because if you do women will simply lose all control of themselves and become your willing sex kittens wherever they encounter you.(FN1) The other thing I’ll note about the women’s ad that I find discomforting, and which the men’s ad avoids, is the implication of physical control of the woman by the man. The placement of the hands in the women’s ad, which is not an embracing position, like a hug or a caress, but one typically implying physical restraint or control in what otherwise is supposed to be a romantic image is unsettling. This restraint is reinforced by the placement of the shirt in the women’s ad, which is pushed down to mid-forearm and would restrict her ability to pull her arms forward in order to either participate in, or defend herself from, contact she is receiving. I look at this image, and I see a lot of subtle but very real cuing about passivity and control, and when you throw it up against the ad for the same scent ‘for men,’ using the same models in the same setting wearing the same clothing, I think those visual cues become a lot starker. I also think this deeply demonstrates Berger’s point about activity vs. passivity. The ad for the women says, “Be passive; give in,” while the ad for the men says, “Be active, engaged; take what you want.” (FN2)

Speaking of restraint, can we talk for a moment about the Victor & Rolf Flowerbomb ad? First of all, this image does not communicate anything about the scent except perhaps to remind you it has flower in the title. This message could have been far more effectively communicated with, I don’t know, flowers? Perhaps an explosion of flowers? Instead, we get an incredibly thin, implicitly nude woman (you can’t see her lower half, but the implication is clearly ‘no clothes"), weirdly constrained by the packaging for the scent, with her face obscured by cloth. Wow is there a lot of crap going on in here! First of all, face obscured/faceless naked female body? Hard to get more objectifying than that. (FN3) This is especially ironic given that I guess she is supposed to be trying to smell that ‘lovely’ perfume through the massive amount of cloth that, you know, restricts her ability to breath. Given where the ribbon falls as it wraps around her, it’s again clear that the arms from the elbow up remain at the side, making it difficult for her to maneuver against someone who say, wanted to touch her naked body. This ad manages to be simultaneously ineffective and offensive, which makes me less than eager to ever actually try Flowerbomb, no matter how good a fragrance it might be.

Oh god, and restraint?  Can we talk about the Beckham & Posh Spice ads?  Why does he look like he's about to choke her out in EVERY ad? He seriously looks like he's trying to put her in what is colloquially known in law enforcement as a 'take down' move, and -- particularly in the Night ad -- she seems to really like it.  I means she's grabbing at the arm, which could be interpreted as resistance, if it weren't for the enamored face she's making, which seems to say, "Oh yeah, choke me out -- I love it!"  Meanwhile, Beckham stares out at you, the viewer, as if to say, "I'm coming for you next.  Aren't you excited?"  And I'm going on record as saying that this just way too far in terms of kink-related imagery without either of them being on the record as clearly into breath control play.  It doesn't look consensual.  It doesn't look sexy. It just looks vaguely violent and kind of terrifying.

Speaking of ‘just lying there, waiting for you to take” ads, I’ll give this to Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue ad campaign: at least they give you a man or a woman in the docile, vulnerable, objectified position. That said, here in the U.S. market, this guy would probably be considered, given the tiny speedo and oiled chest and compared with traditional hegemonic views of masculinity, as, well, “the gay” as Margaret Cho would say. (FN4) He reads as gay, which means, whether you’re after the supine woman or the supine man, you, as the viewer, are in all likelihood, assumed to be a dude, and looking at these images from the position of the male, dominating gaze.

Last, but not least, probably the most bizarre and offensive of the ads I’ll show you today: Bebe EDP. So many questions! This is a scent for a woman. It’s being sold to women in magazines for women. Why is she naked except for some ankle-breakingly tall uncomfortable heels? Does she have to be terrifyingly skinny?(FN5) Am I supposed to assume that she willingly took up position on a skinny ledge that in no way looks comfortable? And last, but perhaps the most perplexing: the giant bottle, positioned directly as though it is emerging from her vagina! So perplexing, this message. Is this meant to infer that the vagina the heart of a woman, which could be good (source of life) or bad (object waiting to be fucked)? Is she giving birth to the scent -- is it her 'bebe'? Does the scent smell like a vagina? Is that supposed to make me want to buy Bebe, which incidentally is named, literally, “baby” in French? Because when I think actualized, empowered, accomplished woman, I think “baby.”

Anyway, that’s all for now, though more will be coming. As I’ve been doing this, I’ve also started collecting ads that fall into these categories and yet avoid a lot of the same offensive pitfalls. I am also collecting ads that avoid the stereotypes entirely, and to give us all a happy uplifting end to this series (whenever I manage to finish it) so we can all feel hopeful about the direction the advertising might go in.

For more on this topic, see:
~ Gender, Language, and Scent
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 1: Perfume, Advertising, And the Male Gaze
~ Some More Thoughts on "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" and Advertising of Scents for 'Men'
~ Advertising Critique: Prada Infusion d'Iris
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 3: The Exotic and how it relates to the Male Gaze and Majority View in Perfume Advertising

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(FN1) Again, see any of the Ads for Axe or Tag Body Spray. And this taps into some serious virgin/whore stereotypes that advertisers LOVE to leverage to sell stuff. Though there are many, many issues tied up in the male gaze that infuriate and depress me – reinforcement of bad body image and corresponding health issues such as bulimia, anorexia nervosa, etc.; the bracketing of certain opportunities and roles as the exclusive purview of men or women, to the detriment of both; rampant normalizing of images of domestic and sexual violence – one of the worst in my opinion has got to be the continued support for casting women’s sexuality as an object to be obtained in a proverbial game of cat and mouse, wherein a woman is either a virgin/prude or a whore/loose/easy/etc., which continues not only to create sex objects of women but also denies them the agency to define themselves sexually. We like to pretend that the so-called ‘sexual revolution’ freed women to embrace their sexuality, but as long as the virgin/whore complex continues to be reinforced in society, embracing said sexuality in any real sense – comfort with one’s own body, knowledge and experience of sex, the sheer appreciation of joy within the confines of one’s own body (i.e. masturbation) – is to fall off the precarious balancing point and into one side of the chasm (whore), while to follow traditional moirés that deny women sexual agency/knowledge/power is to fall into the other side (prude). Even trying to strike a balance is punished, and is perhaps the most thoroughly punished. A woman who will is a slut, a woman who won’t is a prude, but the woman who looks like she will and then doesn’t is a tease. And that last category, not unsurprisingly, is most often the focus of another debate w/r/t her sexuality – is she a rape victim or did she want it/lead her rapist on? (This gets me into a whole other post about the ‘reasonable man’ standard and how we define rape and really all you need to do to understand my position is to read Catharine MacKinnon’s pieces on rape from Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law.)

(FN2) Okay, a word here on B/D/S/M. First, definitions: b/d – bondage/discipline, d/s – dominance/submission, s/m – sadio/masochism. I have absolutely no problem with people engaging in forms of bondage/restraint, dominance, submission, roleplaying, etc. within the context of a healthy, consensual, adult sex relationship. In fact, B/D/S/M communities and their active participants tend to be better at negotiating consent issues than individuals who are unable to acknowledge their own desires w/r/t BDSM, because methods of consent, safe words/signals, and open and honest communication about sexual fantasies and desires are fundamental and rigorously taught/practiced within these communities.

My problem is that we have no idea what the circumstances are in these ads, which are a snapshot of a moment that does not in any way imply that both individuals have predetermined their sexual comfort zones or created a system for ongoing affirmation of consent or a safe and swift exit from ‘play.’ In fact, the repeated imagery of bondage and dominance/submission within mainstream media not only sends subconscious messages of women as sex objects who can be used without their consent, but it also hurts the B/D/S/M community by making it difficult to acquire mainstream acceptance for certain aspects of play within these very structured and clearly communicated environments.

(FN3) You can, of course. Take any ad where a woman’s head is literally cut out of the image, giving her no identity/personhood beyond the object of her body, or any ad that uses parts of women instead of whole people, and you can get there. Also, you can literally make parts of her body an object, like this Chantal Thomass Osez-Moi! ad.  Because nothing quite says "use me" like making a woman's body simply made up of things you can use.

(FN4) To be fair, by European standards of masculinity, this guy could easily be straight and also considered damned sexy.

(FN5) Have you seen this new study on body image the Girl Scouts Research Institute did? It's worth at least looking at this article, which contains some of the more interesting stats. The bottom line is that, even with education about visual media and stereotypes and body image to the point that girls identify models as unhealthy looking, these girls still want to emulate them, to the point of making themselves ill.  As someone who has worked closely with a young woman who literally cut her life span in half and required ongoing and extensive surgeries and procedures due to disordered eating, let me tell you:  body image is a real issue, a scary issue, and a serious issue.  On this note, I'd like to recommend this list of NEDA recommended speakers, as well as the website/book Andrea's Voice if you're looking for good resources on this topic.