'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"

Mr. Pitt and Chanel No. 5

 So, I got this amazing reminder last week that when it comes to feminist aesthetics, perfume advertising, and critique, I am falling woefully down on the job. So, my advice? Go read Paul Aguirre Livingston's piece on the annoucement that Brad Pitt is about to become the first male face of Chanel No. 5, which is terrific, then come back here. It's cool. I'll wait.

Done?

Okay, good. Look, here's the deal.

My first thoughts were: "That is a weird and unexpected choice for Chanel." Why take (arguably) the most womanly scent in the world (in terms of identity in the market place) and have a dude front it? Is he planning to wear it for his wedding version of Spectacular, Spectacular!? Is he about to reclaim No. 5 as a unisex scent? Because if so, then wow, this could be awesome. But more likely? Chanel wants to use their wedding as a promo opportunity and didn't want Angelina Jolie associated with it for some BS gendered reasons ("She's too slutty! She's too sexual! No. 5 is classic/classy!) so they went with her more palatable husband.

My second thoughts were: "Hey! Maybe this will mean a new trend in Chanel ads that don't focus so much on how women are incomplete without men (Audrey Tatou's No. 5 ads) or how women can control men with the possibility of sex and their perfume (Keira Knightley's CoCo Mademoiselle ads). That would be nice. I'd appreciate that. And if anyone has the market prowess to try, it's got to be Chanel."

My third thoughts were: "Really? That guy? The guy who punked people in Jackass while in a guerrilla suit so no one knew who he was while he bashed into their cars in a rogue shopping cart?  The guy who famously dumped The Good Girl for a sex kitten? (Literally. Jennifer Aniston starred in that movie.) It's the most famous case of madonna vs. whore in all of modern pop conception.  And he stayed with her! And they're happy! With babies, lots 'o babies! There was no weird retribution. He never saw the error of his ways! It cuts against all things...normative and sexually regressive. How can Chanel possibly spin a narrative that cuts against their traditional fairy tale stories?"

My fourth and final thoughts were: "Wait and see."

So part of the reason I haven't commented is because I thought it made more sense to wait and see the actual ad. Because despite my best instincts, I'm hopeful that this could be different and interesting.I mean, I know this hopefulness basiclly makes me just a huge sucker, but what can I say?

Hope springs eternal...even in perfume advertising.

The Will of Instinct.

On Amanda Palmer, Nirvana, and the Language of Violence in Popular Culture

**TRIGGER WARNING.**

This is not about perfume. No, this is about AMANDA FUCKING PALMER (aka AFP), and intimate violence and sex/gender politics.

I remember the first time I heard Nirvana’s “Polly.” I was, I don’t know, fourteen, I think, but already deeply familiar with the idea of being trapped in a cage by someone violent who thought they loved you. FN1. I remember having a visceral and negative reaction to “Polly” in the same way I had negative reactions to the fetus tree imagery in “Heart Shaped Box.” I remember thinking at the time that Kurt was an angry dude who did not like women, and who seemed to blame his feelings of inadequacy as a man not on patriarchy and misogyny, but on the women in his life and at large. I distinctly remember having an argument with a boy I was dating over this feeling and being completely without the language I needed to express my reactions to some of Nirvana’s work, particularly “Polly,” in a coherent way.

Let me say that I know very little about the Patron Saint of Grunge. I haven’t bothered to study him. So when I talk about all this, I’m not talking about Kurt, the man, or Kurt, the artist’s intent made real. FN2. FN3. I’m talking about how I, as a young abused girl without the language or strength to describe what was happening to me, had been happening to me, was continuing to happen to me, seemingly with the world’ s knowledge, permission, and tacit approval, felt about his work in the moment.

To me, Kurt seemed angry, and the angry in his music appealed to me. The chords that struck me as wrong, however, were the thinly veiled digs at women, the idea that women were a “tar pit traps” or leeches, sucking the life out of otherwise good men, as if women are the enemy and not the trap of rigid gender/sex roles. It’s the same gut level reaction I have to a lot of Kerouac’s work. Any time I hear the words, “pretty girls make graves,” I want to punch someone in the face.

It’s possible that Cobain, and Kerouac before him, meant to put a spotlight on the ways misogynists justify their wholesale use and abuse of women rather than representing a position the artists themselves held. Certainly the history of the song’s origins provided by Nirvana’s surviving members seems to imply Kurt was more interested in understanding the psychology of someone who brutalizes another person at the intersections of sex, violence, and control than identifying with them.

Who Killed Laura Palmer?
"All you good people..."

The problem with this kind of approach to feminist critique of violence is that the work sits out there afterward, speaking for itself, without a narrator standing by to anchor it in context. It finds its way into the bedrooms of girls like me who hear it and only hear  the world’s (at the time) most popular band reveling in a kind of sadism she is beginning to know personally. I was that girl, the girl who hears the words and thinks to herself, “Is this how the whole world is? Is no one stopping what is happening to me because the things my abuser tells me are true, and this is just the natural order of things?” No amount of in-depth documentary histories or "VH1 Behind the Music" interviews or tell-all biographies will ever change the visceral experience of hearing "Polly" and thinking, “I am trapped, just like her. I’m going to die here. I’ll never get out.”

That is why I am so GLAD there are women out there like AMANDA FUCKING PALMER who take work like this, reframing and reclaiming it to show how terrifying and violent and awful and tragic and sickening and inhumane the ideas lurking beneath the riff are,  no matter how they are intended by the artist to be taken by the listener. Much like Tori Amos’ chilling rendition of Eminem’s “ ’97 Bonnie & Clyde”, AFP’s newly released video for her cover of “Polly” is heartbreaking and so resonant with real life that it took me less than one minute to find multiple examples of the ‘fictional’ events in the video happening to women here in the first world in the last two to three days. FN3. FN4.

You can see the video here, in all its disturbing and terrifying realness.

I sobbed when I finished AFP's video the first time through because all I could think was, “This is what I’ve always imagined feeling/happening when I heard this song.” Polly, the caged bird/girl, attempts to appease until she can be free, focusing on nothing but surviving one more moment.  She is like an amalgam of Twin Peaks’ Laura Palmer and Waldo, the caged Myna bird who is one of the only witnesses to Laura's kidnapping.  Both Laura and Waldo end up dead, sacrificed on an altar of patriarchal culture that still believes women can be kept like pets, treated like animals, and are worth nothing more than their purity, their womb, and their service to male pleasure.

The difference between the “Polly” story in my head and AFP’s video is this: I never imagined Polly escaping, never thought a woman like Amanda would be there to save her if she tried. I cried in part because it was a better ending than I ever imagined for Polly, and I am grateful to Amanda Palmer for giving it to me, new salve for an old wound.

Laura: The Will of Instinct.

There is one line from “Polly” that chills me to the bone because it has always rung entirely true for me: “It amazes me, the will of instinct.” The Will of Instinct. The drive and desire to survive, to move on, heartbeat to heartbeat, waiting for one chance out between two worlds, Madonna or Whore, life as a victim or death. The Will of Instinct. To keep going, to keep pushing, to never give up or slow down or give in, to have any sense of self-worth or pride or strength to fight after another brutal day.

The Will of Instinct.

I admire the generations of intimate violence survivors who have stood up and continue to stand up and fight for their lives and their humanity for so many reasons, but most of all, I admire that they keep fighting. And I admire awesome feminists like Amanda FUCKING Palmer for taking the language of the abuser hiding in our culture as entertainment and focusing our attention on it, showing it in all its horrifying and terrible truth.
_________________
FN1. To be perfectly clear, because I think clarity is important, I can only partially identify with the personal experience of this story.  I am a child survivor of domestic violence and have personally experienced being held against my will while my life was repeatedly threatened. I am not a rape or molestation survivor, though I have experienced enough forcible sexual contact in my life to give me the tiniest silver of a fraction of understanding of what the survivors I do advocacy work for have been through. I have known and loved many survivors, though, and I have lived with them through the aftermath.  I can tell you it is brutal and awful and can destroy a life, and every person who survives to go on and thrive and be good and decent is a testiment to human resilence.

FN2. There are clearly feminists who think Kurt is awesome and had a ‘feminist world view.’ The line that kills me in this article, btw, is

Many of the women interviewed initially found “Rape Me” an unsettling song, but eventually came around to seeing it as Cobain’s clumsy but well-intentioned attempt to incorporate feminist theory into his worldview.

Riiiight. Those feminists just needed to get to know Kurt personally and/or transcend their personal, visceral reactions to his songs to see that his works were absolutely intended to be feminist. I must have missed that memo while someone was beating the crap out of me.

FN3. Okay, no. The thing that kills me most is the ACTUAL ARTICLE TITLE. "Nirvana's Secret Feminism." Wow! How progressive! You're a secret feminist. Does that come with a decoder ring and spy magnifying glass?

FN3. I actually wrote an entire paper about the Tori Amos cover in college I had so much to say about, so I won't go into it in depth here. To keep this short, let me say  I acknowledge “’97 Bonnie and Clyde” differs from “Polly” in a number of ways, the most important being that Eminem was actually expressing a desire to kill his (ex)wife. Whether Cobain intended to exercise internal demons through verse or to spotlight systematic violence against women is something only he would know, though it seems he intended the later, making the intent of his work more closely aligned with Amos and Palmer than with Mr. Mathers, even if it ultimately fails to translate to into that kind of critique in the form it was recorded and presented by Cobain himself.

FN4. And let me point out, these are just the stories that make it into the newspapers and AP wire and only represent a tiny fraction of the women being kidnapped, raped, and murdered all around the world as a matter of course, for war, for male pleasure, for male power, and for profit.

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